The final Tots to Teens of 2007 (and next week's: the first of 2008) see me struggling to find something interesting to say. 2007 has been a crazy-busy year and I need a holiday.
But, I'm looking forward to the library, which we hope to launch in March.
I think a good children's library will help in encouraging children to read - so long as their parents don't interfere. Half the fun is making your own choices and mistakes, experiementing with genres and discovering what floats your boat. It's strange how the people in charge of books for children seem to have forgotten why they loved to read when they were kids.
Tots to Teens
By Daphne Lee
AND so we come to the last Sunday of 2007 - cor blimey! Christmas, by the time you read this column, would have come and gone, but it’s early, very early on Christmas morning as I type it and I have opened most of my presents - the books, of course.
Amongst the loot is Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence (Puffin Books, 800 pages, ISBN: 978-0140316889) to replace my tattered old copy. I can’t throw the latter away though (its yellowing pages are soaked with 19 years worth of memories - interestingly, it‘s almost the exact same age as the kind soul who got me the new copy), it’ll just be retired and spared future manhandling (I get the urge to re-read the books at least once every couple of years).
Speaking of old favorites, I’ve been re-reading some of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books - the ones that feature Granny Weatherwax. A couple of weeks ago, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. The first thing I thought when I read the news was, “Oh my goodness, what if there isn’t a fourth book about Tiffany Aching?” I immediately felt guilty, but then I wondered if it was really the most natural and honest way any fan of Pratchett‘s books can react to the news.
One of my favourite books this year was Wintersmith (Corgi Children’s Books, 352 pages, ISBN: 978-0552553698), the third Tiffany Aching book (originally published in 2006, but I waited for the paperback): Winter falls for Tiffany and she very nearly lets the attention (Tiffany-shaped snowflakes, blizzards and icebergs in her honour) get the better of her. However, as this is Tiffany, her head’s turned just briefly and she’s soon digging her heels in and taking responsibility for her actions as befitting the girl most likely to inherit Granny Weatherwax’s pointy hat.
Other young adult books I enjoyed were Marcus Sedgewick’s Blood Red, Snow White (Publisher: Orion Childrens Books, 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1842551844), which has been nominated for the Costa children’s book award; The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press, 544 pages, ISBN: 978-0439813785) by Brian Selznick , which made The New York Times’ list of best illustrated children’s books; and Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award-winner, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Publisher: Little, Brown, 240 pages, ISBN: 978-0316013680). All three books are about individuals who have to deal with self-doubt, loneliness and rejection; they are all also inspired by real people.
Sedgwick’s novel is a fictionalised account of the life of children’s author Arthur Ransome; Hugo Cabret pays homage to the films of Georges Melies; and Alexie’s Part-time Indian is based on his own experiences as a teenager living on an Indian reservation forms.
I wonder how British publishers will label these books in the new scheme, to be introduced next year, to recommend titles according to reading age: Early (for five years plus), Developing (7 plus) Confident (9 plus) and Fluent (12 plus). According to the Times online, it’s “an important breakthrough for children’s literacy”. Why? Because it helps dithering parents decide what books to get for their children? Sorry, but parents just have to spend half an hour talking to their kids to figure out what they want to read. And if a book has some hard words or complicated sentences, well, that’s what dictionaries and parents (I’m leaving teachers out of this!) are for.
How can any labelling be useful? I can imagine some kids being put off because a tag says the book they want to read is for babies, or intimidated by a book that’s supposed to be for older kids. Sensible parents will ignore the labels and tell their kids to simply read whatever they please.
Happy 2008 and happy reading!
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