Children deserve good stories, Craig Silvey says, and the ingredients of a good book are the same as the ones for older readers

At first glance Craig Silvey's latest book Runt has very little in common with his acclaimed novel Honeybee.

While 2020's Honeybee was a gritty, coming-of-age story about a trans teenager, Runt is more likely to be placed on the shelf next to Charlotte's Web or Babe.

It's the story of Annie Shearer who lives in the small country town of Upsom Downs with her best friend Runt, a stray dog who has an uncanny way with the sheep.

Annie's family are struggling financially and she needs to save the family farm.

She enters Runt in the agility course at the Krumpets Dog Show in London, a competition where she's sure he'll take first place with a cash prize to boot.

The only problem is, Runt can't perform when other people are watching.

Can they overcome the hurdles, literal and figurative, to save the day?

But Silvey's keen to discuss the similarities.

"Honeybee is a book that centered around how vital support, acceptance and love can be, that's the catalyst for a host of changes in that book in bringing a couple of very isolated people together," he says.

"And it could certainly be argued that kindness and generosity and determined belief is at the heart of Runt, as well."

And the differences.

"But they're very obviously very different tales, very different tones with very different language underpinning them as well."

While Honeybee, and indeed his award-winning Jasper Jones, could well be classified as young adult fiction, given the age of their protagonists, Runt is for younger readers.

Indeed it's aching to be read aloud, snuggled up in bed, imaginations soaring.

Silvey says children deserve good stories.

"The ingredients that make a book meaningful for older readers are the same for younger readers," he says.

"I adore books that invite me to feel things strongly and allow me to look at the world in a different way.

"Ultimately I want to be moved as a reader and I want to be challenged.

"I want to be swept up and taken on a journey. Kids demand the same experiences as adult readers as well."

He was a voracious reader as a child.

"I really loved Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine and, of course, Matilda.

"I had a real affection for Paul Jennings, he wrote with great diversity as well and in terms of playing with form, some stories were wild and sci fi, others were more realistic.

"And I don't know why but I had a real affection for the James Herriot series Of Creatures Great and Small," he says.

"I used to scour secondhand bookstores and pick them up at a heavily discounted rate, I just loved them.

"I don't know why, I had no idea what Yorkshire really looked like, and at that age a lot of it went over my head but I just was obsessed with them."

What can we do to encourage children to read, encourage adults to read to them and with them?

"It has to be a fundamental thing that we introduce into the lives of our children when they're very young.

"It's a really comforting, beautiful thing to share a story together.

"And in terms of maintaining the habit, it's about introducing books that that speak to them at the right time.

"A lot of people fall out of the habit of reading, maybe because they were forced to read a couple of books in school that didn't resonate with them and they lost sight of what books can offer us.

"Sometimes it can just be that one book that ignites, or reignites the habits and the love of reading again."

He found it heartening during the pandemic that people turned to books again, started reading again.

"The pandemic was a really interesting time for the book industry. I found it enormously satisfying the way that we, in our isolation, turned to books and stories to simulate this notion of community.

"It was a really lovely thing. Books above all else, help us feel less alone, and it was really heartening to see so many people turn to books and reacquaint themselves with that joy of reading."

He says he had the bare bones of idea for Runt tucked away in his back pocket for a while.

"It was just Annie and her best and only friend, this dog she rescues, quite agile and athletic because he's spent a lot of time evading capture.

"I just had this really deep affection for them, without really knowing them all that much, but I thought about them fondly, and often, but didn't quite have the opportunity to expand on the story."

And then a couple of things happened. He finished the final edits on Honeybee and for the first time in a few years he was free to look at the possibilities.

"And I was ready for a bit of a departure, and then there was the global calamity and suddenly we all found ourselves locked down and isolated.

"Lots of us were nursing personal anxieties and economic uncertainty, and under those conditions I found myself really drawn to this story again and I reacquainted myself with Annie and Runt.

"It was particularly Annie's spirit, her hopeful determination, that I was really drawn to, and I just really loved spending time with them and the rest of her family and the town.

"I just found it a really joyful and soothing, a really satisfying book to write."

He's a big believer in the idea that the right books find us at the right time and believes the principle applies to writing too.

"So much of writing, particularly in the early stages of a manuscript, is intuitive," he says.

"You tend to follow what your soul needs, what your interests are, where you're at in life. I found great comfort in spending time with Annie and Runt."

Silvey grew up in a small country town, in south-west Western Australia. He had a dog called Bella, a German shepherd.

"But our relationship was almost the opposite of Annie and Runt, I tended to obey her every whim.

"It was the bond between Annie and Runt had made me feel hopeful.

"They reassured me that courage and determination glimmers in all of us.

"And they reminded me that although I may not wear a tool belt everywhere I go like Annie, I do have the fortitude and the wherewithal to find a way to fix things.