Katie Morag
Encyclopedia
Katie Morag is the title character of a series of children's picture book
s written and illustrated by Mairi Hedderwick
. The gentle stories have been praised for their good humour, strong sense of place, and for the feisty and independent (sometimes even "thrawn" ) character of Katie herself.
The books are set on the fictional Isle of Struay, off the west coast of Scotland. Much of the topography, and also characters and situations, are inspired by Arinagour
on the Scottish island of Coll
in the Inner Hebrides
, the island where Mairi Hedderwick lived for a number of years, and where her daughter still runs a handmade pottery store. In the books the small island community is connected to the mainland by a ferry which initially only comes once a week, on "Boat Day" (later three times a week, after the building of a new pier in the fifth book).
Katie Morag lives close to the jetty above the island's only shop, where her mother is the postmistress and her father runs the general store. A key character in the books is Katie Morag's "Grannie Island", who lives further round the bay, and is generally found in her dungarees often driving or fixing her tractor, or surrounded by cats around her Rayburn
stove, in contrast to Katie Morag's altogether more douce "Granma Mainland". Grannie Island was widely hailed, as for example "a positive image, a celebration of the strength of women, and a challenge to gender stereotyping" – a happy accident, as Hedderwick had originally planned for the character to be male, until her North American publisher demurred; but not inappropriate, as Hedderwick was as likely as not herself to be found behind the wheel of her old tractor at the time.
In England a short National Curriculum
Key Stage 1
Geography unit for six and seven year olds, called "An island home", has been linked to the series and in particular the book Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers. The book Katie Morag and the New Pier has also been used as a peg to discuss how communities can gain and lose from change. The most recent book in the series, Katie Morag and the Dancing Class, was a nominee for the Kate Greenaway Medal
in 2008, which is awarded for an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature.
Various of the books have so far been translated into Danish
, Swedish
, Norwegian
, Finnish
and Japanese
, as well as Scottish Gaelic.
. In 2002-3 proposals for an animated series, initially of 26 eleven-minute films, were developed by him in association with Red Kite Animation in Edinburgh, with a pilot script by Peter Hynes. Later, in 2005, Coutts was reported to be developing a live-action series to be filmed on the island of Lewis
. It was reported that a pilot
had been made, with ITV
interested in taking a series of 26 episodes, and the animated series still under development for the international market. However, perhaps because of the shadow of the children's series Balamory
, also set in a small Scottish west-coast island community, as of 2010 none of these proposals have so far reached the screen. Speaking in 2010, Mairi Hedderwick said she would be quite happy if the character only remained in books – she had no interest in "pencil cases", and would only want to see her creation dramatised, if at all, as a real character not a cartoon; but it was in the hands of her publishers.
A stage adaption was created by Lisa Grindall for Mull Theatre in 2005, based on characters and setting from the books, with a new story and songs. After a successful tour of smaller venues in Argyll and the Highlands followed by a week at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow
in 2005, the production was revived as a Christmas show at the Byre Theatre
in St Andrews
in 2007, and toured again in 2008.
In the 1990s Mairi Hedderwick turned down a proposal from Argyll and Bute Local Enterprise Company
to use the character to promote tourism in the area. However in 2007 she agreed to let NHS Highland
adapt illustrations from three of the books into posters for that year's Breastfeeding Awareness Week, a health-promotion campaign to promote breastfeeding
in the region, under the slogan "Breastfeeding... A Part of Family Life in Highland". Katie Morag's mum is occasionally depicted breastfeeding in several of the books, without any comment in the text. According to Hedderwick for her this merely reflects "the cosiness of the home and family, ... drawing her own experience of life with a growing family in a small island community". Nevertheless, one American library felt compelled to apply marker pen to an illustration in one of the earlier books, in which one of Katie Morag's mother's breasts is completely exposed.
A Katie Morag exhibition, featuring original prints and jacket covers, storyboards showing the development of a book, and character profiles created for the proposed animated series, was organised by the Scottish Book Trust
at the Scottish Storytelling Centre
in Edinburgh in 2005, and re-mounted at the An Lanntair
community arts centre in Stornoway
in September 2006. Hedderwick regularly visits primary schools, leading storytelling sessions and explaining how her books are created, often accompanied by Katie Morag's teddy bear who travels with her in his own black bag. In 2009 she organised a special Katie Morag competition for schools, to raise money for the new community centre to be called An Cridhe ("The Heart") on Coll, which was won by Lowercroft Primary School in Bury
.
Katie Morag was also featured in a half-hour television arts documentary made in 1993 for BBC Scotland
's Ex-S strand, in which Hedderwick discussed the background to the stories and her plans for the character.
Picture book
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...
s written and illustrated by Mairi Hedderwick
Mairi Hedderwick
Mairi Hedderwick is a Scottish illustrator and author, best known for the Katie Morag series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the real-life inner Hebridean island of Coll where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life.She has also...
