Story Makers Press: Reclaiming children’s voices in stories


Based within Leeds Beckett University, the Story Makers Press is a ground-breaking project dedicated to working with young people to create stories that matter to them. Creatively inclusive, Story Makers aims to reclaim spaces for children to imaginatively explore and interrogate the world around them. We co-create stories with children which are turned into engaging fi ction books. They are accompanied by explorers’ guides for adults which focus on emotional literacy.


Once upon a time… (England) In that only place… (Tamil)


Once upon a time, when tigers smoked… (Korea)


told and shared. Stories are the song line of life and they are universal. Sharing stories with children is key to literacy and language development, building relationships and imaginative growth. The act of role-play and story making is also an important developmental activity in children’s social, emotional and cognitive fl ourishing. Stories can also act as a moral compass, challenging our ideologies and ways of seeing: presenting new horizons and defi ning the world around us. Stories capture social imagination or a reinvention of what might be in our society. What happens, however, when children feel that they do not identify with the stories that they encounter? For example, I clearly remember my own son asking me why all the super heroes had blonde hair, fair skin and looked diff erent from him. CLPE’s Refl ecting Realities (2017) study shows that only four per cent of books published in 2017 had BAME characters, yet 32 per cent of British Primary school’s children are from minority ethnic backgrounds.1


W (See fi ndings from the


E all make sense of the world and ourselves through stories


latest Refl ecting Realities report on p. xxx )This is particularly concerning when we consider that stories can also easily promote stereotypes and exclude voices. Most published stories are written for children by adults, making the story world an adult perception of a child’s reality. Literacy criticism often focuses on the power relations between the adult writer and child reader which ranges from ‘domination’ 2


to ‘patterning texts’.3


To add to this creativity has become commodifi ed in educational policy, linking its purpose to market forces and the job market. This means that for some children, experiences of stories can be restricted to a narrowing curriculum, lack of representation in published books and limited out-of-school provision. Perhaps, imagination has also been commodifi ed, through standardisation and measurement. At the worst extreme, these exclusionary practices could be accused of being prejudiced towards children. ‘Childism,’ was a term developed by Elizabeth Young-Bruehl in 2011, to understand the various acts against children as instances of stereotyping children and childhood. She called for a need to “hear children’s experiences of the ideas and the institutions that oppress them.” 4


We know from our research with schools5


that the imaginative experience of exploring stories through drama,


theatre and creative writing can bring a story alive for children. This creates active opportunities for children to explore and question characters, motives and situations. Children can bring their lived experiences to the story in a real way. It is highly motivational for young people because they feel valued. Immersion in story worlds can also off er the opportunity to tackle some of the challenging social and mental health issues facing young people today, safely, with others in the story community. We also know that imaginative freedom is linked to children’s fl ourishing and wellbeing.6


Paying attention


to children’s experiences by co- creating stories is the core of Story


Autumn-Winter 2019


Lisa Stephenson (l.s.stephenson@ leedsbeckett.ac.uk ) is a founder member of Story Makers Company @StorymakersCo www.storymakersco.com


Lisa Stephenson pp.30-32.indd 2


09/10/2019 16:33


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