Archives for July 2016

The Guinea Pig Murder

July 29, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

10 52 pm. I am performing that classic Man Task (one of the few still allotted to us): I am locking up the house. I’ve locked the kitchen door, locked the front, when I realise I’ve made a Dangerous Error – I’ve left the guinea pigs out.

The Boys spend their day outside. They have an enclosure fashioned from chicken wire and tent pegs where they can run about, though, in truth, they usually choose to spend the day in The Shelter. They don’t seem highly masculine beasts, but, in this, the guinea pigs are classic males: they’re happy to spend the day lying around and shitting themselves. That’s their ideal day in fact. They lie about, shit a bit, then they like to rush outside to (1) have a quick fight then (2) to nibble grass.

It is not, however, the ideal night.

As night falls, our garden becomes a place of evil. The foxes have so far eaten thirteen hens. There are also badgers, weasels, owls, and – these are the most plausible pig-killers – there is also, nearby, a barn full of young wild cats. Oh they look sweet, but those cats terrorise the neighbourhood. Some of them are young boys, and I just know it… At some point, they’re going to find them catwithgun selves sneaking up on the wire enclosure, and their senses will be tingling as they smell out the truth of it: There are some big rodents in there, those cats will be thinking, and they don’t look like they’d be much good in a fight.

I unlock the back door, feeling very worried.

Luckily, as I do so, I’m joined by my daughter Grace. (She’s the ideal ally in a spot like this. She’s a marvellously capable and good-humoured girl, who’s got the ability to pop up like Mary Poppins, just when you need her.) I tell her what’s happened. She hands me the torch. We go out to the bottom of the garden, where the Boys have their Daytime Residence.

It’s empty.

The enclosure is sound too. It’s clear the boys haven’t escaped out the bottom. It’s clear what has happened: a fox has got them.

“Why haven’t we learned our lesson?” I say to Grace. “We knew this would happen from the chickens!” I can imagine what happened, and I’m seething with unease and self-hatred.

“Let me have the torch one moment?” says Grace. I pass it. “There they are,” she says, expertly picking them out, huddling under a clump of grass.

As she picks them up, and leads them inside, I get a great whoosh of relief. I also get a very clear Life Rule, and I shall spell it out for you now: Sometimes things aren’t quite as bad as you think. Don’t lacerate yourself with incriminations and guilt. Just take one last look in the grass.

Mr Clover’s Summer Writing School

July 28, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

missperegrine'shome Hello, hello, come in, welcome to the school!

Well… maybe school seems the wrong word. I don’t imagine this happens in a building. I see us assembling outside an old shack, at the edge of the forest. There’s an informal atmosphere. Soon children will be standing up, to astonish the group, with tales of What Will Happen When Crocodiles Talk, and The True Story Of How My Brother Nearly Died.

And you’ve astonished me this week, because people have been writing in from round the United Kingdom, including one – hello Steven! – who is spending his summer, staying in the Orkney Isles, with his ancient great uncle, and about four thousand sheep. Several of you have been swapping recommendations. (Several teenagers are craving more John Green. How about a couple of the books John Green recommends himself – eg We Were Liars and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children? The pic is from that.)

Best of all, several of you have sent in ideas that have occurred to you last week, and here are a few good ones…

IDEA: I come down to breakfast to find my mum is a hedgehog.

IDEA: A lonely boy makes friends with a ghost and solves the mystery of what kills him.

IDEA: A girl buys a special perfume which makes her irresistibly popular to everyone she meets.

For some reason, most writers were between the ages of 9 and 14. (You can be any age, at the Writing School, even adults. At this point, I’m setting you the same exercises I’d be setting if I was running a team of grown-up writers, working on a TV show). But the idea that tickled me the most was from Sam, who was my youngest writer this week (he’s five)….

IDEA: There is a frog who has one very very strong leg and it is so strong he can kick baddies into outer space.

I really laughed at that one, which set my imagination working. (Does the frog have another leg, which is actually quite weak? How often does he kick baddies into outer space? Does he accidentally kick someone who he actually likes and get forced to rescue him?) These are the things I’m thinking about. And these are the questions you will develop…

I would like you, please, to take one (or more) of your IDEAS, and try writing the story of what happens. Not in detail: I’m after what we’d call a PREMISE. That’s where you write between 6 and 15 lines. If you’re not sure what might happen, just try telling yourself the story.

