My interview with the illustrator of The Gruffalo and other books by Julia Donaldson could not be reproduced in full in StarMag today because of the lack of space (books don't get many pages and I think that's not just in Malaysia).
Anyway, it's just as well that this blog exists.
John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat
By Jenny Wagner
Illustrated by Ron Brooks
Publisher: Puffin Books, 32 pages
John Brown is an old English sheep dog. He belongs to Rose, an old widow, and is a deeply devoted companion. Says Rose, "We are all right, John Brown. Just the two of us. You and me." But one night, Rose notices a cat in the garden. A midnight cat. She is fascinated by the cat. John Brown doesn't approve. He tells the cat to leave. But Rose wants the cat. She longs for it. She leaves it milk in a bowl, which John Brown tips over. Finally, Rose takes to her bed and declares that she might stay there forever. John Brown is sad and decides that, because he loves Rose so much, he will put up with the midnight cat. This is a strange picture book - quite gloomy and sombre. The midnight cat is slightly sinister - could it be a symbol of death? When John Brown finally allows the cat into the cottage, is he really accepting Rose's death? Perhaps being a true friend includes being able to let go.
Review by DAPHNE LEE
SLAM
By Nick Hornby
Publisher: Penguin, 342 pages
(ISBN: 978-0141324494)
I THOUGHT Slam was going to be about skateboarding. I was wrong and glad I was wrong. I used to skateboard when a teen - to impress a huge crush I had, who roller skated, but I didn't do any impressive stunts and I didn't think I'd be interested in reading about a guy doing them. However, as I said, Slam is not about skateboarding. It's just about Sam who skates and who worships the air skating champion Tony Hawks flips through.
He's so into Tony Hawk (or TH as he calls him) that he talks to a poster of the skater (skateboarding and skateboarder, Sam says, would be terms used only by losers) and, as he's read Hawk's authobiography contless times, finds it really easy to imagine his hero talking back, giving him advice, offering opinions, telling him where he's gone wrong and what he's done that's worthy of praise.
Anyway, Sam is a 15-year-old lad who lives with his single mum. Near the start of the book, Sam morosely reflects that his family isn't the sort that goes from strength to strength, each generation doing a little better than the one before. Instead, everyone just takes turns to make stupid mistakes that put paid to any hopes of success: "In our family," Sam says, "people always slip up on the first step. In fact, most of the time they don't even find the stairs."
By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens
MOST children now, if you say Winnie-the-Pooh to them, will think of that saffron-yellow tub of lard in a two-sizes-two-small red T-shirt, star of Disney's several series, all of which are based on A. A. Milne's books about the "bear of very little brain".
The latest Disney series is called My Friends Tigger and Pooh, and as usual, there is an annoyingly catchy theme song and characters who Milne would not recognise from his books.
Watching any of Disney's Pooh series makes me want to wring the bear's neck and also bash his friends, especially Tigger and Rabbit, to a pulp. Pooh, Piglet and Tigger are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer (understandable since they are toys who have stuffing for brains), but their stupidity reaches new, unchartered depths in the telly series. And the usually shrewd Rabbit (my favourite character in the original books) appears to be suffering from some form of dementia - worse still, Disney portrays him as a rather effeminate and neurotic elderly male.
But back to Edward Bear (that's Pooh's real name, although we also learn that he once lived in the forest under the name of Sanders) - the books he appears in are Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). The former introduces us to the bear and his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga and Roo, and Rabbit and Owl (the only two of the gang who are real animals and so, in theory, more brainy than the rest). Pooh has a growly voice and he does Stoutness Exercises. It's established that he is rather greedy, a bit of a coward, quite brainless, but perfectly amiable.
Continue reading "Say "No!" to Sham-Pooh! We Want the Real Pooh!" »
Axel Scheffler, illustrator of The Gruffalo and other picture books like Room on the Broom, Monkey Puzzle and the Tales from Acorn Wood series was in town for a week (12th to 19th June) as the guest of the Goethe-Institut.
Scheffler was invited to launch the Contemporary Picturebook Illustrations in Germany Exhibition, held in Kuching on the 14th (it has now moved to Miri), and to speak at a seminar.
On 18th June Scheffler held a workshop at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in Kuala Lumpur.
IT’S easy to understand why bears are so popular with children (and many adults). They are attractively rotund, cuddly (looking) creatures which children readily identify with through that favourite of toys, the teddy bear. There are plenty of bears in children's lit. Pooh is arguably the most famous of them all, thanks, in part, to Disney. But my favourite literary bear is Little Bear.
He is the creation of Else Holmelund Minarik, although my impression of him is largely formed by the illustrations, done by my favourite illustrator of all time, Maurice Sendak!
By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens
PADDINGTON Bear is 50 years old this year! I'm not a big fan of the series about the little bear (I have only read the first book, A Bear Called Paddington ), but have never been able to resist the bear himself, as drawn by the original illustrator Peggy Fortnum, or his mysterious past in Darkest Peru.
Paddington, who has a Peruvian name that he never divulges, lived with his aunt Lucy until she went to live in a home for retired bears. He then emigrated to England
where he met the Brown family, of 32 Windsor Place, London, at Paddington station.
