Friends Forever

It's so cheering to write for young children.

For one thing, you know you're helping them along the road to reading fluency, which changes lives for the better. Reading's a mechanical skill, just like skateboarding or playing football, and the more young children do of it, the easier and faster it becomes.

It's also good fun because I stay off all the heavy stuff. Who, of this age group, needs to be encouraged to worry about the problems of the world? They have no real power, so it simply serves to make them anxious. What's the point of that?

So what I try to do is provide a good laugh, or a comforting read, or tell of a challenge safely mastered. There's time enough later for all the subtleties and disappointments of life.

Of course some of the children in these books aren't living in ideal set-ups. All families are different and I do try to reflect the world around me. But for this age group I don't make a problem of it. Or of anything else.

You'll find no dubious or dismal endings here.

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The Jamie and Angus Stories won the 2003 Boston Globe Horn Book Award (USA); read what Anne Fine said in her Horn Book Award acceptance speech. All the Jamie and Angus books are within the reach of beginning readers, and are sympathetically illustrated by Penny Dale.

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Click on the covers on the right to find out more about Jamie and Angus, or click any cover below for some more books by Anne Fine which you might enjoy - including two picture books!

Your bookshop or library can order any of these books for you. Ask your librarian for a 'request card'.

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