Interview: The pleasure of writing for young people is that the boundaries of their world are unfixed and anything is possible, children's author David Almond tells Rosita Boland
David Almond is sitting in a central Dublin hotel, trying to locate the smoked salmon in the dainty sandwich finger of the afternoon tea plate. It's not that he looks uncomfortable drinking Darjeeling tea and eating tiny sandwiches minus their crusts; it's more that he looks like a very polite bear, one more interested in fishing for salmon than coming across it between fingers of white sliced bread.
The elemental and the outdoors are recurrent themes in this northern England writer's marvellous books for children. Almond has just spent three days in Dublin on a book tour, part of that time visiting schools to talk about his work. Over the little sandwiches, he says how impressed and surprised he has been by the fact that Irish children find nothing remarkable about the idea that someone can earn their living as a writer; that being a writer is something to be taken for granted here.
"Because they're familiar with the fact that somebody can be a writer, they've been asking me very practical questions, such as 'what do you earn?'" he explains. "They know about royalties and nearly always guess right as to what percentage I get. And they're very interested and knowledgeable about the process of writing."
Almond's name first became widely known when in 1998 he published Skellig, his bestselling début children's book, which won both the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Carnegie Medal (known as the children's Booker). Skellig is a startling and powerful story about Michael, a boy who discovers - wait for it - a Chinese takeaway-eating homeless angel called Skellig living in the family's derelict garden shed. Everything is upside-down in Michael's world: they've just moved house, his baby sister is critically ill in hospital, and his new and unexpected friend is the home-schooled girl next door, a friendship his male schoolfriends make clear they find it hard to accept.
Irish readers will be interested to know that the title, Skellig, comes from our own Skellig Rocks, off the south-west coast of Co Kerry. Almond holidayed in Ireland some years ago and tried to visit the Skelligs but the weather prevented him from going. The name stuck, and later it became the name of the mysterious occupant in Michael's garden shed.
Skellig is remarkable for several reasons: it is unafraid to acknowledge dark themes such as death, it's a wonderfully original and beautifully written story and, oddest of all for a children's book, it manages to address the unlikely theme of spirituality with beguiling delicacy. Some critics like to label Almond as a fantasy writer, because strange and marvellous things happen in his books, but he is actually doing something much more difficult and interesting than that: he is writing about real life from a very unusual perspective.
"I resist all attempts to describe me as a fantasy writer," Almond states firmly. "I try to make my books as real as possible."
In the past, Almond has pointed out that one of the first sounds a parent will teach a child to make is that of an animal. A child, growing up and learning a language, Almond says, is technically as close to the uncivilised world of animals as to the civilised one of humans. Thus, for children, the world's boundaries are still unfixed, still fluid; anything is possible. It's a heady idea, and one rich in possible material for a children's writer as perceptive as Almond.
"Children have a natural spiritual dimension that is often denied to them," he insists. "I'm writing for an audience that knows it doesn't know everything yet. They are still exploring the world."
The success of Skellig and subsequent books - Heaven Eyes, Secret Heart, Kit's Wilderness, Counting Stars, The Fire Eaters - means he has been able to give up his part-time teaching job to write full-time. Skellig has been dramatised, and there is a film version of The Fire Eaters in the offing. All his books sell well, and he is translated into 26 languages. Almond now lives in the village of Humshaugh in Northumberland, about 30 miles from Newcastle, with his wife Sara Jane and daughter Freya (6).
Almond's characters grapple with big issues: in Skellig, Michael's baby sister is critically ill; in The Fire Eaters, Ailsa's mother is dead, and Bobby's father falls ill. Loss and the potential fragility of the family unit are recurrent themes. Almond's own father died when he was 15; he writes about his death in the stories of the autobiographical Counting Stars. His girl characters, such as Mina and Ailsa, are intelligent, individual and feisty, and his boy characters are equally as capable of being thoughtful and sensitive as they are of kicking footballs. His characters are proper, complex portraits of children that don't succumb to the gender clichés prevalent in children's fiction.
"I think boys get a terrible press, and one of the things that boys find in my books is a view of themselves not granted to them," Almond says. "In England these days, boys are seen as fringe figures. My books stand up for boyhood. I get lots of letters from parents saying that Skellig was the first book their sons ever loved."
Almond was writing stories for adults for 15 years before he wrote Skellig. It's unsurprising to hear that he originally wanted to be a poet: he uses language in a very precise way, and his lyrical but spare prose doesn't have a word out of place. When he turned to writing for children, he says, "the search for precision and clarity paid off. Now I can write longer things. My style became sparer and simpler. I realised when I had written the first page of Skellig that it was going to be a book for children".
Given that spirituality is such a central theme in his work, does he believe in an afterlife?
"I don't know if I do or not," he says eventually, taking his time over choosing a petit four. He finally takes a miniature strawberry tart and grins: "But I'm very interested in the thought that there might be."
• The Fire Eaters has just been published in paperback by Hodder, £5.99