Hope.
In a world so engulfed by unbearable wars, polarised views, corruptions, climate change, increasing austerity, food poverty and energy crises - all whilst still reeling from a global pandemic, Hope can seem a fragile little thing, too small to survive. At a time when we all need it most.
But this tiny little word, so small and so underestimated, has a backbone of steel - the kind of steel Superman would be proud to possess.
Having been lucky enough to have toured hundreds of schools over the past few years, talking about topics close to my heart but which are deeply devastating to have to explore with children as young as six - such as the refugee crisis, homelessness, domestic violence and most recently, historical and present day racisms - I am often struck by not just the incredible questions children ask about what they can do to change things for the better, but how I feel, as an author, after leaving them.
Because never do I feel the force of hope-for-better-days ahead more strongly than I do when I have just been with a group of children, all hungry and filled with ideas and energy about the part they hope to play in the world. Which may explain why I go on visiting as many schools as I do, when I’m behind in pretty much all aspects of my life! But who can blame me? When each encounter, each class, each amazing kind teacher, each school, leaves me with the kind of hope that causes the skin to tingle with joy. And helps to keep me and the phenomenal souls I get to work with and meet, both in the refugees camps of France and Greece, and the women’s refuges, going.
I know Hope lives, grows, and spreads through every single one of us at rates unfathomable because I see it do so every single day. Through every beautiful word, kind deed, and empathetic lens we are able to offer our fellow human beings - no matter how small those words, deeds and lenses might seem to us - hope instilled spreads like a lit baton, lighting up the next person, and the next person, and the next person times infinity.
Children’s hunger to be a part of “it” - whatever human or planetary crisis that “it” and that baton might be linked to - and the deep hopes they hold for themselves and their own voices, is what my first non-fiction Hope on the Horizon is all about. It’s a guide - no… Scratch that! More of a mini launching pad to help children already biting at the bit for change, to use their already existent sense of justice, deep empathy for others, and endless capacity for kindness to revolutionise the multiple worlds they are a part of - whether it be on the homefront, at school, or in their wider worlds. Or even all of the aforementioned.
Each chapter in this non-fiction adventure, begins with the most important foundation of Hope that we human beings have ever gifted ourselves: stories.
Because whilst Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook et al’s aptly names ‘Stories’ might have tried their best to take over the modern mode of story-telling (after all, it is still the stories of life and loves being created by others, albeit in the digital world that holds our fascination), it was the characters I encountered in both my most beloved childhood books, and the TV set too, that forged an unshakeable foreground for my understanding of what it meant to be a supers/hero. Of how to hope and never give up - not even in the darkest times. Because that’s not what Superman or She-Ra, or the legendary King Arthur or Meg Murray of A Wrinkle in Time would do! And of how the coolest s/hero was the kindest one - the one that listened, loved, learned, and tried to always make the lives of others easier, even if it meant hardship or sacrifice from themselves.
Such were the ingredients for supers/heroes. And so they remain.
The American writer and animal rights campaigner, Cleveland Amory once remarked, “What this world needs is a new kind of army – the army of the kind.”
That army already exists. They can be found gently marching amongst us. We may even be the ones doing the marching. And with no minimum age or height restriction, they can certainly be found in every classroom on the planet.
All we have to do is look, listen, and hope.
