The Places You Will Go

Picture Book of the Month: The Lost Thing

April 2007

The Lost Thing: A Tale for Those Who Have More Important Things to Pay Attention To

By Shaun Tan

Publisher: Lothian Books, 32 pages

A boy encounters a "lost thing" on the beach. Despite it's huge size, no one else seems to notice it, being too busy with ... life. At home, it towers over his parents, as they read the papers and watch telly, but remains "invisible". When the thing is pointed out to them, they make irrelevant comments and then ignore it again. The boy decides to find a place for the lost thing to go. He sees an ad in the paper, posted by The Federal Department of Odds and Ends, whose motto is "Sweepus underum carpetae". It claims to  be the place for lost things. The boy sets off, with the thing, to find this department, but gets mysteriously directed elsewhere. Will the lost thing ever belong? And what about the other lost things in this world. Do we even notice them or do we have more important things to pay attention to?

Facing Your Daemons

Speaking of film adaptations of favourite books, The Golden Compass (based on Philip Pullman's Northern Lights) will be released, in early December this year (around the same time as Prince Caspian).

I have reservations about Nicole Kidman playing Mrs Coulter. She looks like a 1940s movie star in the stills! But I like the look of Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala, the witch.The website is interesting. The Meet Your Daemon section will delight anyone who's used Hobbit-name generators and the like!

The Dark is Rising ...

I suppose it was only a matter of time before they messed up another good book ...

When Harry Potter became a hit and the movies came out, I wondered why no one was raving about Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper, or wanted to make any of their books into movies.

Since then Hayao Miyazaki has turned DWJ's Howl's Moving Castle into an anime, and I've just found out that Walden Pictures has bought the movie rights for Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence. A film based on the second book (The Dark is Rising) is due out later this year.

Uncle Cleans Up

UNCLE is an elephant. He is immensely rich, and he's a B.A. He dresses well, generally in a purple dressing gown, and he often rides about on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car.

He lives in a house called Homeward, which is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers, all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea of it."

The above paragraphs make up the foreword for Uncle Cleans Up by J. P. Martin.

I am featuring illustrations from the book, which is the second in a series of six, all illustrated by Quentin Blake, who is best known for his work with Roald Dahl. (By the way, the books are out of print, although a two-in-one edition of the first two books was re-issued about six years ago by Red Fox. The first book, Uncle will be re-published in June this year under the The New York Review of Books imprint.)

Blake's quirky drawings go well with Martin's rather mad story and even madder characters. Uncle, pompous, eccentric, and bursting with charisma, is definitely my favourite fictional elephant. Babar who? Uncle tips the scales on all counts!

Middle Earth Triumphs

StarMag, 29th April 2007

Classic fantasy is the clear winner

Here it is, folks, Malaysia’s top 10 favourite fiction titles!

THE Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic tale of the struggle between good and evil, is a clear favourite with Malaysian readers.

It topped StarMag’s poll of Malaysians’ top 10 favourite works of fiction by a large margin, garnering 25 more votes than the Harry Potter series, which came in second, followed closely by the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Good Reads

Tots to Teens's latest picks for a rockin' bookshelf are highlighted in StarMag's Reads Monthly pullout.

Get 25% with the coupon (available only in the newspaper) ... one coupon valid for just one book.

Junior Reading Room

This week's Junior Reading Room features books that are both informative and engaging. Cut out the coupon (available only in the newspaper) to enjoy 25% discount, on the featured books, at Kinokuniya Bookstore.

Reading Pictures

Daphne Lee

I-Shan Reading (2007)

Ha-Ha, I couldn't resist posting this picture of my two-year-old "reading".

Pictures Save the Day

First published on 8th March, 2002 in StarTwo

Review by DAPHNE LEE

ONCE

By James Herbert

Publisher: Macmillan, 400

(ISBN: 978-0333761403)

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Anniversary Celebrations

To celebrate the anniversary of the CILIP Carnegie Medal (outstanding children's book, 70th year) and Kate Greenaway (outstanding illustrations in a children's book, 50th year) Children's Book Awards, top 10s in both categories have been announced. You can also vote for your favourites here. (The results will be announced on 21st June.) For more about the awards go here.