In her good book

Audrey Friggieri, teacher and mother of two teenagers, will soon be publishing her first book, Avventuri mill-Klassi ta’ Miss Ambrożja Pulis Kiftaranipenġini. Here, she explores her relationship with her inner child.

Is this your first attempt at writing for children and adolescents?

Words have a special significance for me – certain words conjure up episodes from my childhood and they seem to have a power of their own

This is the first time that I actually submitted my work to a publisher. I have always been a writer, but in secret. I simply wrote, never planning when or what to write, just letting my muse take over whenever it wanted.

However, I always knew that one day I would submit my creative work for publishing. I just had to wait for the right time.

Is writing for a young audience a nostalgic experience for your own childhood?

Yes, it is. Actually, I always feel that I write for myself. Sometimes I write playfully for the child in me and other times I write for an ageless me who listens patiently, empathises with me, and is sometimes critical of the thoughts and emotions that I express.

I once heard Trevor Zahra say that he writes for his inner child. We all have an inner child – it’s just that not all of us are connected to it in this noisy life that we are living.

I enjoy using characters, images and sounds that I knew from childhood, but they come out naturally as I weave my narrative. I don’t force it. In fact, they surprise me sometimes – I would never have thought they were still alive, waiting to manifest themselves.

Also, words have a special significance for me – certain words conjure up episodes from my childhood and they seem to have a power of their own.

When it’s over, I am often amazed at the creative process and how I can revisit the past. It’s almost a psychoanalytic experience.

How does the writing process differ from writing for adults to writing for children and adolescents?

I don’t think that the writer is always in command. The idea – its origins, mood, colour, texture and tone – just comes alive in the form that it wants to be expressed in. Ideas come already targeted for a particular audience – at least that is my experience. Then it is the role of the editor to work with the writer – certain words or structures may need to be tweaked and adjusted to communicate better with the target audience.

What inspired you to write Avventuri Mill-Klassi ta’ Miss Ambrożja Pulis Kiftaranipenġini?

I had been reading a lot about mindfulness and not letting thoughts about the past and the future prevent me from living and appreciating the present. Edward de Bono’s thinking skills had already influenced my thinking some years back – it was the first time that I learned that thinking could be controlled and structured to become more coherent, especially when solutions are hard to come by. Since then, I have furthered my reading to include eastern philosophies that teach the idea of living in the now, thus not allowing anxiety and worry to spoil every precious moment that we have.

As a teacher, I cannot help looking around for better and more exciting ways to facilitate learning, so I guess it was only natural that I started thinking how wonderful it would be if I could help my students control their thoughts and prevent negative monsters from killing their self-esteem and preventing them from being the best they can be. Negative self-talk is a killer at all ages.

What age bracket is the book aimed at?

My imaginary readership is made up of children of all ages, adults included. But I’ve been told that it makes especially wonderful reading for eight to 10-year-olds. I believe that adults could always find something of and for themselves in children’s books – a hidden message that reaches out to us unintentionally.

One of my fondest memories is reading Trevor Zahra’s Borma Minestra (Merlin Library) and Mar id-Dawl (Merlin Library) animatedly to my children. I read the stories so often to them that we all knew the text by heart. And I could find my daughter and myself in Zahra’s cute Koronata Traskurata (Merlin Library).

Who is Miss Ambrożja?

She is the universal teacher – she is a legend, myth, heroine, wise owl, clown, witch and actress. She is efficient, caring, dangerous (but in a kind way), bombastic and colourful, tries to be fashionable but manages to look ludicrous to her young students. And she has a loaded, double-barrelled surname.

Children dedicate a lot of thought to their teacher – after all, they spend as much time with their teacher as they do with their own mother, if not more. Many of us might also say that a teacher continues to haunt us when we have outgrown our uniforms and beyond.

Miss Ambrożja is a bit of a caricature of female teachers in primary schools, but there is a little of me in her too. I envy her supernatural powers though, as do all my teacher colleagues, because we all want our students to live what we try to teach them in our small (in comparison with the world), crowded (smaller groups would be ideal) and rigid (routine kills) classrooms.

How marvellous our pedagogy would be if we could whisk ourselves and our students away to fantastic places that could teach us precious lessons for life.

Four children living in four different time-zones – what adventures will Paskal, Furtu, Larissa and Egon live in your book?

These three boys and a girl – who are in a Year 6 class of some time ago – will each have the unique experience of discovering and testing their problem-solving skills in a virtual adventure that is full of danger and strange encounters. The adventure ends the moment they feel desperate and want to run away from it all.

All four will be exposed to the same challenges and they will react in their own unique way, for they represent four different attitudes to life. Certain beliefs and attitudes which they may have received from home or from the school itself (streaming was in vogue) will prevent them from finding solutions to a problem they have been sent to solve.

Miss Ambrożja is their good fairy who protects them – she doesn’t interfere but brings them back to the classroom as if nothing had ever happened, and they will not remember a thing. Indeed, while they are lost, struggling to survive on a faraway, spooky island, she and their classmates are busy doing classwork at school.

What added value do the illustrations give to your book?

Illustrations make a book all the more attractive and promote independent access to the narrative. Moreover, they are a point of interest in themselves. Together, the illustrations and the story make the book come alive. Illustrations are vital for those children who are not yet confident readers or are still developing their reading skills, because they would be able to understand much better what is going on in the story. Their enjoyment of the book depends on quality illustrations that appeal to their young imagination.

In your opinion, have Maltese books for improved in recent years?

Books have become more colourful and attractive and more diverse themes are being dealt with, including current events and trends. In recent years, children’s literature in Maltese has moved away from dealing exclusively with past village life to tackle present-day situations and issues that today’s kids can identify with.

This also applies to adult literature in Maltese. I think that many of today’s writers write for mature and intelligent readers who are interested in exploring the different facets of being human, not just Maltese. Fortunately Maltese literature today is no longer addressing the ideal, well-behaved, sanitised (non-existent) reader, but speaks to and about real people living in the globalised, chaotic and sometimes unjust world of today.