Youth Music - BongoClub.org.uk

(Editor of the Music Start resource)

Laura Atkins edited the Music Start resource. She worked as a children's book editor in the United States before receiving her MA in children's literature in the UK. A freelance children's book consultant, she also directs Brighton Children's Book Festival, teaches creative writing workshops and runs conferences at Roehampton University. She lives in Rottingdean with her husband and daughter.

In what way did Youth Music ask you to get involved with Music Start?
Sophie Mathias (Project Manager of Music Start) got in touch with me because I have experience as a children's book editor, particularly having worked with multi-cultural children's books. She called to see if I could be involved in editing the project, focusing especially on the text of the picture book. I also ended up helping with copy editing and proof reading of the activities and the information booklet as well. Primarily I worked with Miriam and Sophie on editing the story text. 

Did your involvement with Music Start overlap with the other aspects of the project such as the music?
Because the songs were written to work independently from the text, we didn't end up needing to be involved. With the musical activities, I was more involved with those just to make sure they were expressed in a way that was going to be really clear and really user friendly for younger children.

Did the fact that there were two audiences for the storybook (parents and children), make the editing process more difficult?
Not particularly because my experience has been working on children's books - especially picture books, so that's how I'm orientated anyway! It's a matter of making sure that things are either simple, or if they're not simple that there's a reason that they're not, and there's context. As with children's books in general, it's not so much a matter of making things simple, but just being quite aware of who your audience is.

What did you enjoy most about the project?
As we went along and it came to looking at the lyrics, there were more elements to juggle, but I actually found it really exciting. Usually when you work on the book, you just focus on the book. Here, there were all of these other elements and seeing how they worked together was really interesting. With some of the editorial work we did, we had to keep in mind that this was a music activity book - thinking about the cheetah spread and the fact that it was going to go along with drumming for instance. It was in our minds the whole time - I found that interesting as well. It just makes it that much more of a textured project that challenges you.

What was the biggest challenge of the project?
The time! I think in a way it wasn't as bad for us, as writing text to a tight deadline is a little bit easier than writing whole musical numbers! I came in late in the whole process, so for me there was the challenge of getting my mind around what it was, because it was quite a different kind of project. 

If you were Chickpea, where would you go next?!
I think I'd go to Vietnam! I've heard it's a beautiful country and quite different. 

For more information on Laura Atkins, visit http://www.lauraatkins.com.