As much as I enjoyed Lord of the Rings and even Eddings' Belgariad, I was always puzzled by the fact that when the heroes won the war, what the people ended up with was an absolute monarchy with no votes and no say. It may have even been Feudal. So, if we are lovers of democratic rights, should this appear in our writing?
When I wrote The Stink, which is set in North London in the seventies, I really couldn't tell a tale about people living then without confronting the political climate of the time. I am not talking about who was Prime Minister or what policies the main parties had, but the politics of the street and the culture; how we dealt with one another.
Politics doesn't have to be in books for kids, but when it is there in the environment, the writer should deal with it, not hide it away. Young people deserve better than pretending it doesn't happen.
