PAULINE PERSPECTIVE
Writing Books that Explain Things Alex Frith (1991-1996) is a children’s non-fiction author and editor working on staff for Usborne Publishing.
30
ATRIUM
AUTUMN / WINTER 2022
A
nyone who studied Classics will be familiar with the idea of sons who strive to earn a better reputation than their parents. Success stories include Achilles becoming more famous than his father Peleus, or Alexander conquering more than his father Phillip could ever imagine. As far as I’m concerned, outdoing my parents simply isn’t an option. I’ve turned to a saying that everyone in the modern age is familiar with: if you can’t beat them, join them. It took some 5 years of work, but I managed to complete a joint project with both of my parents, a graphic novel – for grown-ups, mind! – called Two Heads (see Pauline Books on page 14). I wrote the script, but the story it tells is about the achievements of Uta and Chris Frith, two leading neuroscientists (my mother is something of a leading expert in autism and dyslexia; my father in schizophrenia and the question of consciousness). Which is to say, all the interesting bits of the book come from their life and work – although I can flatter myself that it’s me who has made the book fun to read and, more crucially, accessible to a general audience. No prior knowledge of brains required! To an extent, this kind of writing is an extension of the very skills everyone learns at school – it’s like a really big homework project. You’re given a brief, some reading material, and then sent off to write it up before it gets marked. Only in this case, it was being marked by my parents rather than a teacher. Part of the point of homework is to prove to your teacher that you’ve understood whatever topic it is that you’ve just been learning about. So it is with books that explain
things. I, as writer, have to be SURE that I’ve understood the topic so that I can, in turn, explain it clearly and simply for readers. When my expertsin-the-field parents read over each new iteration of the script, to give their comments and suggestions, I was very much looking for that friendly tick in the margin… As for contents of Two Heads, it is a little about how brains work, and a lot about how people interact with each other. Why does anyone need to know this? This is going to sound grandiose, but I honestly think understanding even a little about both makes life easier and has the potential to make the world a better place. Here’s the thing – we literally live inside our brains. We don’t know WHY the way our brains work means that we have minds, and personalities, and likes and loves and all the emotions – but we DO know that we simply cannot exist without them. To know how our brains work is, literally, to understand ourselves better, which in turn makes living life a bit easier. Well, I find it comforting, anyway. The trouble is, even the finest minds in the field don’t claim to truly know how the brain works. We do know a few things, though, and I find them to be surprising and delightful, and hope readers of the book will agree! Even people who already have a basic understanding of neuroscience should get a kick out of seeing visual representations of how neurons do what they do. But the meat of the book is about social interaction. The fact is, if there is one thing brains are designed to do, it is to interact with other brains. Any of you who have spent prolonged periods on your own, without talking to anyone else, will feel just how true
