Writing an inspirational children’s book SF Said’s Tyger

It took me nine years to write Tyger. I worked on it year after year, draft after draft, until it was the very best book it could be. And I know nine years is a long time to spend on a book, but I believe that children’s books are too important to give them anything less than your absolute best.

My top priority as a writer is always to make my books as page-turning and exciting as I possibly can. I want to write thrilling adventures that readers will not be able to stop reading; stories that will hold an audience spellbound when read aloud. But at the same time, I want my books to be full of big questions and ideas that will resonate long after you’ve finished them. And so I put everything I know and love into every book I write.

Tyger is a story about a boy, a girl and a tyger. It’s set in London, in the present day, but in a strange alternate world. In this world, the British Empire has never ended. Slavery has never been abolished. Further to this, a huge number of animals have been hunted to extinction. Yet, it’s in this world that a boy called Adam and a girl called Zadie find a mysterious, mythical, magical animal: the Tyger. When Adam first meets this tyger, she is wounded, and all he wants to do is help her. But she has powers that he can’t begin to imagine. The tyger begins to show Adam and Zadie that they too have powers, and can do anything they dream of doing - maybe this boy, this girl and this tyger can save the world.

The roots of Tyger go right back to my own childhood. I remember reading William Blake’s poem The Tyger when I was at school. “Tyger Tyger, burning bright” - I was mesmerised by those lines. The poem had the power of a myth for me, and I love mythology as much as I love tigers!

I have to admit, though, I wasn’t always that engaged when I was at school. Back then, in the 1970s, reading for pleasure was not a big feature of schoolwork. However, I remember one teacher who just read to us. He read us ancient Greek and Roman myths: stories of gods, heroes and monsters. I was absolutely spellbound and so was everyone else. Those lessons had a bigger impact on my life than anything else in my education. That teacher gave me a foundation course in the mythic that underlies everything I write. Without him, I would never have written the books I’ve written.

My favourite book as a child was Watership Down by Richard Adams, which remains my favourite book today. Perhaps the thing I loved most about it was the fact that the rabbits’ legendary ancestor, the hero of all their myths, was called El-Ahrairah. This name looked a lot like Arabic to me. And this struck a very deep chord, because my own name is Arabic. My family’s origins are all over the Muslim world: my ancestors were Iraqi, Egyptian, Kurdish and Circassian. I was born in Lebanon and lived briefly in Jordan before coming to live in London with my mum when I was two years old.

I can’t remember ever reading a story with someone like me in it when I was a child, and so it was incredible to find El-Ahrairah in Watership Down. It gave me a feeling of seeing myself reflected, which I’d never had before in a book.

When I re-read Watership Down as an adult, I thought it was even better than I had as a child.

I’d seen it as a thrilling adventure story about rabbits. As an adult, I could see it was also a story about us, and the big questions of human life. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we belong? How should we live, and treat others who are different to us? It was still thrillingbut now I saw it was full of thrilling politics, philosophy and mythology. It dealt with the most profound themes, but in a totally accessible way.

This was the kind of book I wanted to write myself: books that might reward a whole lifetime’s reading because they were so exciting, but also had other levels and dimensions, dealing with those big questions and ideas. I think they can be found in all my books, from Varjak Paw onwards. But with Tyger, I wanted to explore them more deeply than I ever had before. I wanted to write a story with main characters who happen to be Muslim, as Adam and Zadie are. I also filled the book with characters from all sorts of backgrounds, beliefs and identities, to make space for all readers to imagine themselves in the story, to see themselves reflected or enter other points of view.

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to visit many schools where they were reading my books. I’ve seen for myself the lifechanging impact that teachers have when they share whole books with their classes, and develop a culture of reading for pleasure.

You may notice among the settings in Tyger a school run by teachers who want to help every child do the things they dream of doing, and an Underground Library run by Underground Librarians who hold the secrets of the world. These are inspired by some of the extraordinary teachers and librarians I’ve met in my time, and some of the magical classrooms and libraries I’ve been lucky enough to visit.

We authors do our best to create books that will thrill children, igniting their imaginations with magic and wonder. But I think the real magic happens in those places where adults bring stories to life for children, changing their lives forever. And if a book like Tyger can play a part in that, then all the hard work is more than worthwhile in the end!

SF SAID Author www.sfsaid.com