Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzmanis an English-born Australian author of children's and young adult fiction. He has gained recognition for sparking an interest in AIDS in his controversial novel Two Weeks with the Queen...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth9 January 1953
although characters stories struggling
Although my stories are all very different on the surface, I like to write stories about characters struggling with big problems. I'm always reminded, no matter how different from me one of my characters is from me on the surface, how we're all pretty much the same underneath.
age decide group nine people themselves
At around nine or 10 years of age, young people start to decide for themselves what's moral or not, and that's why I like writing for that age group so much.
bring engaging stories
Stories can bring alive the moral universe in a very vivid, useful, engaging way.
bad best flowing rather talk tend writers
I think the best writers use the language they use every day when they talk to friends. When we talk to each other, we tend to talk in short grabs rather than in long flowing sentences. I think that's not a bad way to write.
good kids outcome time
Kids who are nine, 10 and 11 are pretty sophisticated readers; they know that there isn't always a good outcome every time and that problems don't always have solutions.
dismissed
Kid's culture is often dismissed as superficial, like high fibre McDonald's, but it's so much more important than that.
develop grounding kids might
Kids aren't political, but around 10 years old, they are beginning to develop the moral grounding that might later, in their teens, develop into their first real political perspectives.
deeply enjoyed found kid kids realised stories until wrote
I wrote stories as a kid just for myself. One day, some of the kids in my class found some of my stories in my bag, and I was deeply embarrassed until I realised they enjoyed reading them.
I think, to be a successful author, you've got to be part recluse and part show-off.
fearless halfway humour learned maybe physically prevail primary punch quickly realised situations somebody trying using worked
Halfway through primary school, I realised that I was not as physically strong or fearless as many kids. So, in situations of conflict, I quickly learned that it worked better for me to get out of situations or maybe kind of, you know, prevail in a conflict situation by using humour than by trying to punch somebody out.
bit break exciting families kids less presents trauma
Step-parenting and being a step-sibling presents a lot of exciting opportunities. When families break up and re-form, there may be less order, less certainty, and a bit more trauma involved, but kids can end up having half-a-dozen parent figures.
assumption ideas kids less opposite people physically problems smaller themes time venture
Because kids are physically smaller, there's an assumption by people who haven't read a kids' book for a long time that their ideas and themes and problems and ambitions must be commensurately smaller and less important. I would venture that sometimes the opposite is true.
children relationship sold
Children know when they are being sold a sanitised version of the world, and I think that's a betrayal of the relationship between author and reader.
children experiment kept limited optimism possibilities power shape
Children have limited power to shape their own lives, but when they can experiment with possibilities through books, their optimism can be recharged and kept alive.