Okay, I admit it. I’m mad. Well, not all the time. But a lot of the time.
Oh, not bats in the belfry mad. Or going out with my knickers on my head mad.
More steam hissing out of my ears mad. Hopping up and down mad. Wanting to scream at the world mad.
But don’t feel sorry for me! Oh nononononono! Because for a writer that kind of mad is a VERY GOOD THING. The sparks of my madness fire my imagination, the fury of my madness makes me sit at my laptop, and all that heat and steam and fizzing? Well, that powers me to write poems and stories, to try to wake up the world to all the things that are wrong. To make people get off their bottoms and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Like cruelty to animals.
And kids working long hours in sweatshop factories in poor countries just so that people her in the UK or the US can follow fashions without it costing them too much. If you didn’t know about what bad conditions a lot of fashion clothes are made under, you probably do now, since the collapse of the building in Bangladesh last month, when over a thousand people were buried and killed.
They were making clothes for shops on our high streets.
In my second Seriously Sassy book, Pinch Me, I’m Dreaming, Sassy is so mad about the fact that children are often working in these factories, she wrote this song:
Sweatshop Kid
She slaves every day in a clothes factory
Nine years old and she doesn’t get to play
She sews and she stitches from dawn until dusk
To make cheap clothes for people like us
So why do we buy them? Why don’t we care?
Would we feel the same If we were working there?
Would you turn away and not want to know
If the kid who was slaving was your little sis or bro?
We care about the polar bears, the penguins and the trees
So why not care about sweatshop kids like these?
Sweatshop kid, it shouldn’t be this way
While we’re having fun It’s you that has to pay
Sweatshop kid, it shouldn’t be this way
While we’re having fun, You never get to play . . .
So, you see, being mad is quite sane really. Young people should be mad. Mad about stupid wars that really didn’t need to happen, about people starving in poor countries while people in rich countries dump half their food in the bin, mad about elephants being hunted and killed just for the ivory in their tusks.
So, there you go. Be mad like me. And help change the world!
Maggi xxx
GirlsHeartBooks 
Hi, Maggixxx Lovely post!xx
I know exactly what you mean. Although I’m not much of a ‘young person’ any more (I won’t tell you how old I am), I get very cross about all kinds of things. I believe that arty things can change the world: not just by showing up the bad stuff, but by pointing out the stuff that’s brilliant so people can see why the world’s worth saving.
My sister isn’t as keen on saving the world as I am, which is something we clash about. I think we could do a lot, both abroad and here at home, if we all pull together.
Thanks, Jade. Glad you liked the post. Arty things can change the world. let’s keep trying! x
Hi Magi, glad your not THAT mad at the group, (don’t be please or i’d be afraid of you and sit somewhere else..) 🙂
See you Thursday! 🙂
Hehe! You’ve met me, so you know I’m mad, Laura! Funny mad, that is. See you on Thursday! 😀 x
You know it’s funny but a few of my friends were just saying today that I get rather mad about certain things like people being selfish with resources and not thinking about others, global warming etc. and people taking up the whole of the hallways and walking very slowly…
And now I can tell them that it is all very good and fine if I’m Mad! Quite, Quite Mad!
Yay! Join me in the Quite, Quite Mad Gang! Who knows, we might even change the world, Faolan. 😀
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead.
I’ll join you in the mad!
Welcome aboard, Jane! That Margaret Mead quote is in Seriously Sassy (the first book). Sassy has it on a poster on her wall. Each book has a famous quote along these lines. It really is one of the main things that drive me to write for both adults and children.