Katie Morag

Katie Morag is the title character of a series of children's picture books written and illustrated by Mairi Hedderwick. The gentle stories have been praised for their good humour, strong sense of place, and the feisty and independent (sometimes even "thrawn") character of Katie herself. The books are set on the fictional Isle of Struay, off the west coast of Scotland. Katie Morag lives close to the jetty above the island's only shop, where her mother is the postmistress and her father runs the general store. Katie Morag series Much of the topography, and also characters and situations, are inspired by Arinagour on the Scottish island of Coll in the Inner Hebrides, the island where Mairi Hedderwick lived for a number of years, and where her daughter still runs a handmade pottery store. In the books the small island community is connected to the mainland by a ferry which initially only comes once a week, on "Boat Day" (later three times a week, after the building of a new pier in the fifth book). A key character in the books is Katie Morag's "Grannie Island", who lives further round the bay, and is generally found in her dungarees often driving or fixing her tractor, or surrounded by cats around her Rayburn stove, in contrast to Katie Morag's altogether more douce "Granma Mainland". Grannie Island was widely hailed, as for example "a positive image, a celebration of the strength of women, and a challenge to gender stereotyping" – a happy accident, as Hedderwick had originally planned for the character to be male, until her North American publisher demurred; but not inappropriate, as Hedderwick was as likely as not herself to be found behind the wheel of her old tractor at the time. In England a short National Curriculum Key Stage 1 Geography unit for six- and seven-year-olds, called "An island home", has been linked to the series and in particular the book Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers. The book Katie Morag and the New Pier has also been used as a peg to discuss how communities can gain and lose from change. The most recent book in the series, Katie Morag and the Dancing Class, was a nominee for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2008, which is awarded for an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature.