Author uses myth and magic to encourage children to read in Welsh

As the summer holidays begin, children and adults all over the world have their noses in books as Harry Potter fever grips the UK one last time. But don’t fear, because one author who’s determined to take advantage of this craze for all things magic is Nicholas Daniels, as he publishes his latest book for children, Y Llyfr Ryseitiau: Gwaed y Tylwyth (The Recipe Book: Blood of the Ancestors).

As the primary school teacher, originally from Llanelli but now based in Cardiff, says: “When the whole Harry Potter phenomenon started, I felt a little bit sad as far as Wales was concerned, because we have such a wonderfully rich tradition in terms of myths and legends. Even though the stories are great, and children still love to hear them, we need to bring the themes right up to date for them to appeal to a new generation.”

So he set about writing something he thought the children in his class would enjoy. The book follows the story of Gwiddan, a thirteen year old girl who is given a dusty old recipe book which once belonged to her grandmother as a birthday present. Although she’s disappointed to start with, she soon finds that there is a lot more to the recipe book than first meets the eye.

“I only began writing because I could see from my work how difficult it is to get children to read, especially in Welsh,” Nicholas explains. “So I’ve always had that as my main goal – to write something children between 9 and 12 actually want to read. Although the main character in this book is a girl, it’s not a girlie book, it’s quite dark and sinister and I’m hoping both boys and girls will enjoy it.”

As well as having an appealing storyline, Nicholas was keen to write a book which would be accessible for as many Welsh speaking children as possible: “A lot of the children I’ve taught find the language and syntax of some Welsh books quite difficult to follow, it’s so strange for them, especially if they don’t speak much Welsh at home. I want children to feel comfortable with the language, that’s how we’re going to get more children to speak Welsh.”

And depending on the success of this first instalment, Nicholas already has ideas floating around for the next book: “I’ve already started kicking a few ideas around, but we’ll just have to wait and see whether the children want more!” he laughs.

Catrin Hughes of publisher Dref Wen added: “The success of the Harry Potter series has proved that there’s a demand for this type of material amongst this age group. However, the Welsh language market isn’t satisfying this demand at the moment. We as publishers hope that ‘Y Llyfr Ryseitiau’ will go some way towards filling this gap. It’s a very unusual book which weaves fantasy and reality and there’s enough excitement and adventure to keep a young reader interested – just the thing for the long summer holidays!”