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Kaj Hagstedt grew up in Hjärup and has lived in Lund for a long time. He is an actor and director by training and worked for many years with various television productions, such as children’s programs such as Amigo, The Broken Rabbit and We in the Five. When he finally left the world of television, it was for a new career as a teacher.
– I felt that I was not completely satisfied with working in the film and television industry, says Kaj Hagstedt. I wanted to do something that made more sense to me and where I could get involved and influence. So, three and a half years ago, I started studying to be a teacher.
Parallel to the teacher training, Kaj Hagstedt also began to realize an old dream of writing a book.
– I’ve taken many writing courses over the years, he laughs. When I started reading pedagogy and gained a deeper understanding of how children read today and how important it is, the idea for a children’s book was born.
The main character in Kaj Hagstedt’s debut Framtidskameran is 12-year-old Emma, who lives in a small town in Scanian with her mother and father. Life is hard enough for Emma when the book begins. She mourns her grandfather who has just passed away, at school she is alone after her best friend Elin has moved and at home there is a shortage of money and the father is also at risk of losing his job at the local sugar factory. Plus, he and his mother are determined to sell their grandfather’s lovely old photo shop. However, it turns out that Grandpa has bequeathed Emma a very special camera that can photograph things that happen in the future. Suddenly, your life becomes more exciting and dangerous.
The idea for Framtidskameran came from the beginning of a drama series about crying children, which Kaj Hagstedt planned but never got rid of.
– When I thought about it again, I had also recently become a father and bought the latest mobile phone to take a lot of photos, he says. I thought about this with the fact that they used to make photo albums but now they just take a lot of photos that are uploaded to some cloud somewhere. Then the idea of combining the idea of the drama series with a story where a photo becomes very important also came up. That was the very foundation.
Both the town where Emma lives and the sugar factory where her father works are fictional places, but the environmental inspiration is Skåne and more specifically also Arlöv and the old sugar factory there.
– I live in Lund and have traveled to Malmö a lot over the years and have really enjoyed seeing the Arlöv sugar factory. It is a fantastically beautiful building, says Kaj Hagstedt. During my training as a teacher, I also planned lessons on how Arlöv grew as a place. Since the basic idea was intended for television, I also thought it would be a great place to film.
Kaj Hagstedt wrote for Framtidskameran for three years and this spring sent the finished script to various publishers.
– Already in July he signed for Idus and then they got a final script in August so it was incredibly fast. It was absolutely nothing that I expected and I am truly grateful. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy it, especially now that I’m starting to get reactions from both readers and teachers.
While Kaj Hagstedt was studying to be a teacher and writing for Framtidskameran, he also continued film production and has made a large number of films for the National Education Agency’s Läslyftet project, and encouraging children to read both at home and at school. school is something that is very close to your heart. Therefore, he has written a Future Camera teacher’s guide in the hope that the book can be used in teaching.
– That’s why I also have many different themes in the book, he explains. I imagine if you use it in teaching, maybe a school can choose the LGBTQ track that is included or you can, for example, work with sustainable development and poison in the food industry. The fact that the book is a mix of realism, fantasy, and science fiction also means that it can be adapted to many different readers.
Continue with enthusiasm
Of course, Kaj Hagstedt also hopes that he himself, as a writer, will be able to talk about the camera of the future in school classes.
– It is always exciting to talk about literature. It doesn’t matter if you like the book or not, you can just have a conversation about what feelings and thoughts are awakened, I’m satisfied, he says.
In the future, Kaj Hagstedt hopes to combine the teaching profession with continuing to write fiction. And the next book, which is also aimed at readers between the ages of 9 and 12, is already underway.
– It is based on all the fires that have occurred in Lund and schools and kindergartens that are on fire and two children who decide to set fire to those who are there. It will be exciting and a little more in the detective story, he reveals.
Done
Born: 1976 in Brunflo, grew up in Hjärupp
Background: Television actor, director and producer who worked with children’s programs such as Amigo, Den itusågade kaninen and Vi i femman and also made teacher training films for the Swedish National Education Agency Läslyftet. He educates himself as a teacher and makes his debut as a writer.
Current: With the children’s book Framtidskameran (9-12 years old) that was published by the Idus publishing house in mid-October.
… how to encourage children to read more: “I think the basis should be for parents to read, to have reading models. Today, when traveling by train, for example, not many adults have a book. I also think that many people find it very nice to sit and read together when children are young, but then when they can read on their own, they think nothing else is needed. But then all the social context is lost. A great goal for me with my book would be if I could get, for example, a father to sit down with his 12-year-old daughter and read together. I think if you’ve sat down and talked about a character who’s going through a difficult time, you’ve also laid the groundwork for the day when the daughter comes home and needs to talk about something that is important to her. “