Good luck! Have fun!

Mr Clover

Time to say goodbye

July 25, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

back of little girl going to school Anyone else who’s even now just recovering from the Say-Goodbye-to-Year-6 end of term ceremony?

Ours didn’t start emotional, in our little country church. Not really. (I’m used to North London, where the parents always watch their kids, as if they’re at the O2, watching Beyonce. Country people aren’t like that. Doesn’t matter who’s on stage, we stare, as if we’re in a market, watching a bloke, who’s saying something about cows. )

And yet it’s terribly moving.

The youngest ones chant a rhyme to the leavers: “We know that we will miss you/ But we say goodbye.” Year 1 hold up portraits of them. Woodpeckers Class, show lovely pictures of the
leavers, all broadcast, to music, on the wall of the church. They include predictions: “Woodpeckers think Mike will be a rock musician, who is nine foot tall.” Adjectives fire up, that Woodpeckers associate with Mike: “Epic, funny, kind.” Pictures appear too – our heroes walking to school, in the first days of Reception – and as I look up at them – broadcast on the wall like legends – I realise how well I’ve got to know them, how much I like them.

And like all of the parents present, I am particularly aware of two in particular – Sarah and Reuben, who lost their mother (Gisela) at the start of the year. It’s been such a delicate year. We’ve all felt incredibly protective of the two children – we’ve been glad to exchange friendly words at the gate – at the same time, we tried not to fuss, or to stare.

But as Year 6 stand to sing the Year 6 song, we can’t help but watch. Gisela had such a buoyant spirit; I can’t believe she’s gone. And as the song starts, I’m worried Sarah will be thinking that too. I’m also, in truth, concerned for the song. The first singers are the Year 6 boys, who may – as predictions said – one day become Top Gear presenters, and nine foot tall musicians. They are definitely, though, not singers.

But Sarah is.

Her father is a musician, and Gisela had a magnificent way about her: she had a lightness about life; it amused her. She was particularly interested in religion, which amused her too. She didn’t believe in miracles; her religion was practical. “I just try to… focus on the moment,” she’d say.

And actually as Sarah waits for her cue in the song, she’s doing exactly that: she’s is concentrating on her song. But then her cue comes, and she smiles radiantly as she sings: “Feel the rain on your skin/ No one can else can feel it for you / no one else, no one else / can speak the words on your lips / Drench yourself in words unspoken / live your life with arms wide open…”

It’s a great chorus. It’s defiantly optimistic. And Sarah is happily singing it, with a confidence, which gradually spreads to the whole of Year 6, who finishes it acapella, chanting out loud: “Feel the rain on your skin / no one else can feel it for you…”

There’s Beyonce style applause at the end.

At the back, we’re standing to our feet and we’re cheering. In truth, the singing was only so-so, but some of us haven’t cheered in years, and besides it’s the last chance we might get to give those kids some love, so we just stand and cheer like fools. (I’m really feeling overcome at this point. I’m actually terrified I might cry. But then my new country instincts kick in, coupled with my ancient boyish ones, and I tell myself: You cannot be crying. Get it together. Now.)

But then luckily I am distracted from the intense emotion, as the head stands to make her end of term sermon… (It’s not her fault. She’s a great head; she can’t be a Great Entertainer). But her main problem is she’s doing the sermon, the Take Home Message, when Sarah – channelling the spirit of her wise mother, no less – has already done that.

What do you do when bad things happen? You feel the rain on your skin, and when your cue comes, you sing.

Write a story about your holidays before you go back to school

July 22, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

Hello my cheeky friends!

It is a glorious thing, isn’t it? The sun is shining. The summer holidays are stretching before us. It is time for walking down the street sucking ice lollies.

It is also the perfect time for all things to do with books.

What do you do on these hot evenings? It’s too hot for the Xbox. It’s time to spread a rug, under a tree. It’s time to read.

It is also the time to write.

