IN DEPTH
Author Profile Francesca Simon
In the year which marks Horrid Henry’s 25th anniversary, Francesca Simon discusses how the series was born
H
Kiera O'Brien @kieraobrien
20 2nd April 2019
orrid Henry is turning 25. “It’s the 25th book, 25 years, 100th story,” says Francesca Simon of the latest title, Up, Up and Away, featuring her most
famous character, “which is rather nice.” “It was kind of by accident, really,” she says of the series’ beginnings. “I was asked by Judith Elliot, who’d just started a children’s list at Orion, for some Early Readers. I’d been thinking about parental favouritism, so I wrote a story called ‘Horrid Henry’.” Though it was ultimately rejected as “too difficult”, Elliot liked the story—Simon praises her “visionary” influence on Horrid Henry’s structure, saying, “That’s why every book has four stories, because she said if we do four stories, then we can make it for newly confident readers. I got the alliteration and the four-story format, really, because of my editor trying to make a story work.”
But the series didn’t take off straight away. “It was very quiet. There was no publicit,” Simon says. “It was inde- pendents, actually, bookshops like Otakar’s, that made Horrid Henry.”
She is adamant that the series “never would have
survived under today’s conditions... I really feel very strongly about this, that if I were writing this today, it would have been two books and you’re out. There’s this idea that somehow you make a splash instantly, and if you don’t, it’s a failure.” She credits the success of the multimillion-selling series to “booksellers and teachers”, adding: “There was a degree of handselling going on with the independents, who were allowed to choose their own stock. There was a real ethos that only people who were very seriously interested in the children’s book market were booksellers. It was the specialist shops, and the
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36