Tracy Beaker, please never grow up

Stop the world, I want to get off. On 10 March, it was announced that Tracy Beaker has grown up and become a single mum, in a sequel to Jacqueline Wilson’s beloved trilogy aimed at adults and teenagers as well as preteens. And now it’s been revealed that Raymond Briggs’s Snowman is flying towards a similar fate with a retelling by the (admittedly admirable) Michael Morpurgo that will transport the chubby, satsuma-nosed heart-melter to a “chapter book” for “a new and older audience”.

A chapter book! I ask you! The whole point of The Snowman is that there are no words. He exists in the magical storytelling space that enfolds parents and the smallest children, who are just beginning to find a vocabulary to harness their chaotic, ardent emotions to the communal world of storytelling. When the Snowman tucks Arthur under his arm (obviously it’s Arthur, that’s my son’s name) and carries him high above the rooftops, it is to show him the world so he can describe it for himself. All these years on, my eyes well up thinking about it (though a friend who’s still in the pre-school zone thinks the odd word might be nice: “I know interraction’s the point, but sometimes you just want to zone out while you read...”)

Source: theguardian