You will have an amazing summer, if, while you’re having your own excitements in real life, you do some writing. Not just because, come September, you will feel fantastic if you’ve written your own story, or drawn your own comic, but because writing stories makes your whole life feel more adventurous.

But possibly you have not the first clue how to get started.

And that is why I am inviting you all to join Mr Clover’s Summer Workshop, during which I shall set you fun challenges, that will help to make your stories grow in your imaginations.

Right… Here is the first one…

Suggestion One: Get a notebook

Much is going on, as the holidays begin. Use your notebook to start keeping a diary. You don’t need to say everything – just what you learned that day (I’m keeping one in the Parents section). The important thing is to get into the habit of noticing what is happening.

This is important, because, in these next few days, my friends, you will be getting ideas for stories.

Yes, my friends, you will notice – if you keep a look out – that in the next few days, ideas for stories will be fluttering into your heads like butterflies. You’ll be having a dreamy moment, and for a second, you’ll imagine a story you’d quite like to write. Find your diary, and get those ideas down. You might want to try several. A good trick, also, would be to write down TEN IDEAS quite quickly. “IDEA: I’d like write a detective story, set in a school.” “IDEA: imagine if all the teachers turned into dinosaurs…”

If you get any good ones, send them in. When we gather here next week (Thursday 3 pm) I’ll read out some good ones. Till then, have fun,

Mr Clover

Children, become Writer of the Week and win cool stuff

July 17, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

Hurrah and hooperloolerlay!

I am in the running to become the new Night Zoo Keeper. Night Zoo Keeper is, by about a hundred miles, the coolest website for getting kids to enjoy their writing, so, if you’re a School Visitor asked to become the Zoo Keeper, that’s like being an actor, invited to play Batman.

I hear I’m up against someone brilliant (a former kids’ presenter, who’s got a string of bestselling books), and to clinch the job I must come up with some excellent Story Starters, which have got a proven success for getting kids writing.

So in a moment I’m going to set you a suggestion. Please try writing, in response to this, and send me your results – even if they’re not that good, just send ‘em. (Clover Rule One: don’t write quality, write quantity). The best one will be selected Writer of the Week. They will be feted, and photographed, and will be sent cool stuff.

Here’s the suggestion…

A story starts with the word but

Start a story, in the very spot you’re sitting. Notice three things that are being deliberately boring. Describe them. Emphasise their tantalising tediousness: as you do, you will feel a word coming that will explode the boringness, and kick the adventure into action – the word “but”. Write “but” and then the first sentence of the adventure.

Here’s the first one, from Ella in Sturry.

I was sitting at my mum’s computer. In front of me, a tin of old pens gathered dust. Some dying nettles scratched at the window. Some books stood on the shelf before me. They were silent, undread, dull. But then I noticed that one of them started to jiggle.

It wobbled towards me, then it dived off the shelf, onto the desk, with a bang.

It had opened on page 76, which started with the words “Go into the garden, and find the old gnome…”

Why I love to read

July 10, 2016 by Andrew Clover Leave a Comment

piles of books

I love reading, for the same reason that it’s sometimes hard.

You know when you’ve got a book open, but you can’t concentrate? You can’t picture the scenes, you can’t hear the dialogue, because in your mind, you’re still replaying a row you had earlier – thinking what you said, what you should have said – or maybe you’re worrying what you must do… In these moments, your mind is like a computer with a virus: it’s invaded by adverts and pictures; you can get nothing done.

To read, you need to shut off the devices, to go somewhere quiet, and sometimes it still takes a few minutes while your eye keeps slipping off the words. But keep going. After a while, it’s as if a big door shuts in your mind, silencing the buzzing and the beeps and the little flashing lights…

When we stare at the screens, our minds are like mosquitoes. They get tired, from bumping against the glass. But when we read, they are like great birds. They soar off into the night.

Great writers are great thinkers. As we read them, we see what they noticed; we hear what they were moved to record; we feel as they did. That’s why, when you put the book down, you feel slightly different. You’ve relaxed your mind a moment. You’ve entered someone else’s. Now you’re noticing different things, and life feels richer.

That’s why I love to read. Why do you? And when did you last read something good?