Amanda Owen: 'My children read everything from Christopher Marlowe to tractor manuals'

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It was a love of reading James Herriot that inspired Amanda Owen to become a farmer, and then an author.

She is a huge champion of the benefits of getting children into reading from a young age - and that it doesn’t matter if children are rea ding a tractor manual or a comic book – or in the case of her nine year old daughter Nancy the poems of Christopher Marlowe – as long as they are reading.

"The quickest way to turn children off reading is to force them to read something they aren’t interested in,” says Owen who has just been named a Penguin National Year of Reading Champion.

As we talk Owen is interrupted by Nancy – one of Owen’s nine children with her ex-husband Clive. She is keen to tell me about what she has been reading.

"I love ‘I Saw God on the Train’ and ‘Your Boy's Last Compliment’ (poems by Lucas Jones),” says Nancy. “I also lake Tiger Tiger Burning Bright and the Lady of Shalott.” I am not sure how many other nine-year-olds can quote the works of Alfred Tennyson amongst their favourite reading.

Owen has just published her second book for children, Cosy Bedtime Stories, from the Farm featuring ten stories inspired by her real-life countryside adventures with her nine children at Ravenseat Farm in Swaledale. Some of the characters – both human and animal - will be familiar to followers of the Owens on television from programmes such as Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm and Channel 4’s Our Farm Next Door.

“I’m never stuck for stories and tales with so much going on on an everyday basis,” says Owen, 51. “There is no such thing as a typical day on the farm so the stories keep coming thick and fast.”

Although not fairy tales, the stories in Cosy Bedtime Stories, which is written for parents and children to enjoy together, doesn’t include some of the more brutal sides of living on a working farm.

“Working with children and animals there is always going to be chaos and disaster at every turn, but this is a gentle and peaceful book, when everything goes according to plan, although it is still very real.

"Something you can reach out and touch and see and connect through various different platforms – you can read the book, you can cross reference it to posts on social media and on television. If you read about the animals in the book you can then follow their everyday lives.”

She is a huge champion of the benefits of getting children into reading from a young age - and that it doesn’t matter if children are rea ding a tractor manual or a comic book – or in the case of her nine year old daughter Nancy the poems of Christopher Marlowe – as long as they are reading.

The book is written by Owen, but she says it was done very closely with her children, who themselves appear in the stories.

"It is great to be able to talk to the children about their recollections, what they remember. It is very much an ongoing conversation with them.

"And further down the line it will be a wonderful reminder of what was happening on the farm at the time.”

Owen says bedtime at Ravenseat at the moment is “a bit of a free for all as it’s the summer holidays. If I manage to round them up and get them into the correct bed then that’s a win.”

She has always read to and with her children, although as her older children have grown up they have taken over reading to the younger ones – the children range in age from Raven aged 24 to nine year old Nancy.

"We’ve always been readers but not necessarily what would you might call the classic bedtime story. I remember sitting in bed with Clem (now ten) and her reading would change depending on the seasons. We’ve had many a happy night sat in bed going through the Hayne’s Guide to lambing sheep.

"The other day Nancy was reading Christopher Marlow’s poem The Passionate Shepherd which is an idealised vision of the countryside and then Walter Raleigh’s response.

"It’s like an online spat in the 1600s. If you can get a child into reading and reading classical poetry like that but put a modern slant on it it makes me smile.

"The key for me is letting them read what they want to read. Hand Sid his farm machinery magazine and he will read it. Each of the children are different as to what interests them.”

As a child Owen said she was a big reader, but never fiction.

“All I ever wanted was a full set of encyclopaedia but I never got one because they cost a fortune. I wasn’t interested in reading fiction. If the story hadn’t happened in real life I wasn’t interested.

"All the books I read were about animals, agriculture and farming as that’s what interested me and that was all off the back of watching the James Herriot series on TV.”

She says she reads a lot less now than she did, partly due to lack of time but also due to the fact she is now a writer herself having written seven books.

“The worst thing about writing for yourself is that you become hyper aware of picking up someone else’s train of thought. I do still read as I have shelves full of books but I now tend to dip in. I am now really interested in local history and my surroundings.”

The farmhouse is full of books, she says, and you can spot the most loved ones as they are the most dogeared and coffee stained with ripped pages as they have been past from child to child.

"Moses the Kitten is one of those and that’s a James Herriott one.” She says another tip for reading to children is finding a book you also enjoy.

"Who wants to read a book to a child that you can’t stand yourself? You are more likely to read it if you can be invested somewhat in what its saying.

"But then eventually you want them to take over the mantle and read for themselves.”

She is also a big fan of a physical book rather than a e-reader like a Kindle.

"A few years ago we were told it was the end of the book but that didn’t happen there is something about a book, the scribbles in it, the fusty smell and the illustrations and pictures and the feel of it.”

In writing Cosy Bedtime Stories from the Farm Owen says she wanted to offer a glimpse into life on a real working farm and the childhood her children have had.

And while not preaching there is definitely a subtle message about the importance of protecting that way of life. "I am hoping it will be a conversation starter – like the conversations I have with my children about what’s happened on the farm that day. They are critical as the children remember things that I don’t.”

Illustrations by Becca Hall, help bring to life the countryside characters - both two legged and four - you'll find at Ravenseat Farm, and just how fun life can be when everyone mucks in together.

Owen has also includes quizzes and a glossary of farming terminology to enhance the reading experience – whether child or adult.

Does she have a favourite story from the book ? "I think everyone loves the one about Tony the Pony who came from Appleby Horse Fair.

"I think it is one that will stay with a lot of people for a long time. He was on the television as well. He is still with us on the farm still is and it’s an ongoing story.”

Cosy Bedtime Stories from the Farm by Amanda Owen (published by Puffin, £14.99). The audiobook is narrated by Amanda.