Talent is not enough

Talent. Person. Discipline. To Mollie Hunter, talent alone is not enough - there must be a disciplined, feeling person behind each book. One of the finest writers of books for young people and the winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal, Mollie Hunter is uniquely qualified to write about the demanding but satisfying art and craft of writing for children. As a writer of fantasy and folklore as well as historical and realistic fiction, she can discuss all genres with equal authority. She starts out by brilliantly illustrating why "a powerful grip on the possibilities of language" and the ability to retain something of the "child's sense of wonder and the enthusiasm of youth" are important. After bringing her own rich personal interpretation to her discussions of historical fiction, fantasy, and folklore, Mollie Hunter comes back to language in her last essay, "The Limits of Language," providing that for her "the scope of language is infinitely variable - its possibilities equally so. Only its limits are arguable." Talent Is Not Enough grew out of a series of lectures Mollie Hunter delivered in the U.S. in 1975, including the May Hill Abuthnot Honor Lecture. It is a personal, insightful, thought-provoking book that will move and enrich the student and critic of children's literature as well as any aspiring writer.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.