Prizewinning novelist Melvin Burgess defends his stark portrayal of
growing up.
Junking our cosy image of the teenage world.

Junk is a children's book in which a group of 14yearolds
get involved in the drug culture and end up with a heroin
problem.

Well . . . almost. Except it's not a children's book as such;
it's for teenagers. Even so, the fact that it's won the Library
Association Carnegie Medal must make it clear to
everyone that children's fiction has been undergoing some
big changes since the heady days of the saintly Enid.

And what a fuss there's been! "From secluded writer to
media tart within 24 hours", as one radio producer said as
he ushered me in. Well, this tart's had a good time, and let
me say right away that the clients have been most
considerate. People are obviously concerned about what
their children read, and real issues have been raised. At
what age do children grow up? When should they have
access to this sort of material? What role do books have in
the process of growing up? All good stuff. I have no
complaints.

One or two things, though, do get up my nose. One is the
astonishing nonsense talked about young people and drugs.
Junk acknowledges the great unmentionable. People take
drugs for fun.

Don't tell me you didn't know. Are you one of those
strange people who get drunk for the hangovers? I don't
know how many times I've been accused of glamorising
drugs. What can I say? I don't have to, they're already
glamorous. If you're going to discuss this matter with
teenagers that's the first thing you have to admit; then you
can get on to talking about the consequences. These kids
can spot a liar miles away. They've had plenty of practice.

If you think you can walk in and just go, "Say no!", you are
seriously mistaken, and in my view, irresponsible. You
keep your hands clean, but you walk away with a very
dirty bottom. The only debate here that I can see is at what
age children can deal with reading about this stuff.
Fourteen too young? Then we're in trouble. Kids these
days often know about drugs by that age.

Junk deals with heroin addiction, of course, but it's about a
lot else besides. It's about that rock'n'roll culture that is at
the heart of so many people's social life. I wanted readers
to recognise the people, the relationships and the situations
in the book. There are no heroes, just ordinary people
making some awful but very human mistakes; and the only
heroin is a villain of the first order.

I've seen heroin addiction close up. I desperately hope my
readers will have more sense than Gemma and poor Tar
and their friends, but I know that when the time comes I
won't be there to tell them. Neither will you. They're going
to have to make up their own minds about that one.

The other issue that has troubled people in the book world
is: where on earth is children's literature going? Daisy
Goodwin of the BBC's Bookworm programme says: "It
[Junk] is drug tourism for middleclass children. Every year
now this prize goes to a book that has the goriest, socially
shocking subject matter . . . the best children's books are
an escape from all that."

Well, reading is, I suppose, a middleclass vice. As for
tourism, I like it. "Burgess Tours: Take a Journey to the
Undiscovered Corners of Your Own Mind and Beyond!"
Ms Goodwin is flattering me, but I'd like to remind her of
one of our very best travel agents, famous for his trips into
the miseries of childhood: Charles Dickens.

As for the rest . . . I do think that anyone who thinks they
can define so closely what the best books are "for" is in for
a caning. Two words; Anne Frank.

Still, it's true that the shortlists lately have had a large share
of books dealing with the darker side of life, and given that
most books for young people are still happy affairs, it is
curious that this should be so.

It's partly, I think, due to the information explosion. There
are few secrets in the age of television. Also, teenage
fiction is a relatively new event that does allow us to
explore growing up in new ways. Perhaps that's why it
attracts so many of our best writers for children. It's up for
grabs. Who could resist the challenge?

Finally, a word of comfort. Everybody I've ever met in the
world of children's books loves children and loves books,
in particular for their role in the way we grow. The
guidelines for the Carnegie judges say books should
produce "a sense of having extended knowledge [or]
emotional capacity, taking the reader a step forward, even,
occasionally, into a disturbed state".

Growing up isn't always easy, whatever age you are.
Sometimes a preview does help.