Books For Keeps
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Articles
  • Past Issues
  • Latest Issue
  • Authors and Artists
  • Latest News
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
May 1, 2005/in I Wish I'd Written /by Richard Hill
This article is featured in BfK 152 May 2005
This article is in the I Wish I'd Written Category

I Wish I’d Written: Morris Gleitzman

Author: Morris Gleitzman

Morris Gleitzman on a Young Fiction series that makes him feel indignant…

Dear Anna Fienberg,

I could have written that. If you’d had the decency to hold off for a few years, I could have written Tashi. Sooner or later I’d have had the idea of a series of exquisitely-written stories about a boy in the suburbs called Jack with a secret friend. And the friend would probably have been called Tashi, and Tashi would probably have been from a faraway land with dragons and giants and magic, and he would probably have told Jack amazing stories about the quests and feuds and brave adventures that take place there on a daily basis. Almost certainly.

And I could have got Kim Gamble to do sublime pencil illustrations that light up the imagination more brightly than 99% of colour separations in the known world. And OK, I know your mother helps you with the stories, but if I’d asked her nicely I bet she’d have helped me too.

And when I’d written twelve Tashi books and captured the hearts of 99% of Australian children, I wouldn’t have lazed around toying with number thirteen. When I heard they weren’t widely distributed in Britain, I’d be on a plane and as we were coming in to land I’d be holding the Tashi books up to the window and yelling, ‘they’re unique and brilliant and they deserve to be published here’. I could have done all that, if only you’d waited.

Yours sincerely, Morris Gleitzman

 

The ‘Tashi’ series for 5-8 year-olds (Tashi and the Genie, Tashi and the Ghosts, Tashi and the Royal Tomb etc) by Anna and Barbara Fienberg, illustrated by Kim Gamble, is available in the UK, published by Allen & Unwin Children’s Books, with ten titles at £3.99 each pbk. Morris Gleitzman’s latest book, Girl Underground (0 14 131900 3, £4.99 pbk) is published by Puffin.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png 0 0 Richard Hill http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png Richard Hill2005-05-01 08:55:032021-11-30 13:32:21I Wish I’d Written: Morris Gleitzman
Download BfK Issue Bfk 272 May 2025
Skip to an Issue:

Related Articles

I Wish I’d Written: Adeola Sokunbi
Bfk 271 March 2025
I Wish I’d Written: Stewart Foster
Bfk 270 January 2025
I Wish I’d Written: Laurence Anholt
Bfk 268 September 2024
I wish I’d Written: Caroline Pitcher
Bfk 267 July 2024
I Wish I’d Written: Louise Forshaw
Bfk 266 May 2024
I Wish I’d Written: Alex T Smith
Bfk 265 March 2024
I Wish I’d Written: Laura Ellen Anderson
BfK 264 January 2024
I Wish I’d Written: Dave Shelton
BfK 261 July 2023

About Us

Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.

Read More

Follow Us

Latest News

Margaret McDonald and her editors Alice Swan and Ama Badu win the 2025 Branford Boase Award

July 9, 2025

‘The magic of poetry by heart’ Champions of the 2025 National Poetry Speaking Competition Announced

July 8, 2025
IBC

New National Year of Reading launching January 2026

July 8, 2025

Contact Us

Books for Keeps,
30 Winton Avenue,
London,
N11 2AT

Telephone: 0780 789 3369

ISSN: 0143-909X (this is our International Standard Serial Number).

© Copyright 2025 - Books For Keeps | Proudly Built by Lemongrass Media - Web Design Buckinghamshire
Good Reads: Dame Alice Owen’s School Useful Organisations No.38
Scroll to top