Karen Brooks’ formative reading experiences
Once upon a time in Otjomuise, place of steam, a sprawl in the Namibian desert, in an age before she moved to Cape Town and found her sense of humour, became a psychologist, won the 2008 Woman&Home short story competition, started her own imprint and self-published Emily and the Battle of the Veil, Karen Michelle Brooks had little hands and this is what she read …
Karen’s earliest memory of books and reading:
Every birthday and Christmas we were given big A4 hardcover picture books (annuals) which my brother, sister and I would pore over and then swop, like Bunty for Girls and Mandy for Girls, getting lost in the characters of the 1970’s.
In a girls’ comic you could not solve plot difficulties by blowing someone’s head off.
Mel Gibson, University of Sunderland in Lost Culture of Bunty for Girls
Karen’s picture books:
I loved taking the Score Annual off my brother and sneaking away to have a look at what boys read!
Karen, as an adult, reading with and writing for children and young adults:
My megan loves being read to, rather than reading herself (though she is only 4)…the pictures hold a fascination for her, but once we’ve read it to her once, she wants us to do it again and again and likes repeating the words with us on the next reading. My ‘day’ job, as an Entrepreneur, Coach and Facilitator (with a BA.Psychology attained at 34 yrs old) is very fulfilling. It allows me insight into people’s inner workings – our likes, dislikes, wants, needs, ticks, habits, fantasies and foibles. My passion is people, the inner working of our mind and putting words on paper.
I love working with teenagers and young adults and have written the first book in the Scroll of Seven Series, Emily and the Battle of the Veil, to encourage exploration into both our inner and outer worlds. The novel introduces Emily May Harrison, her strange birth and mother’s death, her father’s disappearance, the experiences she has in Paradise Beach, where she has grown up with her Gran and friend Sam, and her move towards boarding school in Kingstown, where her access to the world of Aurana really begins. I enjoy fantasy fiction just as much as the next generation.
Just Call Me Bob: Mandy for Girls: a feminist perspective…
The 1975 Mandy Annual was about as subtle as a sledge hammer in its attempt to stop young girls becoming feminists. The resulting portrayal of a ‘women’s libber’ has got to be seen to be believed.Think feminists have a bad rep today? Well it was just as bad, if not worse, in the Seventies. But back then they were called women’s libbers, and somebody must have been feeling threatened, because in 1975 the Mandy annual for Girls ran a story about one of them. I think it’s a fascinating example of how feminists were viewed, and how the writers tried to influence the young readers’ opinions against feminists.[Read on at the F-word]
3 Facts from Why girls’ comics were wonderful, by Jac Rayner.
Characters in Bunty were frequently seen to be reading Bunty the comic, but never commented on the fact that their lives were being laid out in pictures inside.
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Statistics show that you’re most likely to get your own story in a girls’ comic if you’re a sporty, disabled, artistic Victorian orphan who lives with a violent aunt or uncle, having a hurt sister/brother/pet who you need to earn money for, but don’t realise that your best friend secretly resents you, the snobs are plotting against you, and an evil mastermind is attempting to take over your school and you’re the only one who can resist her powers. However, this will count for nothing if your name doesn’t lend itself to a clever titular pun.
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Over forty-three years (Jan 1958 to Feb 2001), Bunty’s The Four Marys went through several looks, lots of school hols and a change of headmistress, but the girls stayed in the Third Form throughout. [Read more in BBC Cult]
First Two Pages of Emily and the Battle of the Veil
Emily was scared but she didn’t know why.
She stretched her arms above her head, rippling her back
straight, after spending most of the afternoon with her head
buried in a book. Emily loved reading because she could
escape into worlds unknown, strange, foreign and exciting –
a definite need in the small seaside town she lived in.
Emily looked around her at the library as she stood up,
pushing her books into her huge loose floppy carry-all bag.
The library was like a small hall, slightly bigger than a room
in a house but not by much, with shelving all the way around
the outside groaning at the weight of old books. Some
shelves jutted into the middle of the floor, trying to make
crevices and hiding places for people, to cosy them into
staying. Not many did, but Emily supposed in a town of
about a hundred people (with sixty of them being children),
what did they expect. She seemed to be the libraries the most
regular visitor.
Emily flicked her long thick brown plait out of the way,
as she swung her bag onto her shoulder. Walking towards the
door she waved goodbye voicelessly, heard the librarians,
‘Come again soon Em!’ opened the screen door and winced
as it sprang shut behind her with a bang.
I must remember to hold on to that stupid thing, Emily
thought for the thousandth time, spying Sam on the swings to
her left.
She and Sam were a little old to use the swings but it had
become their meeting place of late. Sam, her best friend,
wasn’t into books like she was, preferring the live company
of other girls and boys. Almost as much as I like reading,
thought Em
They made an unlikely pair, so the older folk in the
village said, but they didn’t care what other people thought
anymore. They liked each other and that was that. Emily
often thought they brought out the best in each other,
opposites that they were.
‘Hiya Em’ said Sam ‘Been waiting and waiting and
waiting for you! What took you so long today?’
Emily hurried over, dropping her book bag at the corner
of the outside face brick library wall, ‘Sorry Sam, got stuck,
you know I lose time when I read – come fetch me if you
want. You know you can!’
Emily sat on the swing next to Sam and started pushing
her legs in and out to get up to speed. In front of them lay the
ocean, the tar road running all the way to their right down to
the local tea-room, the only ‘real’ shop in the village. The tea
room sat on the edge of the sea with the only parking lot in
town. They got day visitors coming to the village in the
summer months, so the town council had decided to make
sure there was enough parking for them.
Aims of The Little Hands Trust
• To support initiatives that promote reading for enjoyment.
• To mentor African literary artists, including writers, illustrators and editors, to produce creative, suitable and appropriate children’s storybooks for children of various ages with a focus on early childhood (ages 0 to 9 years).
• To collaborate with African publishers to increase and sustain publication of children’s books in African languages. To initiate and support translations of stories between African languages, from African languages to ex-colonial languages and from ex-colonial languages to African languages.
• To help to orientate and educate adults in the importance and significance of reading to and with children.