. The gentle stories have been praised for their good humour, strong sense of place, and for the feisty and independent (sometimes even "thrawn" ) character of Katie herself.
The books are set on the fictional Isle of Struay, off the west coast of Scotland. Much of the topography, and also characters and situations, are inspired by Arinagour
Arinagour
Arinagour is a village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is the main settlement on the Isle of Coll....
on the Scottish island of Coll
Coll
Coll is a small island, west of Mull in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Coll is known for its sandy beaches, which rise to form large sand dunes, for its corncrakes, and for Breachacha Castle.-Geography and geology:...
in the Inner Hebrides
Inner Hebrides
The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...
, the island where Mairi Hedderwick lived for a number of years, and where her daughter still runs a handmade pottery store. In the books the small island community is connected to the mainland by a ferry which initially only comes once a week, on "Boat Day" (later three times a week, after the building of a new pier in the fifth book).
Katie Morag lives close to the jetty above the island's only shop, where her mother is the postmistress and her father runs the general store. A key character in the books is Katie Morag's "Grannie Island", who lives further round the bay, and is generally found in her dungarees often driving or fixing her tractor, or surrounded by cats around her Rayburn
Rayburn Range
The Rayburn is a type of stove similar in nature to the AGA and are manufactured in Telford at the same factory as the AGA.The Rayburn was launched in 1946 with two hotplates, and one or two ovens and the ability to heat water...
stove, in contrast to Katie Morag's altogether more douce "Granma Mainland". Grannie Island was widely hailed, as for example "a positive image, a celebration of the strength of women, and a challenge to gender stereotyping" – a happy accident, as Hedderwick had originally planned for the character to be male, until her North American publisher demurred; but not inappropriate, as Hedderwick was as likely as not herself to be found behind the wheel of her old tractor at the time.
In England a short National Curriculum
National Curriculum
The National Curriculum was introduced into England, Wales and Northern Ireland as a nationwide curriculum for primary and secondary state schools following the Education Reform Act 1988. Notwithstanding its name, it does not apply to independent schools, which may set their own curricula, but it...
Key Stage 1
Key Stage 1
Key Stage 1 is the legal term for the two years of schooling in maintained schools in England and Wales normally known as Year 1 and Year 2, when pupils are aged between 5 and 7. This Key Stage normally covers pupils during infant school, although in some cases this might form part of a first or...
Geography unit for six and seven year olds, called "An island home", has been linked to the series and in particular the book Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers. The book Katie Morag and the New Pier has also been used as a peg to discuss how communities can gain and lose from change. The most recent book in the series, Katie Morag and the Dancing Class, was a nominee for the Kate Greenaway Medal
Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal was established in the United Kingdom in 1955 in honour of the children's illustrator, Kate Greenaway. The medal is given annually to an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature. It is awarded by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
in 2008, which is awarded for an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature.
Various of the books have so far been translated into Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, as well as Scottish Gaelic.
Books in the series
- Katie Morag Delivers the Mail (1984)
- Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers (1985)
- Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted (1986)
- Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins (1987)
- Katie Morag and the New Pier (1993)
- Katie Morag and the Wedding (1995)
- Katie Morag and the Grand Concert (1997)
- Katie Morag and the Riddles (2001)
- Katie Morag and the Dancing Class (2007)
- The Big Katie Morag Storybook (1996)
- The Second Katie Morag Storybook (1998)
- Katie Morag and the Birthdays (2005)
- Katie Morag's Rainy Day Book (1999) (activity book)
- Katie Morag Of Course (2003) (for slightly older children)
Omnibus collections
- Katie Morag Island Stories (2003) (collects the first four Katie Morag picturebooks)
- More Katie Morag Island Stories (2004) (collects the second four Katie Morag picturebooks)
- The Katie Morag Collection (1999) (contains the two Katie Morag storybooks)
Adaptations
Various proposals have been made for a television adaptation of the stories. The books were optioned in 1997 by the Scottish filmmaker Don CouttsDon Coutts
Don Coutts is a Scottish filmmaker best known as the director of the 2003 feature film American Cousins. He is also a documentary and music filmmaker who has worked on numerous current affairs and entertainment productions, including the late night discussion programme After Dark.-Biography:Don...
. In 2002-3 proposals for an animated series, initially of 26 eleven-minute films, were developed by him in association with Red Kite Animation in Edinburgh, with a pilot script by Peter Hynes. Later, in 2005, Coutts was reported to be developing a live-action series to be filmed on the island of Lewis
Lewis
Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The total area of Lewis is ....
