Midway through 2006, the Department for Children Schools & Families (DCSF) invited us to a meeting. They had heard good things about We Are What We Do. Our first book, Change the World for a Fiver was a huge hit in classrooms - stimulating discussion and inspiring action. But there was a problem. Action #08: Take a bath with someone you love. Ten year old boys read it tended to dissolve into giggles.
Discussion ensued. What was required was a book of everyday actions with the same slugger punch as Change the World for a Fiver that would engage everyone and sit happily in young people’s lives. Actually (and here was the sweet-spot) wouldn’t it make more sense for young people themselves to be the architects of these actions?
We launched our partnership with the Small Action Big Change competition, announced in The Times in October in 2007 and inviting young people to answer the question: ‘What simple action would you ask one million people to do to change the world?’
The response was overwhelming. From Bangor to Brixton, from preschoolers to Year 12s, over 1,000 schools and groups took part, coming up with actions that touched on global warming and community, knife crime and recycling. Suggestions ranged from the sublime; ‘Walk your dad’ to the ridiculous; ‘Save your hair when you have a haircut and give it to someone who is bald’. And we loved them all.
It took the kind council of celebrities (Dermot O’Leary and Ronnie Corbett among them), teachers, kids and parents to pin down our 65 finalists to a workable thirty and by January 2008 we had the beginnings of a new book.
All our actions were subject to a robust door policy. They were sifted and simmered ensuring that each was simple and everyday. Some needed nothing doing. Others, a bit of spit and polish. Gilwern Primary School’s ‘Pass a smile’ became ‘Action #01: Make someone smile’ and Omar Bynon’s ‘Take a ball around the world’ was boiled down to ‘Speak football’ (many concerned Year 6s thought this one needed to be a bit greener!). And the final actions were road tested in schools and in youth groups around the country until we had definitively cracked it.
Our best work has always come of collaboration. And Teach Your Granny to Text is no exception. With 4,386 children, designers New Future Graphic, writer Tanis Taylor and contributions from the great and the good of children’s books, including Anthony Horowitz and Where’s Wally?, we spent many an hour discussing how many t-shirts you can actually wear before you faint and whether dog leashes come in dad sizes.
Six months on and Teach Your Granny to Text is ready for you. We paired up with old friends Short Books - the publishers of our first two books - and new friends, independent children’s publishers Walker Books, to spread the word, engage and inspire. Thanks to our work with the DCFS the book will be landing in 22,000 maintained schools in England, returning the actions safely to the young people who created them. The rest, as they say in the story books, is history.
Enjoy.