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Saturday 01 October 2016

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Blue Peter Book Awards have made a mockery by dropping 'Trash'

Andy Mulligan's book Trash is a terrific read and it was misguided to include then exclude it from a children's book awards, says Toby Clements

Andy Mulligan, the author of 'Trash'
Andy Mulligan, the author of 'Trash' Photo: Jun Santos, 2010

The children’s book market is a very crowded place in which every competing author must shout to get his or her voice heard. Media outlets such as newspapers, the radio or the television will often only entertain “names” - those celebrities famous for other things - or the really big fish, and so most authors are compelled to take to the road, visiting libraries, schools and literary festivals hoping to engage with small groups of children and to set the word-of-mouth ball rolling.

Winning one of the annual children’s book awards such as the Booktrust Teenage Prize, or the Carnegie Medal, remains something of which most authors can only dream. Even being shortlisted for one of them is a huge leg-up to widespread national coverage. It does wonders not only for sales in bookshops, but also for sales of foreign rights. So when the author Andy Mulligan discovered that his novel, Trash, had been shortlisted in the Favourite Story category of the prestigious 2011 Blue Peter Book Award, he was understandably delighted.

A week later he discovered that his name had been taken off the shortlist, even though it had been put there by a panel of judges that included Blue Peter’s deputy editor. The reason given for this maladroit piece of self-censorship was that there were some scenes thought to be unsuitable for the Blue Peter’s core audience, children aged from six to twelve.

Of course a category that tries to accommodate the enormous disparity between the reading appetites of a six and twelve year old is bound to be pointless. Mulligan tells the story of being asked by a teacher whether he thought the novel was suitable for nine year olds. ”First I said ‘yes’, and then I said ‘no’ – and then I said, ‘What kind of nine year-olds are they? What are their parents like and what is the school like? What’s the religious faith? What’s the state of their mental health? – I don’t know!’”

Now any cynic worth his salt will argue that this is even better news for Mulligan and his publishers. Now there will be comment pieces such as this in every newspaper in the land and hopefully he’ll get a slot on Front Row with Mark Lawson where he’ll be allowed to talk about his novel on national radio. If that is the unintended consequence, then fair play to Mulligan. His book is terrific and it deserves to do well, but for the rest of us, it seems as if the whole episode is just another depressing instance of one of our institutions vacillating and dithering uncertainly just when we look to them for positive guidance.

It may be that the producer of the programme is right to have reservations about the novel. After all in it some boys are given a hard time by the police and one character is called a piece of shit, which you would not necessarily want a six-year-old to read about, but quality ought to be recognised and applauded. To include it and then exclude it makes a mockery of the whole process and undermines trust not just in the idea of literary prizes, but also in our own judgment.

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