The Places You Will Go

Mad About Monsters

Tonight I'm starting Alan Snow's Here Be Monsters, Vol. 1 of The Ratbridge Chronicles. It won't be available in Malaysia til November but you can read more about it here and on the official website, and I will post a mini review when I'm done with the book (it's lovely and fat).

What's really exciting about HBM (for me) is that it's bursting with pictures. I loved (still do) the illustrated chapter books that were published when I was a child and I hope we'll be seeing more of the same in the future. Perhaps HBM will re-start the trend!

Alan Snow is a brilliant illustrator - I became a fan after reading his picture book How Santa Really Works. Really love the detail that goes into his pictures.

Anyway, do check out the HBM website!

Telling Stories: The Gruffalo at Ampang Point

On Sunday (2 October) I will be reading and singing Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo at San Francisco Coffee in Ampang Point.

San Francisco Coffee has been organising these storytelling sessions for a while now. A great way to promote literacy - and create a future generation of San Francisco Coffee clients ;-) ! Well, it's not that they aren't getting programmed anyway - and in worse ways.

At the moment attendance is limited - those who are interested have to email in and places are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Later on, we hope to do more sessions and, so, allow for more kids to attend.

On 30 October we'll be doing Room on the Broom at SFC's outlet at the Securities Commission. Should be excellent fun.

If You're Lazy and You Know It, Post a Picture

Too lazy to write so I'm just going to post some pictures of animals reading. I know, I know...

The Adventures of Eyeris: Dressed for Success

Eyeris is doing research on super heroes by watching a lot of cartoons and googling cartoon websites. This might be a sign that he's going to start choosing (finally) ...

• 1. His super hero costume - please, Eyeris, no underwear over your jeans!
• 2. What he's going to fight for - justice, peace, the end of reality TV?
• 3. His theme song - no contest - it's Stayin Alive!
• 4. His powers - Eyeris has so many but he's found that by the time he figures out which one to use, the villains have done their dirty deeds and left.

How exciting. The next time we see Eyeris he may be wearing fluorescent, skintight leggings!

If you'd like to offer Eyeris any advice about anything to do with superheroes, just concentrate hard and chant his name three times. He will hear you and respond immediately ... well, make that in about three months time. Sending him an email too will help speed up the process.

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

The shortlist!

The Merrybegot by Julie Hearn (Oxford, £5.99) Age: 10+

The Boy in the Burning House by Tim Wynne-Jones (Usborne, £4.99) Age: 10+

The Hunted by Alex Shearer (Macmillan, £4.99) Age: 11+

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson (Doubleday)

Read more, including what children say, here.

Teatime with Daphne

So I'm supposed to do this thing next Saturday. A "sharing" sessions with mums, about books, not parenting, heaven help me! ;-)

It should be fun.

Picture book of the Month: I'll Be You and You Be Me

September 2005

I'll be You and You be Me

By MRuth Krauss

Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Publisher: Michael di Capua Books, 40 pages

You know how thrilling love at first sight is? That was how I felt when I opened the book – and promptly fell deeply in love with it.

Its great charm is that the text sounds like Krauss is repeating verbatim the words of children: “Love is the same as like – only you spell it different – only more of the same, sort of – Love has more stuff in it!”

And, of course, Sendak’s pictures! Drawn entirely in fine black ink, there’s a spontaneous, doodly air about them, and a tremendous sense of mischief and fun about his rendering of little people. One can’t help but exclaim, “Cute!” and, “How sweet!” Truly, this is a very cute and sweet book, but not in a sickly, icky way.

It’s about friendship and love, and the funny little scraps kids get into. And it’s also about how children see the world – with imagination and honesty and the best sense of humour. “You look just like an elephant,” says a little girl to her friend. “Oh, thank you very much!” comes the gracious and delighted (and delightful) reply.

“I think I’ll grow up to be a bunny before I grow up to be a lady,” says another tiny tot, to which a little lad responds, “I think I’ll grow up to be a steam-shovel.” This is just one of the many instances when the book made me laugh out loud. My eight-year-old enjoys the humour too and I think so will all children (and adults) who enjoy letting their imagination run havoc.

I’ll Be You and You Be Me goes straight to the top of my “must have” list.

Mini Review: Totto-Chan

Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window

By Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Translated by Dorothy Britton

Illustrated by Chihiro Iwasaki

Publisher: Kodansha Europe

This is my first Japanese children's book, recommended to me by my bookseller friend, Kit, when she found out that I was trying to read more Japanese fiction.

However, it's actually not a work of fiction, but based on the childhood of its author (a popular Japanese actress, author and talk-show host, philanthropist, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and WWF-Japan director), focusing specifically on her experiences as a student at Tomoe Gaukuen, an experimental school in Tokyo, Japan.

The school was founded by one Sosaku Kobayashi who obviously loved children and had unique ideas about how they should be raised and enducated.

Reading about the school, I was filled with envy and longing. Tomoe no longer exists, but educators can learn much from its example.

The book describes Totto-Chan's adventures as a curious, imaginative little girl. She is deemed "impossible" by the teachers in her first school and is expelled, but Kobayashi welcomes her with open arms, and, for Totto, Tomoe is a dream come true, a place where she is allowed to achieve her fullest potential and given the freedom to explore her suroundings and express herself to her heart's content.

If only schools like that existed today. I'd enrol my kids in a flash.

Totto-Chan is broken up into very short chapters, each one relating a short incident or commenting on an interesting aspect of the school or Totto's life and upbringing. It's an easy read - simple, unaffected and charming - and also rather funny.

Totto and her classmates are cute, but the hero of the book is, without a doubt, Kobayashi who was ever optimistic and always ready to see the good in every child.

For more info on Kuroyanagi, read Wikipedia's entry.

The Adventures of Eyeris: "Please" is Poison

You know how Superman turns to jelly when he's exposed to kryptonite? Well, the words "Please" and "Thank you" make mush out of Eyeris. Evil villains, take note! Just be very, very polite and this not-so-super hero will be putty in your claws!

Eyeris's other weaknesses:

Nubile young babes, preferably of the blow-up variety. (Real flesh and blood is too scary!) Offer him a freshly-blown babe and he is yours to bid as you please.

Robert Jordan - wave a book by this bloke under Eyeris's nose and he is compelled to read it, all the while screaming "It's so crap!". While he is thus distracted, grab your chance to conquer the world.

The Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive. The song plays and Eyeris's feet go out of control. They take on a life of their own and he ... struts! While strutting Eyeris is unable to give chase to villains.

N. B. This weakness doubles up as a one of Eyeris's dubious powers: The sight of the lad strutting has been known to accelarate pregnancies from the just-planted stage right to the time-to-pop stage in three minutes flat.

Eyeris, like Spidey, knows that with great power comes great responsibility and avoids maternity wards like the plague.

What a "hero"!

Ownership Papers

If you've ever won a book as a school prize it probably came with a book plate stuck inside the cover or on the title page.

I won such a prize for poetry writing at my sixth form college, but as I was infamous for not turning up for classes I missed the assembly when this book was handed out. I was then asked to pick up the book from the teacher's common room, but I just never got round to it. The committee who awarded the prize was decidedly miffed and withdrew it totally. Ha-Ha, what a chequered past!

Well, I do regret my indifference. Most of all I regret the book plate that was in the book (a friend got a prize for a science project and so I know for a fact that there were plates in the prizes).