Jeremy Strong: Fox Goes North

Jeremy Strong's final novel, Fox Goes North, is a beautifully written fable about a brave, loyal and quirky group of friends who travel together in a topsy-turvy caravan on a quest to see the Northern Lights. For the old, wise fox, this will be her final journey and resting place. Full of wisdom and humour, the themes of friendship, love and loss are handled with compassion and understanding.

Jeremy was able to complete what he hoped would be his 'best book' but sadly died before it was published. 

In this conversation with Nikki Gamble, he discusses the book's themes, his writing life and his awareness that in this story, he was not only writing Fox's journey but also his own.

Jeremy's legacy is that over 8 million of his books have made it into the hands of young readers and will have opened countless doors into the world of reading.

Transcript

Nikki Gamble:

I'm delighted to have Jeremy Strong in the Reading Corner today. We'll be talking about his latest novel, Fox Goes North, which I have to say was one of the most affecting reads of this year. It's a beautiful book showing that you can write about deep things with economy.

Jeremy Strong

Well, thank you. That's a very kind thing to say. I'm glad it's gone down so well with you.

Nikki Gamble

Fox Goes North is in the tradition of animal fable. In this story, we have a moose, a bear, and a toucan, and they're joined at the beginning by an elderly fox. This band of creatures are travelling together northwards to see the wonderful northern lights.

I have never seen them, have you?

Jeremy Strong

No, no, I would dearly love to see them, but we shall see. And I know so many have been and gone and not seen them. I suppose one just has to keep going back and trying. But certainly, it's one of those absolute wonders that I would have loved to have witnessed.

Nikki Gamble

How does telling such an important story with animal characters add depth and power to the story?

Jeremy Strong

Thank you. That is a very good question. The short answer is that you can say more or less what you like about animals, but you can't say what you like about humans. You can't say, ‘Oh, she's so grossly overweight, it was a wonder the bus didn't fall over’ Whereas with animal characters, you can describe them exactly as they are. It doesn't matter how fat, thin, or old they are or what they believe in. You get a far greater range of freedom when writing about animals. The stories that I've done in the past have always been very funny, slapdash, almost comic strip-style stories. And yet, I still had to be careful. And that has played more of a part in writing for children in recent years. If you are writing about real people, you are coming up against more and more problems defining them without saying something unnecessary. That was partly what was in my mind.

Also, for at least 40 or so of my 50 years of writing, I have wanted to write about a group of animals. The first story I ever tried to write for children was about a group of animals. It was a bit Winnie the Pooh-ish, as one does when one is young. But I never found a way of writing that story until, and this came quite out of the blue; I got the idea for writing about an expedition to the North Pole. I wanted to write about a group of animals who were searching for beauty and meaning in, in life. And, and it would be a group that was, that would always be together. I'd even thought, who knows, there might be a second book. I doubt that there very much will be -  but it was a possibility.

It was such a colourful idea, having the topsy-turvy caravan, more like a house than a caravan, and with these disparate group of animals that were very carefully chosen. I didn't just say, "Well, I think I'll have a llama and a bear." It was much more deliberate than that because I was thinking of diversity.

Nikki Gamble

I can see how a moose, having seen one in the wild, would be a stoical animal. But a toucan, where did the toucan come from?

Jeremy Strong

The toucan was just about the first creature to come along. And he came along instantaneously with his magnetic beak. And it was the magnetic beak that got me thinking: I've got a very odd character here. This guy's going to be a bit of fun because he’s going to be self-important, and although his magnetic beak is useful, it's also useless. It's only useful when it is pointing north.

Nikki Gamble

The Toucan is a very visual character because of its colour. There aren’t many stories featuring toucans, unlike bears and foxes, so he’s going to be a stand out character.

Jeremy Strong

It didn't occur to me to deliberately exclude certain characters. Rather, my brain tends to work in the opposite direction. It tends to accept things that would normally not be acceptable, just for being stubborn and annoying. And it's always seemed to work quite well.

 I guess the point is that it doesn't matter in some ways what the animals are because the most important thing is that they are working together and they are great friends, even though they obviously quarrel sometimes, as people do.

Nikki Gamble

Of course, the central character is the fox. She's in the title, and she becomes even more significant as the journey goes on. She's an artist, and as Bear observes, she loves colour, music, words, and nature.