. It was reported that a pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
had been made, with ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
interested in taking a series of 26 episodes, and the animated series still under development for the international market. However, perhaps because of the shadow of the children's series Balamory
Balamory
Balamory was a live action television series on British television for pre-school children, based around the fictional small island community of Balamory in Scotland. It was produced between 2002 and 2005 by BBC Scotland, with 254 episodes made...
, also set in a small Scottish west-coast island community, as of 2010 none of these proposals have so far reached the screen. Speaking in 2010, Mairi Hedderwick said she would be quite happy if the character only remained in books – she had no interest in "pencil cases", and would only want to see her creation dramatised, if at all, as a real character not a cartoon; but it was in the hands of her publishers.
A stage adaption was created by Lisa Grindall for Mull Theatre in 2005, based on characters and setting from the books, with a new story and songs. After a successful tour of smaller venues in Argyll and the Highlands followed by a week at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
in 2005, the production was revived as a Christmas show at the Byre Theatre
Byre Theatre
The Byre Theatre is a theatre in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. The original Byre Theatre was founded in 1933 by Alexander B Paterson, a local journalist and playwright, with help from a theatre group made up from members of Hope Park Church, St Andrews....
in St Andrews
St Andrews
St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
in 2007, and toured again in 2008.
In the 1990s Mairi Hedderwick turned down a proposal from Argyll and Bute Local Enterprise Company
Local enterprise company
A local enterprise company is a public-sector organisation in Scotland with responsibility for local economic development activities. The LECs form part of the two enterprise networks, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise....
to use the character to promote tourism in the area. However in 2007 she agreed to let NHS Highland
NHS Highland
NHS Highland is one of the fourteen regions of NHS Scotland. Geographically, it is the largest Health Board, covering an area of 32,500 km² from Kintyre in the south-west to Caithness in the north-east, serving a population of 300,000 people...
adapt illustrations from three of the books into posters for that year's Breastfeeding Awareness Week, a health-promotion campaign to promote breastfeeding
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
in the region, under the slogan "Breastfeeding... A Part of Family Life in Highland". Katie Morag's mum is occasionally depicted breastfeeding in several of the books, without any comment in the text. According to Hedderwick for her this merely reflects "the cosiness of the home and family, ... drawing her own experience of life with a growing family in a small island community". Nevertheless, one American library felt compelled to apply marker pen to an illustration in one of the earlier books, in which one of Katie Morag's mother's breasts is completely exposed.
A Katie Morag exhibition, featuring original prints and jacket covers, storyboards showing the development of a book, and character profiles created for the proposed animated series, was organised by the Scottish Book Trust
Scottish Book Trust
The Scottish Book Trust is a national organisation based in Edinburgh, Scotland for the promotion of literature, reading and writing in Scotland...
at the Scottish Storytelling Centre
Scottish Storytelling Centre
The Scottish Storytelling Centre the world's first purpose built modern centre for live storytelling, located on the High Street in Edinburgh's Royal Mile, Scotland, United Kingdom. It was formally opened on 1 June 2006 by Patricia Ferguson MSP, Minister for Culture in the Scottish Executive...
in Edinburgh in 2005, and re-mounted at the An Lanntair
An Lanntair
An Lanntair is an arts centre in the town of Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The centre is home to a cinema, and art gallery. Previously located in the Town Hall, in September 2005 An Lanntair moved to its current new building overlooking the harbour. This building features a 50-seater...
community arts centre in Stornoway
Stornoway
Stornoway is a burgh on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.The town's population is around 9,000, making it the largest settlement in the Western Isles and the third largest town in the Scottish Highlands after Inverness and Fort William...
in September 2006. Hedderwick regularly visits primary schools, leading storytelling sessions and explaining how her books are created, often accompanied by Katie Morag's teddy bear who travels with her in his own black bag. In 2009 she organised a special Katie Morag competition for schools, to raise money for the new community centre to be called An Cridhe ("The Heart") on Coll, which was won by Lowercroft Primary School in Bury
Bury
Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester...
.
Katie Morag was also featured in a half-hour television arts documentary made in 1993 for BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland is a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It is, in effect, the national broadcaster for Scotland, having a considerable amount of autonomy from the BBC's London headquarters, and is run by the BBC Trust, who...
's Ex-S strand, in which Hedderwick discussed the background to the stories and her plans for the character.
External links
- Katie Morag homepage at Random House UK
- Welcome to the Isle of Struay An introduction to some of the characters in the books
- Teacher's notes Some suggestions from Random House for use of the books in the classroom
- Interview with Mairi Hedderwick (audio, 5 min 24 secs) by girls from Primary 2, Carleton Primary, Glenrothes, Fife
- Katie Morag with Mairi Hedderwick (audio, 50 mins), children's event, Edinburgh International Book FestivalEdinburgh International Book FestivalThe Edinburgh International Book Festival, is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square, in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital...
, 14 August 2010