Denna blogg hör till ett läsprojekt som handlar om Jenny Downhams bok Älskar-Hatar.
Flera högstadieskolor och gymnasier läste boken under hösten 2011 (när den var alldeles nyutkommen) och bloggen är resultatet av elevernas (och lärarnas) texter och dikter om boken, deras reflektioner, några bilder, länkar och videoklipp. Här kan man som lärare eller elev gå in och hitta information och få inspiration till fortsatt arbete.
På Brombergs vill vi gärna att projektet ska leva länge och tar tacksamt emot kommentarer, frågor och förslag, antingen direkt här på bloggen eller på vår mailadress.
En hälsning från författaren Jenny Downham till deltagarna i projektet
I’m so happy that my book, You Against Me, has been chosen for your reading circle. I have been asked to say a few things about the book before you begin. Here goes:
It took two and half years to write. Most writers are quicker than this. I’m slow because I never plan in advance. Instead, I sit day after day with a notebook and write about whatever I see or hear. I sit in different places – cafes, hospital waiting rooms, bus stops, etc, etc and wait for a story to spark.
This is how You Against Me sparked: one day I was sitting in a park and a I saw a young girl being followed by a large group of boys who were taunting her because she’d had seven boyfriends in one school term. When she turned round rather furiously and accused one of the boys of having more girlfriends than that, the boys all laughed and said that made him a ‘player’. That made me wonder…
- Are girls expected to hide their sexuality?
- Are boys encouraged to express theirs?
The girl haunted me. Every day I wrote new stories about her. But no matter how hard I tried to give her interesting things to do, she kept sitting on the sofa and hiding under the duvet! I gave her a name (Karyn) and a place to live (a small seaside town in Norfolk) and a family who loved her. But still she wouldn’t ‘join in.’
To cheer myself up, I started writing as her brother, Mikey. I LOVED writing as him because he had a solution. Someone’s hurt my sister? I‘m going to kill them! He literally picked up a weapon and started running down the road.
I knew I’d found the book’s narrative voice. So, imagine my surprise when weeks of writing later, Ellie appeared. She’d recently moved to the area and had no friends yet. She did however have a brother – the boy Mikey was determined to punish, and she certainly seemed to know a lot more than she was saying about what had happened to Mikey’s sister.
The story had begun in earnest.
More questions appeared…
- Do we really KNOW the people we love?
- Can you still love someone who does a terrible thing?
I began to talk to criminal lawyers and social services to gather material. I watched court cases and interviewed police officers.
- Are people influenced more by their attitudes, beliefs and biases than by the facts?
- If there are no witnesses to a crime, how will the truth ever be known?
- Does the truth matter?
I’m often asked if I am trying to ‘teach’ anyone anything in a book. The answer is NO! I don’t want my job as a writer to be about giving moral guidance. Young people don’t want to read about things adults think are good for them, or about how they ought to behave.
I was attempting to write a good story, one that moved readers emotionally, but also made them think. I hope that the book encourages debate for the very reason that I am not telling anyone what the right answers are.
I hope you enjoy it.
Jenny Downham
Läs också Jenny Downhams brev om avslutningen av boken – varför lämnade hon slutet öppet?