When you first meet Paddington, he's a scruffy-looking thing sitting on a battered suitcase. All he has on is a wide-brimmed hat and a label, on a string around his neck, which says "Please look after this bear. Thank you."
Peggy Fortnum's sketches in the first chapter show messy fur in a vague bear-shape, including a snout that speaks volumes about its owner's curious and enquiring mind. Paddington reveals that he is rather partial to marmalade, and enjoys the odd sticky bun. An accident at tea leaves him plastered in strawberry jam and causes the driver of the taxi the Browns hire to say, "Bears is six pence extra ... Sticky bears is nine pence." This, in my opinion, is the high point of the book.
Today is the 80th birthday of Maurice Sendak, my favourite picture book illustrator of ALL time.
Happy Birthday, Mr Sendak, and MANY, MANY more!!!
By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens
WHO remembers reading The Magic Faraway Tree? When I was about six, I discovered this book and the others in the series, and re-read them constantly.
I was recently reminded of these magical stories when I found The Enchanted Wood (the first book in a series of four) in a box sent all the way from Yorkshire, England.
The box contained things that those who had filled it felt were quintessentially English. It was sent to Kuala Lumpur and, in return, a box, filled with quintessentially Malaysian things, was sent to Yorkshire.
The exchange of boxes was just one component of a year-long cultural exchange project between young Malaysian and English arts practitioners.
On opening the “York box”, each Malaysian participant chose an object that “spoke” personally to him or her. Of course, I chose the book.
Not only was it significant to me because I write about children’s lit, The Enchanted Wood also immediately reminded me of my childhood.
StarMag
By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens
A MEMBER of an online children’s lit discussion group I belong to recently highlighted a vanity press publication called My Beautiful Mommy. She had written to The Boston Globe criticising an opinion piece the newspaper had run.
In the piece (www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/15/the_mother_of_perfection), the writer, Abigail Jones (co-author of Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School) talks about how more and more women, including mothers, are turning to plastic surgery and implies that this situation has given rise to the need for books like My Beautiful Mommy.
Continue reading "Are Some Mums More Beautiful Than Others?" »
May 2008
Kate, the Cat and the Moon
By David Almond
Illustrated by Stepehn Lambert
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books, 32 pages
Kate wakes one moonlit night and is invited, by a white-furred, blue-eyed cat, to join him on an adventure in dreamland. The best part of this escapade is that Kate experiences it as a pretty grey-striped cat! Even the moon morphs into a beautiful feline and joins Kate and her new friend on their journey, through the dream-filled skies. This book is very like Lane Smith's "The Big Pets" in its magical, dreamy feel, and the glowing illustrations that look like they've been dipped in milk!
Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Macmillan)
The Goldsmith's Daughter, by Tanya Landman (Walker)Bad Blood, by Rhiannon Lassiter (Oxford)
Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling Books)
Before I Die, by Jenny Downham (Definitions)The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness (Walker)
The Knife that Killed Me, by Anthony McGowan (Definitions)
The winner, who will receive a cheque for £1,500, will be announced in late September. This year's judges are Jenny Valentine, who won last year with Finding Violet Park, Mary Hoffman, author of The Falconer's Knot and Mal Peet, author of Keeper.
My old friend Sunita was mentioned in my column today and I received a text from her that said, amongst other things, "Did we stalk cows? Were there cows in Jalan Pawang?"
Jalan Pawang was the street we lived on in Segamat, Johor and no, I don't think there were ever cows there. In fact, I didn't actually stalk cows with Sunita. My fellow cow-stalker was my mum and we did it in the field facing my great-grandmother's house in Kolam Air! It was just more convenient and space-saving to say that I terrorised cows with Sunita.
By the way, the cows were not actually terrorised. Even the little calves knew how to lower their heads and butt. And a little calf with a knobbly head is still quite a large, scary thing when you're a short, fat kid.
It seems every other celebrity wants to write children's books. I suppose it's only a matter of time before our own Malaysian famous and shameless also start.
I wouldn't recommend it unless one is passionate about writing, and about writing children's books in particular. It would help if you've also read at least some kids' books.
I'm being very careful with my next picture book. Don't want to rush it as so many things went wrong with the first four, not least that I was foolish enough to be persuaded to write and publish FOUR at a go.
This week's column also touches on child authors. I don't think they should be published unless their age didn't influence the publisher's decision and is not a factor when it comes to reviewing them. What's your stand on this?
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June 2008: Jenny Wagner (Author) & Ron Brooks (Illustrator): John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat
John Brown is an old English sheep dog. He belongs to Rose, an old widow, and is a deeply devoted companion. Says Rose, "We are all right, John Brown. Just the two of us. You and me." But one night, Rose notices a cat in the garden. A midnight cat. She is fascinated by the cat. John Brown doesn't approve. He tells the cat to leave. But Rose wants the cat. She longs for it. She leaves it milk in a bowl, which John Brown tips over. Finally, Rose takes to her bed and declares that she might stay there forever. John Brown is sad and decides that, because he loves Rose so much, he will put up with the midnight cat. This is a strange picture book - quite gloomy and sombre. The midnight cat is slightly sinister - could it be a symbol of death? When John Brown finally allows the cat into the cottage, is he really accepting Rose's death? Perhaps being a true friend includes being able to let go.
