Vivian French is the author of Yucky Worms, T. Rex, and Growing Frogs, and many other fiction and non-fiction books too!
1 Do you prefer writing non fiction or fiction?
I really love writing non fiction. Do I prefer it to writing fiction? Sometimes, yes – it feels as if it uses a different part of my brain. It's all about finding the very best way to share both enthusiasm and information. I only ever write about things I feel passionate about, and I'm really longing for my readers to feel the same way. I don't want to give them loads of facts and figures; I want to explain what excites me, and to make my readers feel sufficiently excited in their turn to find out more and yet more until (hopefully) they've left me far behind.
2 Why is non fiction important for children?
It's not just important – it's ESSENTIAL! If we don't feel the need to ask questions and find out everything we can about the completely amazing world we live in we might just as well go and sit in a field wearing a label saying, “Cabbage.” Even if I've only ever encouraged one small child to wonder about worms, or point out a caterpillar to his or her friends, that's a massive plus, because that child has learnt to look, and – I hope – to find out things for himself. Or herself. “Finding out” is catching. Once you've got into the habit of asking questions it's hard to stop and we need more and more people in the world today asking Why? What? When? Where? How? Who?
3 Where do you get your ideas from for non fiction books?
For me, it's more a question of choosing which is the right idea, as I have a tendency to believe that just because I find a subject interesting everyone else will too, which, as I have discovered, is not always the case. I'm also easily caught up in other people's enthusiasms, and am very happy to adopt an idea. And if I don't know about something, I want everyone to come on the journey of exploration with me. Thank heavens for editors, who can be selective ... although I'd like to put it in writing that I think earwigs are incredible. I'm rather intrigued by clouds at the moment, and death masks. Oh, and seventeeth-century sailing ships.
4 What do you see as the future for non fiction writing for children?
I'm hoping there will be an explosion of non-fiction writing. The web is a splendid tool, but in some ways it shoots itself in the foot by the very nature of being so vast. A book provides a precise starting point for the examination of a particular thing, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. It can be carried with you as you peer into a rock pool, can be pored over in bed, can be referred to over and over. And you can scribble notes on it, and go back to it time and time again. It can challenge you and annoy you, and it's physically there, not floating in the ether. As we go further and further into a technological world I think there's even more need for the physicality of books, especially for the young.
5 What non fiction books did you love growing up?
Where do I start? All the Wonder Books of How and Why (my brother and I fought like cats over those), The Insect Man by Eleanor Doorly, loads and loads of Puffin non-fiction books, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (still one of my ten most favourite books), various books by someone called Nomad. I was lucky enough to have a father who believed that if you wanted to know something you immediately leapt up from whatever you were doing (even if you were right in the middle of a meal) and went to find out. And if there wasn't a book on the shelves that gave you the answer, you headed straight for the library. And you haunted second handbook shops, because there might well be a book that would provide the answer to the question you were going to ask next week ... and you always, ALWAYS gave your daughter non-fiction books for her birthday and Christmas, because that was what she liked best.