Teen's author on quest to redeem evil weasel

By MARGIE THOMSON

The Children's Book Festival is on, creating a sense of excitement in the run-up to the announcement of the Children's Book Awards in Wellington on Wednesday.

Children around the country have been voting on their favourite books, and a number of writers are touring schools and libraries, reading and speaking to their avid audiences.

Garry Kilworth, author of a fantasy series for teenagers, Welkin Weasel Adventures, is the festival's only international guest this year. The kindly, witty English grandfather was in Auckland last week.

It's surprising that Kilworth's books haven't been blacklisted by some environmental watchdog. Weasels as good guys? Who would elevate to hero status these mustelid relations of the fierce, predatory ferrets, scourge of our native wildlife, forcing us to be on their side as they battle the evil stoats and rats of Welkin?

Kilworth simply felt that weasels, of which he's seen only a couple of real ones, have had a bad press (they were the baddies in Wind of the Willows, remember) and he liked the idea of the imaginative exercise of looking at the world from the perspective of something the size of a dessertspoon.

And so were born Sylver and his fellow heroic outlaws who are still, undeniably, verminal although they talk and have adopted some human ways, such as cooking their food, using weapons and wearing some clothing.

The stories are set in a time and place deserted by humans. Into the power vacuum have stepped the stoats, which have enslaved the other creatures.

Only a few animals are brave enough to resist the heavy paw of stoat power, and Sylver and his friends are determined to see the end of stoat rule. If that means finding a way to bring back the humans, so be it.

Four books later, the adventures continue.

What began with Thunder Oak continued with Castle Storm, Windjammer Run and Gaslight Geezers, and Vampire Voles is due out in June.

They are all classic tales of battles between oppressors and underlings, quests through strange lands and the vanquishing and outwitting of horrible enemies (the rat hordes are particularly disgusting and fearsome).

They are familiar themes, and highly respectable ones, but Kilworth hasn't written these stories as deliberate parables or metaphors for human struggles.

"I don't try to analyse them too much. But obviously real-life questions are asked in children's books. Power is one, good and evil, abuse, all those kind of things are as relevant in fantasy books as they are in a book about the back streets of Melbourne, or Hamlet."

What sets Kilworth's stories apart from many other books with talking animal characters is that there is no human filter.

The world really is viewed from the height of a daffodil, on its own animal terms, yet Kilworth believes he has created characters that teen readers can identify with.

"I think kids like characters they can identify directly with, like Harry Potter, and I also think they identify, if not with the animal itself, at least with its spirit.

"These creatures are very anthropomorphic. They're half-human, in animal skin, but they just do things slightly differently from humans, like tie their shoelaces with their teeth."

Now 60, Kilworth has been writing for 30 years. He has countless books under his belt, including many general fiction ones for adults, historical novels (often under pseudonyms so as not to confuse the market) and many for children.

He is not keen on labels - children's books, for instance - and instead insists that there is no great distinction between books for younger or older readers.

"We treat children as if they were a different species, when they're just an earlier version of us, with no distinct dividing lines. When I write for teenagers the only change I make is to cut out all the crap and get right down to the storytelling," he says, in his wry, down-to-earth way.

"I'm basically a storyteller. I'm not a stylist. I'm the campfire storyteller who has found out how to write."