OXFORD Reading Tree is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a series of writing competitions, parties and readathons. The UK-based author-illustrator team of Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta has recently showed up at a reading event with the local readers to encourage them to read as well as learn English.

“Children here identify with its characters, they love the humor in the stories and, best of all, it helps them to develop a lifelong love of reading,” said Hunt, the author behind the series of stories.

Over the past 30 years, Hunt and Alex have created over 400 stories about a family with children’s best-loved characters: Biff, Chip and Kipper. They started from phonetic books so that children can practise their letters and sounds, to little fiction and non-fiction stories specially written to introduce and practise a range of everyday key words.

“As an author, one has to become the reader. I decided the ‘child in me’ is about five years old! So I tried to see the world through the eyes of a small child and identify those experiences that would be familiar to very young children,” Hunt said.

In 2012, both Hunt and Brychta received the MBE Honor (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, for their life-long work with the Oxford Reading Tree.

“I couldn’t be more proud of it, especially since I was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the UK at the age of 11 without knowing a single word of English. This is a great honor. But just as humbling is the knowledge that our little books have inspired over 30 million children in over 130 countries around the world to learn to read. And the number is growing every day,” Brychta said.

The Oxford Reading Tree will develop the stories further — possibly longer and more complex — just so that the language level increases in complexity as children’s reading scope grows.

Each book includes practical tips and ideas, puzzles and fun activities. The series also provides essential support for teachers and parents through www.oxfordowl.co.uk, all you need to know about phonics and lots of fun activities and free eBooks.

Hunt and Brychta talk with Shanghai Daily about their experiences and their plans for the future of Oxford Reading Tree.

Roderick Hunt

Q: How did you start to write the series of the Oxford Reading Tree 30 years ago?

A: I was invited to research a ‘reading scheme’ that would replace the popular material being used. I had no experience in teaching children to read at the infant level, so I had a completely open-minded approach when I did the research on reading methods for beginning (or infant) readers.

Q: How and from where did the characters and the story lines come about in the beginning?

A: It seemed to me that I had to have a cast of characters that would give me scope to be as flexible and creative as possible. A family of five plus a dog means I have, in theory 6x5x4x3x2x1 permutations of characters to work with.

So a mum and dad, boy and girl twins, a mischievous younger brother and a largish affectionate dog seemed the way to go.

Q: How did you decide the text levels to highlight the language features?

A: The phonics stories follow predetermined levels based on the match between sound(s) and the letter or groups of letters that represent them. In the stories that do not follow a phonic progression, the stories become longer and more complex and the language level increases in complexity as we move up the levels.

Q: From the original 30 stories to over 400 now, what has been your experience with the growth of the Oxford Tree? Any memorable moments?

A: Imagine having a job that is so rewarding and is such fun as well! It has been a great privilege to have been instrumental in creating a reading program that is so widely used both in the UK and in so many countries worldwide. A recent memorable moment was to experience the excitement that was felt by a group of our Shanghai readers on meeting Alex and myself. We felt like pop stars (well almost!). What a lovely moment!

Q: Will you ever run out of your stories? Where will you get your inspiration for your stories?

A: No never! The reason is that the characters themselves let me know what might be a good story! Seriously, as a writer I have developed ‘antennae’ so I am constantly in a ‘state of alert’ looking for a passing remark, funny incident or scenario anywhere, any place, any time which might lead to a story!

Alex Brychta

Q: How did you get to work with Rod?

A: After Rod had written the first few stories for the Oxford Reading Tree, he and the editor were on the lookout for a suitable illustrator. Several illustrators were asked to draw samples of the characters, but Rod had an image in his mind which none of those samples matched. Then someone showed Rod a book I had written and illustrated. It was about a boy called Danny. When Rod saw it, he said, “That’s exactly how I imagine Kipper.” So that is how I met Rod. That was 33 years ago.

Q: How were the images created in the first place ... I mean, in terms of clothes, shoes, hairstyles, habits and hobbies?

A: Before I started illustrating Rod’s stories, we worked together on the look of the characters. Kipper was set – as Danny in my book Wishwhat – but we had to work out how the others would look. We went through many sketches of Biff, Chip, Mum and Dad and Floppy the dog, and eventually decided on having the twins with brown hair like Dad, and Mum with blonde hair like Kipper.

We agreed that the children should have casual clothes, not reflecting any current fashion trends. This was a good decision since the characters did not have to change in three decades and still look fresh today.

Q: Is it always the text that is created first and pictures second? How do you work with Rod in this process?

A: The text always comes first, although on a few occasions, I helped Rod with the story concept. Rod also provides me with an ‘art brief’ in which he tells me how he imagines the story visually. Sometimes the story changes a little to suit the visual flow of the book.

Q: What’s your experience with the growth of the Oxford Tree?

A: The Oxford Reading Tree has become my life’s work. Working with Rod has been a joy and there is a growing team of wonderful people helping us along the way. These are all wonderful, dedicated people and experts in their respective fields.

Q: Will the kids grow in the pictures as the stories grow? How will you imagine them when they become young adults?

A: Biff, Chip and Kipper only grow a couple of years over the span of the books. This reflects the fact that the children who read the books only grow that much. For slightly older children (in Key Stage 2) we have Biff, Chip and Kipper a few years older in the TreeTops series the Time Chronicles. On a few occasions, I have tried to imagine what the children would look like when grown up, but in all honesty, to me, and I am sure to all our young readers, Biff, Chip and Kipper will always stay young.