In a previous post about Children's Literature I used my first meeting with Larry O'Loughlin to describe how authors for Children seem to have a stronger connection and vulnerability with their audience. In O'Loughlin's book 'Is Anybody Listening' he details both the everyday trauma's of seventeen-year-old Laura and the horrific scenes of children working in forced labour factories. This is a book for Young Adults and contains details that are both emotional and terrifyingly true.
Reading it when it was published in 1999 'Is Anybody Listening' was not an easy book to read. It is an honest depiction of cruelty and deprivation against children that is harrowing to read and even more difficult to acknowledge as truth. Irish Children's Literature is filled with books for Young Adults that go further than the Harry Potter stereotype. There is a great number of books for Young Adults by Irish writers that are encompassed by the genre 'Children's Lit' and often overlooked as a result.
Looking back on some of the best on offer I came up with a list of recommended authors, in no specific order; Larry O'Loughlin, Tom Lennon, Siobhán Parkinson and Aubrey Flegg. Additions to the list are welcome, or arguments against some of those included.
New Irish and Scottish Gaelic poems are wanted for the next issue of the celebrated anthology An Guth 4. For more information, please contact Rody Gorman at anguth[AT]btinternet[DOT]com. (via Poetry Ireland)