On her journey, she produces some beautiful land art reminiscent of Andy Galsworthy's natural sculptures. You reference him in your acknowledgements. I wondered if you could tell us something about your encounters with his art and the impact that it's had on you.

Jeremy Strong

I came across Andy Goldsworthy in a book. I was probably at Tate Modern in the shop, just looking at the books. I regret to admit I've never actually seen his work live. But of course, the photographs tell his stories so well. There's something appealing about how ephemeral it all is. Art is found in so many ways, many of which we miss and don't necessarily recognise. For instance, you see it in a pattern laid down by old leaves that seem to represent something. You can't necessarily be sure what it is.

Of course, much of Andy Goldsworthy's work is fairly obvious because he builds stone circles, makes pathways, and shows how we should look at the world more carefully and notice these things.

People do it all the time on a much simpler level, don't they? They say, ‘Look, there's a cloud up there in the sky that looks just like an elephant.’ And there's that sort of funny feeling that you know perfectly well it’s not an elephant; it is a cloud, but you can share that moment because it's shaped like an elephant. You can talk to somebody about it.

You become more and more aware of the amount of inherent art there is around us. These works of art are part of our world.

Nikki Gamble

Fox creates her artwork. Some of them, as you say, are ephemeral, very transient.

They're made from nature, and nature can blow them away. But she's very particular about her final creation. I wonder if you could tell us something about it.

Jeremy Strong

Oh, this is like a Fibonacci spiral. I think it’s so particular because it's so open. I'm not a mathematician, and I'm useless at physics, but I do read a little about it from time to time. The Fibonacci spiral has such a lovely sense of power behind it. It's never going to finish. It's just going to go on. Getting wider and wider, Our awareness is of that little part of it that we know is going forever to get bigger and bigger. It will eventually take you to every corner of the universe. I haven't put that in the book. I hope what I have conveyed in the book so that the child reading it learns is that the spiral goes on forever and is never contained.

And that is our world; that is our universe. Every single one of us is our own Fibonacci spiral.

Nikki Gamble

Readers will be familiar with your funny books. There are so many of them: Cartoon Kid, My Brother's Famous Bottom, Viking at School, Hundred Mile an Hour Dog. And they're hilarious, and they've turned many non-readers into readers.

Fox Goes North is very different in tone. The story is profound and has many philosophical considerations, but it's certainly not without humour. I love the characterisation of Toucan and Llama, which are sources of some of the humour. They contrast well with the more serious characters.

Can you tell us why humour is important to you and why you think it's important to us as human beings?

Jeremy Strong

When I first started writing stories for children, I'd also begun teaching in primary as I needed a job.  was lucky enough to find a little niche, which quickly became a big niche, in writing funny stories that children could read for themselves. I found a publisher who had a dyslexic child, pure coincidence, and he found that my writing was very suitable for his child to read, and things grew from there. The publisher was A& C Black, and they started up a series with Kay Umansky, Terry Deary and me. The three of us, more or less provided the first 20 or 30 books in that series.

Anyhow, I was learning on the job. I'd become a writer. I'd also become a teacher of eight—and nine-year-olds, who were just the age ready for independent readers. That was when I began writing all those constantly funny, simple-to-read books that would get children into reading. And that went on for a long time.

About eight years ago. I began to think, ‘I want to do more than this. I don't want to carry on doggedly writing, literally doggedly funny stories.’

I wanted to extend myself a little and that was when I started writing the Armadillo and Hare stories, which veer towards a more serious sid.

Nikki Gamble

You've told us a little about Toucan, but while we're talking about humour, we must also talk about Llama.

Llama is your egocentric child.

Jeremy Strong

Absolutely. Llama came storming out of the blue. I didn't know Llama was going to be in it at all. There were several moments in that story where things I hadn’t planned happened almost as if they were meant to happen. I hadn't planned Little Owl, for instance, But I fell in love with the llama from the moment she appeared. Just crashing out of the blue and telling everyone that she loved them. She's the perfect counterfoil to Moose's not-always-motherly help.

Nikki Gamble

There are characters who are more childlike and those who are more grown-up.

Jeremy Strong

Yes, of course, you've got Fox, who's old and drives the entire story of the journey to the Northern Lights.

Nikki Gamble

The animals face great danger, and you feel the jeopardy of their predicament. A great forest fire threatens to engulf them, and the wheel on their wagon is in danger of collapsing.

