Gruffalo author explains ebook veto

Interactive apps are a bad idea that keeps children from the written word, says best-selling writer The bestselling children’s author Julia Donaldson, whose signature rhyming picture books dominate top 10 lists, has revealed that she vetoed an ebook version of her most famous title, The Gruffalo, because she thinks interactive book apps for children are a bad idea. “I actually really don’t like it for children’s books,” she said on the phone from her home in Glasgow. “I think there are lots of pros to ebooks but I don’t feel we have to be controlled by technology and I don’t feel we should say, ‘Oh, that’s the way things are going, that’s the future, let’s do it.’ I think it would be great if there were lots of ebooks but there were also quite a lot of titles not available as ebooks. I feel if everyone just says yes to there being an ebook of everything, there is a danger they could take over.” The UK market for children’s ebooks and book-based apps is in its early stages, but Donaldson’s comments will resonate because of her high profile, and sales worth £10m last year. Eight of the top 10 children’s picture books in 2010 were by Donaldson and illustrators Axel Scheffler and Lydia Monks. Liz Thomson, editor of the website BookBrunch, says others share Donaldson’s doubts: “There’s a lot of stuff at the moment that we’re doing because we can. It’s a question of whether you can really add value to the story. If you can, then it’s fun, and there is some really creative stuff going on, but certainly ebooks seem to me not so cosy, that there’s a feeling of curling up with a book that you can’t replicate, however good the technology.” Donaldson was speaking on the eve of the Bologna book fair, which opens on Monday and where her publishers will be selling foreign rights to a clutch of new books including The Highway Rat with Axel Scheffler, who drew The Gruffalo. She says she does not know who owns the rights to develop her work for new digital applications. “I’d have to look at my contract – it could be that I haven’t even got the right to say that, and my publishers are just respecting my feelings and not pushing me in a direction I don’t want to go in. I’d have to check the small print.” Several years ago Donaldson worked on an interactive CD to go with Room on the Broom, and she writes an original song to go on every audiobook with her husband, Malcolm. Last month her publisher issued a special ebook edition of the Gruffalo Song Book for Comic Relief, and they have also produced ebooks of her books for older children. She sees the practical advantages of digital publishing in terms of portability and storage. But she feels that time spent reading books is valuable, and that we spend much of our lives plugged into screens and headphones already. “The publishers showed me an ebook of Alice in Wonderland. They said, ‘Look, you can press buttons and do this and that’, and they showed me the page where Alice’s neck gets longer. There’s a button the child can press to make the neck stretch, and I thought, well, if the child’s doing that, they are not going to be listening or reading, ‘I wish my cat Dinah was here’ or whatever it says in the text – they’re just going to be fiddling with this wretched button.” She compares the onrush of digital technology to the abolition of the net book agreement, which resulted in massive discounting of popular titles by supermarkets and a decline in writers’ royalties. “I think it would be good if a few people like me spiked the future, punctured it a bit, so that people could say that with all their advantages, you couldn’t get every single book there is as an ebook and that would encourage people to buy proper books.” Kate Wilson, who published The Gruffalo at PanMacmillan back in 1999 and now runs her own company Nosy Crow producing a mixture of books and apps for children, says: “You judge a medium that is right for the work. I can completely understand why someone like Julia, who crafts every one of those words, doesn’t want the rhythm interrupted by interactivity.” But she says people will quickly tire of apps that are not interactive: “If parents and children are moving towards screens, I feel really profoundly that it is our responsibility as publishers to provide really compelling reading experiences that are at least as interesting as games. I think it’s luddite and refusenik not to embrace where your readers are going. “We can’t be a worthy antique as an industry – we have to go where people are. If we turn our backs on that, other people will fill the space, and they won’t be people who’ve had 25 years’ experience writing, illustrating and publishing the best children’s books.” Children’s favourites in 2010 1 The Gruffalo Julia Donaldson 2 The Gruffalo’s Child Julia Donaldson 3 Thomas to the Rescue: Thomas & Friends (Based on Rev W Awdry character) 4 What the Ladybird Heard Julia Donaldson 5 Stick Man Julia Donaldson 6 Zog Julia Donaldson 7 Room on the Broom Julia Donaldson 8 The Snail and the Whale Julia Donaldson 9 Peppa Pig: Little Library (various) 10. The Princess and the Wizard Julia Donaldson *TCM chart of best-selling children’s picture books in UK, 2010 Children’s books: 7 and under Children and teenagers Susanna Rustin guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 25, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.