Writing a children’s book can take no time at all. I know I shouldn’t say this, but some of mine take only a day or two to write. For this reason, it’s something a lot of people are tempted to have a go at. Why not? After all, you get a lovely warm feeling having a children’s book published. It’s wholesome, happy, friendly, doesn’t involve long commutes, scratchy suits, unsociable hours, irascible bosses . . . you get the picture. But this means that publishers are inundated with texts, hundreds of them — thousands — piled up by every desk in the editorial department. Your idea really has to shine. But how?

Two of the most important keys, I reckon, are substance and charm. By substance, I mean a story that has real grip, one that can captivate a child and an adult. At best, a story that can be enjoyed on different levels. I wrote a book called Giraffes Can’t Dance some years ago about the notion that we can all excel at something if we just find our own particular paths. However, the message here is, like all “messages”, rather pious on its own — so . . . dancing animals. Children love them. Equally important is a strong visual look. We found a wonderful illustrator, Guy Parker-Rees, who gives the story real colour, humour and energy. The book has sold several million copies.

Publishers have their own ideas about what makes a book commercial. Usually, they’re right. Verse is difficult because of the translation issues, creating memorable characters is important because you can develop a series, and a narrative structure is crucial in order to play on an emotional arc within the reader.

I’ve done a number of narrative stories that, I’m ashamed to say, are based on a structure I once read about in a how-to book. It went like this: 1. Create a character with a fault that makes him likeable. 2. Give him something extremely hard to do but that he really wants to do. 3. Set him on the path to doing it, but throw more and more obstacles in his way. 4. Finally, let him do it in the most spectacular way possible. It’s the structure underlying just about every block-buster film from Star Wars to Notting Hill, and it works in children’s books, too. The first one I wrote was called Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs. It features a small boy who conquers a band of, well, pirate dinosaurs. It sold well but it’s practically cheating: pirates and dinosaurs combined. The only thing I couldn’t squeeze in was knights. Maybe later . . .

Happily, my latest book breaks every rule. It’s called More Pants. It’s in verse, there’s no narrative structure and there are no characters. It’s just a list of loads of different kinds of pants. But what it does have, although it’s not for me to say so, is charm. It’s illustrated by Nick Sharratt, and the text is just a long, silly, exuberant, joyful poem. And to me, that is its charm because that’s what I believe childhood should be — a long, silly, exuberant, joyful poem.

OXFORD LITERARY FESTIVAL

Giles Andreae and Nick Sharratt talk about Pants, at the festival, on Saturday, March 24, at 11.30am and 2pm

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