The Places You Will Go

Picture Book of the Month: Balloon Cat

August 2006

BALLOON CAT

By Keiko Sena

Translated by Peter Howlett and Richard McNamara

Publisher: R.I.C Story Chest, 32 pages

I was in a bit of a foul mood this morning, but cheered up when I read Balloon Cat by Keiko Sena (translated by Peter Howlett and Richard McNamara.

The illustrations alone would have made me grin, but the text sealed the deal.

Balloon Cat reminds me of Ekath, my No. 2 son, and when I read the bit that goes: "I don't want to share with my baby sister. Why? Because I'm all puffed up with anger!" I howled with laughter.

Balloon Cat is always angry and sulky and puffed up. To tell you the truth, he rather reminds me of myself. (This is why I like Little My in Tove Jansson's Moomin books, because she is always angry!).

In the end, Cat puffs up so much than he flies off into the sky, leaving his mama calling below. Yes, that's sad, but I have faith that he will soon miss his mama and float back down into her arms. Or maybe he will get even angrier and find himself on the moon!

Peter Grows Up ... Or Does He?

Peter Pan in Scarlett, the official sequel (written by Geraldine McCaughrean) to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, will be published on 5th October.

A number of editors and journalists in the UK and US have been given the manuscript and asked not to release reviews until the book is in bookstores.

So how did The New York Times come to publish parts of the story?

Read more, and more, and more.

Guilty Pleasures

Tots to Teens

Star Mag, 27th August 2006

Short on Plot, Good for Snorts

Frivolous Fun

First Books

The Guardian First Book prize longlist has been announced. The books are:

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (left)
By Yiyun Li (4th Estate), stories

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living
By Carrie Tiffany, above (Picador), fiction

Harbor
By Lorraine Adams (Portobello), fiction

John Donne: The Reformed Soul
By John Stubbs (Viking), biography

Lonesome George: The Lives and Loves of a Conservation Icon
By Henry Nicholls (Palgrave Macmillan), natural history

A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveller
By Jason Roberts (Simon & Schuster), biography

Running for the Hills
By Horatio Clare (John Murray), memoir

Poppy Shakespeare
By Clare Allan (Bloomsbury), fiction

Waiting for the Night-Rowers
By Roger Moulson (Enitharmon), poetry

In the Country of Men
By Hisham Matar (Viking), fiction

Read more.

My favourite first book: F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise.

Sister Acts

Tots to Teens, Star Mag

20th August 2006

Love Lost & Found

Horror of Horrors! It's the Undead and They're Wearing Ungaro!

Raced through Vampire Beach: Blood Lust (Simon Pulse, 196 pages) by Alex Duvall last night.

It's set in the exclusive world of designer-clad teens a la The Clique, The A-List and Gossip Girl. The only difference is the popular kids here are vampires, which means they are even more terrifyingly perfect than the teens in the other series. Yes, this is the first book in a series.

Check out the tacky cover. It's so ... Miami Vice, or is it The OC? (Malibu Beach is the setting for the story.)

So, how about a series about teenage pontianaks in Sentul Convent? Or hip-hop werewolves in Brickfields? What about zombie mat-rempits in Kajang? I should be cashing in - what the hell's wrong with me?!

When Screen Characters Fall Short

Tots to Teens, Star Mag

13 August 2006