Beguiling Kate Thompson

St Patrick’s College, in association with Poetry Ireland, Children’s Books Ireland, IBBY Ireland (International Board on Books for Young People) and the O’Brien Press last night celebrated the success of the author Kate Thompson, the acclaimed writer of young people’s fiction.

A panel of three experts, Celia Keenan, director of the MA in Children’s Literature at St Patrick's College, Valerie Coghlan, librarian at Church of Ireland College of Education and contributor to the MA in CL, and Keith O’Sullivan, PhD researcher at St Patrick's College, put a series of questions to the author in a fast-moving and stimulating dialogue. The panel was chaired by Patricia Kennon, Froebel College, Blackrock.

Since Thompson had not seen the questions in advance, the audience had the pleasure of watching her thought processes as she responded.

There was general agreement that the evening offered Thompson aficionados important insight into a wide range of Kate’s works and ideas.  In response to a question from Celia Keenan, Kate said that her books almost always started with an idea, rather than an image or a character. In the case of her most recent book, The New Policeman, it was the question ‘Where does all the time go?’ With The Beguilers, it was following a passion.

Jane O’Hanlon, Education Officer of Poetry Ireland, a member of the audience and one of the main organisers of the event, commented that Kate’s great strength is her ability to make explicit the emotional burden that is an inevitable part of adolescence.

The organisers commissioned a sparkling piece of fiddle music, composed by Zoe Conway, and played at the end of the evening, to the great delight of the audience.

Geraldine Meade, Chairperson of the Board of CBI Ireland, presented Kate Thompson with an award to mark her achievement.

Brenna Clarke, head of the St Patrick's College English Department, announced the forthcoming launch of St Patrick’s Centre for the Study of Children’s Literature and Culture in the near future.

Among the audience were accomplished writers Siobhán Parkinson, Aubrey Flegg, Oisin McGann, Larry O’Loughlin and Aislinn O’Loughlin, critics Robert and Carole Dunbar, prize winning illustrator Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, Seamus Cashman, editor of the groundbreaking anthology, Something beginning with P, St Patrick's College President Dr Pauric Travers, and organiser of the evening, Mags Walsh of CBI.

Kate Thompson is author of the Switchers and The Missing Link trilogies, three times winner of the Bisto Book of the Year Award, winner of the Eilís Dillon Award for an outstanding first children’s book and a Bisto merit Award. Her most recent book, The New Policeman, won the Whitbread Award for children’s fiction and the Guardian prize (children's category).

Thompson’s skills are many – credible adolescent characters, fantastical action and settings, and serious topics, such as genetic engineering and personal relationships are among them. She takes her young readership very seriously indeed. ‘Children in their young teens are just moving into the moment when they are most receptive to philosophy and psychology,’ she has said to Julia Eccleshare in the Guardian. ‘You can explore these things in stories and in doing so give them power and control. The powerlessness of the child is often forgotten. And after it comes the terrifying phase of moving into adulthood.’

Mary Shine Thompson

23 February 2006