Author Andy Griffiths is often approached by young adults who tell him: “You were my childhood.” A generation of kids grew up reading the Melbourne-based author, from the Just and Bad books to the Treehouse series. Griffiths is responsible for helping millions of reluctant readers worldwide find joy on the page.
Part of the attraction is his irreverent subject matter, from pranks and bum jokes to oddball characters: the books are filled with madcap antics and absurd propositions that make kids laugh out loud. Equally important are Terry Denton’s brilliant visuals, which we’ll come to later.
A lesser known but significant player in creating the books is Griffiths’ wife Jill, who is also his editor – and a much-loved character in the Treehouse series. At her suggestion, we’re dining at For Change Cafe, a social enterprise that trains vulnerable people in hospitality. Located at the former Middle Park stop along the light rail, it serves only plant-based foods.
As we checked out the menu, Jill recalled why she became a vegetarian as a child: a grade 6 excursion to an abattoir. She opts for the reimagined sausage roll, Andy the big breakfast, while I choose the crispy Sichuan tofu. Our coffees and a kombucha are served with a warm welcome, typical of the venue’s service.
A massive eucalypt nearby is a reminder of why we’ve gathered: the final installation of the Treehouse series, which was published this year. The series began in 2013 with The 13-Storey Treehouse, and there were 13 subsequent books, published in 35 countries, and about 13 million copies worldwide sold.The books are being adapted for the screen by one of the big Hollywood studios, an idea often mooted. The timing now seems fortuitous, with the written series complete. “We’ve seen the current [script], which is really a brilliant lateral take on it that I could never have done myself,” Andy says. “This scriptwriter clearly understands the whole thing at a very granular level.”
An encyclopedic guide to the 150 Treehouse characters, from Mr Big Nose and the Spy Cows to Superfinger, was published recently. “I wish we’d had it at the start,” Andy jokes.
While a book-by-book proposition, the series had its genesis in “a week’s madness with Terry”, during which they’d gone away to brainstorm and came up with the idea of a treehouse. “But it came out fused with two other books, one being What Body Part is That? and the other was our Killer Koalas from Outer Space,” Andy says. “So I brought this big mess home to Jill, and then we sat down for a week and we wrote it out in prose. That was the version where it gets destroyed by killer koalas in the second chapter.”