Carl Jung once wrote that the world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you. I wonder whether you would agree that when the animals are faced with that life-threatening danger, we find out who they really are.

Jeremy Strong

Yes, because they all come together to help each other. I liked the image of the Toucan wrapping towels around Moose's head and having to guide him because Moose is now blind. I love that image of them helping each other and trusting each other.

They're still friends at the end of their journey. All together, even with Fox standing there in the snow on her final journey. I think they speak the truth to each other, especially Fox talking to Moose and Bear.

Nikki Gamble

I  love the scene where, instead of catastrophizing, Llama reads stories to the  smaller creatures that calm them in the face of danger.

Jeremy Strong

In the end, of course, the story ends as much a celebration as a funeral.

At the end of the journey, Fox says the end of any adventure always comes with sadness, but I am old and tired. Moose, I am ready.

As you know, death is a subject that 20 years ago probably wouldn't have been written about very much in children's books. Today, we see more books on the topic but most often from the point of view of grieving for somebody that's gone. There is very little about making a final journey, as this book is. It reminded me a little bit of Reepicheep in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but without the Judeo-Christian overtones that are very explicit in that book.

Nikki Gamble

Your writing about Fox's final resting place is so beautiful, gentle, elegiac and, above all, hopeful. Can you tell us about writing those last scenes and what you hope readers will take from the story?

Jeremy Strong

The last two scenes were the first two scenes that I wrote when I began the story.

I always do quite a lot of planning and thinking through. So I had all my notes and suddenly realised I knew exactly how I wanted the book's ending. And I wanted to write it down before I forgot it all. So, I began the story by writing the last two chapters. It took me a little while, but I realised as I was writing those chapters, I was writing my own journey as well as Fox's.

It was a double journey. I tried to keep my journey and feelings about it in the background as much as possible because I didn't want it to inform the Fox Goes North story. But yes, I was aware that I was writing about myself as well as Fox, and it was very comforting.

Nikki Gamble

One of the contrasts in the story is between home and adventure, both of which are valued in the story. You write about the excitement of the wildness and the unknown, but also about the comfort of the familiar and a feeling for family.

I think they are central concerns of childhood - home and away. And they continue to be important to all of us throughout life. I wondered if you would say something about those contrasting dispositions and how they might have played into your own life.

Jeremy Strong

That’s an interesting question. From the age of about 15, I suppose I always wanted to leave home. I always wanted to travel. I never did. I got married, I had children, I settled down. But even when I was teaching, I would often turn to the back pages of the Times Educational Supplement and say to my wife, ‘Look, there's a teaching job in Borneo here. What do you think?’ We never went, of course. We always stayed home. But that desire to travel and to see other worlds, other ways of doing things, was there from the age of 15 or so.

Nikki Gamble

I wanted to tell you that, as a teacher myself and from decades of working with children and young people, I know that your stories have made an enormous difference to many young lives. I organized Stephen Butler's first author visit to a school, and one of the things that he told me as we travelled in the car to the school was that you had been his headmaster and that he would never have become a reader or a writer if it hadn't been for you.

 Which of your achievements are you most proud of?

Jeremy Strong

I think to know that something like eight or nine million books have gone into children's hands and hopefully opened up doors for many of them and introduced the pleasure of reading, I mean, that would be such a super thing to feel one had achieved.

Yes.

But also, I'm very proud to have finished Fox Goes North. It's my last book, and I hope in some way that maybe it will be my best one. Who knows? Time will tell.

Nikki Gamble

Before we end our conversation, is there anything you would like to say that we haven't discussed?

Jeremy Strong

Yes, I was very glad that Fox was going to die. I've never written about death before in any way. And we need to talk about it more, especially in children's books. It's not something to be particularly frightened of. It's around us all the time, for heaven's sake. It isn't often mentioned in children's books except in the new, fast-growing genre of children's crime stories.

I feel that Fox really strides that book and holds it together. It's Fox's wisdom, it's Fox's attitudes, it's Fox's submission to death if you like, that's quite important. It's also celebrated, you know. Yes, it's tragic and sad, but the friends  are also lifting Fox up and saying, you know, wasn't she wonderful?

Yeah…

Nikki Gamble

Jeremy, it's been such a pleasure.

Jeremy Strong

Thank you for the interesting questions.