The Places You Will Go

Picture Book of the Month: Ish

March 2004

Ish

Peter H. Reynolds

Publisher: Walker Books

Ramon loves to draw. He draws everything he sees, and he draws all the time. When big brother, Leon, laughs at his efforts, Ramon loses confidence and decides never to draw again. Well, thank goodness for little sister, Marisol, who gets Ramon to see that there's much more to art than getting things picture perfect!

In Brief

Another short post with interesting links to literary news, reviews, interviews etc:

1. Like Lauren Child's collage style illustrations and kooky stories? Read Joanna Carey's thoughts on the writer/illustrator in Fish Fingers and Chandeliers.
2. A new collection of verses by Philip Larkin, thanks to whom sexual intercourse and the Beatles will forever, in my mind, be linked, has been published. Read the review of Early Poems and Juvenilia.
3. Check out the Sunday Times (UK) children's book of the week: Traction Man is Here by Mini Grey.
4. Filthy? Frustrated? Sex-obsessed? Was Charlotte Bronte really hot to trot? Read all about it in Reader, I Shagged Him.
5. Most of us are familiar with the fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen, but what about the man behind them? His biographer reveals the dark and complex man who is Denmark's greatest writer. Click here for the story.
6. Jacqueline Wilson fans, read a review of her latest teenage novel, Clean Break.
7. In 1998 Canongate published the books of the bible with introductions by writers and celebrities including Bono, Joanna Trollope and the Dalai Lama. These intros have now been compiled in a book called Revelations. read the review in Gospel Truths.
8. Rejection slips are an aspiring writer's nightmare, but some just shrug and decide to self-publish instead. Dominic Prince meets some of this determined breed in A Most Unlikely Story.

And She's Out!

On Monday, Kholida, my children's nanny tripped, fell and dislocated her right ankle. Things have been pretty chaotic (to say the least) at home since then.

Kholida will be out of action for the next six weeks (at least). As a result, I'll be rather busy for the period, doing the children's laundry, a bit of cooking, and other chores, and so I probably won't have time for more than the ocassional post until she's well again. (I can't imagine how Kholida does it. Just three days on the job and I'm fit to drop!)

Well, thank goodness I'll still be able to read - I do most of it while I'm breastfeeding I-Shan. Not, however, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell because the book is HUGE and I'm afraid I might fall asleep and drop it on baby!

In Brief

More links to interesting book news, reviews etc:

1. Geraldine McCaughrean has been chosen to write the sequel to Peter Pan. The objective of this project is to give Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children a new source of income. In The Art of the Sequel, The Independent Online wonders whether the magic can be repeated and looks at other successful and not so successful sequels.
2. Since The Rule of Four (sometimes called "the literary Da Vinci Code"), by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, was released in Britain two weeks ago, it has sparked so much interest in the Renaissance text that inspired it that publishers Thames & Hudson are bringing out a paperback edition of the Venetian tale to satisfy demand. Read about it here.
3. And if you're a fan of Dan Brown's best seller, The Da Vinci Clones suggests some similar books ...
4. Dragon Tamers is a new fantasy novel written by 13-year-old Emma Maree Urquhart. Apparently it's a real page-turner (but then that's also been said of Christopher Paolini's Eragon and Flavia Bujor's The Prophecy of the Stones) and a movie version is on the cards. Read about it here.
5. Not another young adult novel about teenage pregnancy! Actually, there are several which are excellent and this new one, Love, Fifteen, by Ros Asquith, is one of them.

Little Girls are Made of ...

Today's Tots to Teens in Star Mag is less about books than it is about my little girl, I-Shan. I didn't decide to write what I did until the very last minute (some days, the ideas are a bit slow coming), but it's true that I was inspired by Tiffany Aching, heroine of Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men.

When I read about Tiffany grabbing a saucepan and running off to fight a monster with it, I thought: "Now, that's the sort of girl I want I-Shan to be."

Picture Perfect: Imagine a Book

Last Sunday's Tots to Teens featured this month's "picture perfect" books: Imagine a Day, The Red Book and The Jupiter Stone. Click here to read about these very special books that celebrate imagination as a doorway to endless worlds, adventures and possibilities.

In Brief

Too busy to blog properly, but here are links to some interesting articles/reviews at the Guardian Unlimited website:

1. A review of The Wish House, a young adult novel by Celia Rees.
2. An interesting and illuminating piece on the teenage Jane Austen and her juvenilia.
3. Articles on the Orange Prize for Fiction, here and here.
4. A story discussing the possibility of Arthur Ransome being a spy for the Russians (I like him more and more!)
5. Waterstone's Bookstores launches a campaign to celebrate great fictional villains and anti-heroes.

Happy Reading!

Musical Interlude

This post has nothing to do with books. It's to do with music which is my other passion.

Eyeris, in Musical Blog-chainmail Fun posted the following music-related questions/answers and then asked a few of us other bloggers to answer them. Well, I don't have to be asked twice! So here goes:

1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
532MB. I don't download any actually. Anything I have is saved from CD so I won't have to keep walking to the CD cabinet for my fave albums.

2. The CD you last bought?
Gosh, this is a hard one. I haven't bought a CD in a long, long while because I've just been listening to stuff I already have. Hmm ... I think it's Carly Simon's Hotcakes album.

3. What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?
Matthew Jay's Let Your Shoulder Fall. It's regular "morning" music. Sets me up for the day.

4. Write down five songs that you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
1. Matthew Jay's Let Your Shoulder Fall.
I like playing this really loud in the early morning.

2. Destiny's Darling by Katell Keineg
It's one of my favourite love songs. I love the line: "I love you, don't know what it means but I mean it."

3. Circle Game by Joni Mitchell
This reminds me of my childhood, when it was a big hit! Joni's voice is beeeeuuutifool and the words mean so much esp now I have kids of my own.

4. One Hell of a Life by Katell Keineg
A very, very positive song that I enjoy singing at the top of my voice.

5. Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band
This is my favourite DMB song. The fiddle makes you want to dance.

Strangely, no David Bowie ... ;-)

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
1. Amelia - because I believe she's a music fan.
2. Edward Gomez - who started my band with me - because I know he likes questions like these. (He's not a blogger tho.)
3. Liz Tai because I realise I know almost nothing about her musical tastes and it will be interetsting to see what she says.

Gimme. Gimme, Gimme: A Wee Free Man

I'm nearly half-way through Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men and I absolutely love it - thanks Eyeris for the loan!

I admit that I was avoiding starting the book because it's so highly recommended by Eyeris and I thought I wasn't going to like it, since I've never really taken to Pratchett (I dislike telling people who love a book that I didn't enjoy it because when it happens the other way around I feel really sad). Well, I guess my fears were unfounded. I'm now trying to make it last as long as possible. And then, I'll have to borrow the next bit of the Tiffany story: A Hat Full of Sky (isn't that a wonderful title!).    

Mini Review: Get Spooked - Eerie Tales to Chill Your Bones

GET SPOOKED: EERIE TALES TO CHILL YOUR BONES
By Freaky Nick
Publisher: Times Editions, 142 pages
(ISBN: 9833001068)

What It's About: Get Spooked is a new series of ghost story collections. Each book is supposed to contain stories that stick to a particular theme. Most of the time the themes seem pretty general though, as you can see from the one I've just read.The two collections mentioned in the back of the book are Terrifying Tales Untold (although, now that they're in a book, shouldn't they be Terrifying Tales Told?) and Experience the Unexpected. There's another title, Spirits of the Forest, listed on Amazon.com.