A failed footballer and one time computer lecturer now turns his hand to children’s books
AFTER “ten years and 100 rejection slips” prolific children’s author Michael Coleman finally saw his first book (Triv in Pursuit) published. A softly spoken man (expect when reading his books aloud), who it is easy to picture with pipe and slippers, he now has 80 titles under his belt, which have been translated into 30 languages and sold around two million copies in the UK alone.
Writing fiction and non-fiction for children of all ages was never part of the masterplan. “I was a university lecturer in computer science when I wrote my first book, a text book about computing,” he said.
“I put a few jokes in. I enjoyed the jokes so thought ‘Perhaps I’ll do some more’.
“I wrote radio plays which were all rejected and then as I have four children, wrote something for them. I sent the first couple of chapters of a book about a school with disappearing teachers off, which got accepted. I’m a bit embarrassed to add that I never wrote the rest of that book.
“After that I finally admitted what my wife had known all along, that I had a very juvenile sense of humour and stuck to children’s books.”
Coleman was in Cyprus last week to read some of his books to children in schools around the island. His works include the picture books Lazy Ozzie and Ridiculous and the Angles FC series – around 40 of his books are dedicated to the (not so) beautiful game: football. He’s a fan then? “Yes, I used to play football. The worst game I ever played was on 7th April, 1964. Pity it was a trial for the England Schoolboys XI. My sons played so I have seen the game from all sides; player, spectator.”
Anybody who has ever read a preschooler a picture book will know that it takes less than five minutes to do so. A life writing such short pieces of fiction must be a cinch. So the question that has to be asked of writers of 500-word (about the length of this piece) picture books is, ‘How long does it take to write?’ About a month apparently. As a journalist that is a little hard to believe (he’d never make it on a newspaper where we are expected to churn out more than that in an hour), but perhaps I’m being a bit hasty.
“They are the hardest 500 to write,” Coleman said. “Picture books are a difficult category for a writer. The book is not going to be read by the person you are writing it for. It has got to be something that will sound good aloud, appeal to the reader and give the illustrator something to work with.”
Coleman grew up in the east end of London and moved to Britain’s south coast, where he still lives, when he was 20. “Most of the background for my books comes from my early years in the east end,” he said. “This is why I tell the children that the experiences they are having now could be material for future books.”
SEVEN QUESTIONS
What car do you drive?
Vauxhall vectra
Describe your perfect weekend
Walking on the moors in a howling gale
Assuming you believed in reincarnation, who or what would you come back as?
Probably Michael Owen, but just for the weekend
What is your greatest fear?
I’m not very good with snakes
What is your earliest memory?
We had a chimney fire and I remember watching my mum trying to put it out while I was standing in my cot
What did you have for breakfast?
Cornflakes
What was the last item of clothing you bought?
A shirt, which I brought with me to Cyprus
