Author Lauren Child: ‘People send me pictures of their Charlie and Lola tattoos’

Many of today’s young people grew up being read Charlie and Lola stories and watching the TV series about the patient older brother and his imaginative little sister.

This year marks 25 years since the first Charlie and Lola book, I Will Not Ever Never Eat A Tomato, was published, and the books’ author, Lauren Child, has finally written a Christmas Charlie and Lola tale to mark the endearing pair’s silver jubilee, reminding fans that this is a brother and sister team that will never grow up.

Child, who also illustrated the award-winning book series which has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, sidesteps questions about whether she’s proud of the books’ success, but admits: “I feel moved by it, really, by the people who write to me, young and old, and I feel moved when I meet them, because I feel very lucky that people tell me about how they feel about the books.

“I do have these very moving moments with young people who come up to me and are sometimes quite tearful. And I really understand that, because they’ve taken Charlie and Lola through their childhood, and they’re now having children of their own.

“Sometimes they send me pictures of their Charlie and Lola tattoos, and I find that really moving. And when anyone comes up to me and says the books have been important to them or become part of their family vocabulary and all those things which get absorbed into the bones of your family, then that’s just amazing to me.”

Charlie and Lola is trending on Instagram, and an almost bemused Child, who was the UK Children’s Laureate from 2017-19, points out it’s  “a huge thing on TikTok” too.

She says: “It’s got a life of its own beyond me, which is, of course, the point of any art. I don’t own it any more, but I do find that a really beautiful thing.”

Child, who has a 15-year-old adopted daughter, Tuesday, wrote the first Charlie and Lola books many years before she became a mother, and explains: “You don’t need a child to write children’s books. I’ve been there and I can remember how it felt to be a child. So I think it’s a lot to do with lived experience.”

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She says she loves watching children out and about and in documentaries, and listening to their conversations and the way they interact and work together. But she explains: “I’m writing for me. It’s the same as writing for adults – it’s just that you have to tell the truth in a very considered way, because you have a responsibility to support and not frighten the children. You have to be careful with young minds and what might trouble them, but you do have to tell the truth.”

And has she been surprised about Charlie and Lola’s popularity?

“Well, yeah,” she admits, “because I was certainly doing it for me because I thought it was interesting, and I felt I had something to say and a way of saying it that was hopefully different than anyone else, which is what every writer and illustrator wants to do. So yes, the success was extraordinary.”

On the face of it, the Charlie and Lola books are about typical young child issues like picky eating, starting school, going to sleep and, in the new book, I am Wishing Every Minute for Christmas, looking forward to Christmas.

However, Child, 59, points out that the main subject of each book is actually not what you might imagine from the title.

“I think all the Charlie and Lola books are really about something different than maybe what you perceive to be the subject,” she explains.

“So with I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato, you think it’s about food and fussy eating, but it isn’t really. It’s about how do you manage to experience something new when you’re so little? How do you go about coaxing a tiny child to eat something that seems so alien to them?”

She says the new Christmas book took 20 years to write because she couldn’t decide what aspect of Christmas and childhood she wanted to bring out in the story. “It was only very recently I realised I wanted to talk about the anticipation of Christmas and the waiting,” she says.

“So this is less a book about Christmas and much more a book about how you manage to wait when you’re tiny. Lola is only three-and-a-half, so how many Christmases will she have actually experienced? And so it’s this huge thing for her to grasp and wonder about and wait for.

“I didn’t want to just do a jolly Christmas book, and isn’t Christmas lovely? I wanted to say something which would also speak to adults and remind them it’s a very hard time of year for an adult and a parent, but for children it’s also very difficult – all the joy is bundled up with all this anxiety.”

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Child hopes her books will lead to conversations between children and parents about the issues involved, explaining: “Picture books should really be read together. That’s what’s so lovely about them, they spark conversation between child and adult, and you figure things out between you, and begin to understand one another. That’s what I always want to do with a picture book, to create conversation.”

She says she thinks picture books are “vital”, because very young children process things much more slowly, “which is why screens don’t work for them. So when you’re little, a picture book is so important.”

And it’s important for parents too, not only because they’re introducing their little ones to books and language, but also because reading picture books with children is a great way to bond with them.

Child says: “I remember [novelist] Jacqueline Wilson saying, quite rightly, that the way you put your arm around a child when you read to them, so they feel contained, is very much a bonding moment.

“You don’t read a picture book really quickly and get to the end and good night, you stop and start, and they’ll tell you about their day, or they’ll ask you questions about the book, and so you learn about your child, and they learn about you, and it becomes something so much bigger than reading.

“And that’s the point – it’s what stories can do that nothing else can do.”

She adds: “Your child is, I imagine, the most important concern in your life, and that five, 10, 15 minutes reading is hugely meaningful to them.

“I’m not talking about literacy. I’m talking about how you bond with your child, that experience of looking at a book together and having that particular kind of conversation can be pretty life-changing and also build their familiarity of books.

“And if you have a command of language, vocabulary and a confidence in reading, your chances are so much better throughout your life. So it’s an investment in your child.”

 I am Wishing Every Minute for Christmas by Lauren Child is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £12.99.  Available now.