The Places You Will Go

Plans for 2009

Every year I tell myself I have to keep a record of every book I read. This year I wrote down the titles of books in a notebook, but I stopped doing so after about a month.

In 2009, I plan to upload the cover image of books I've read onto a new blog I've created.

It's called Twelve Ladies Dancing (a completely random title) and, so far, I've uploaded every thing I've recently read (as far as I can remember). Starting tomorrow, I'll upload images of book covers as I complete them. I hope I'll stick to this!

My other plan for 2009 is to keep a daily visual record of the year. I have an exercise book-cum-diary arranged by month, with a box for each day. I plan to stick a picture in each of the boxes. The picture is supposed to say something about the day itself. I know it's not going to be easy but it will be, I hope, a fun challenge. Wish me luck.

The End of an Odd Year

And then it was New Year's Eve!

Goodness, can you believe it will be 2009 tomorrow? What an odd year 2008 has been, for various reasons, but as I say in my column (out in StarMag this Sunday), it was a great reading year.

Over Christmas I read Summer's Ending by Helen McClelland, which was one of the books in the Christmas parcel from Helen. The book starts off in Penang, Malaya, which Helen thought might be interesting for me, and so it was!

The book is about two sisters. Margaret and Jean. It's 1939 and they live in Penang, in a big colonial-style house by the sea, with their parents. But this is just in the first couple of chapters. After that they are shipped off to boarding school in Surrey, England.

The boarding school is a convent. I have always enjoyed reading about convent schools (having been to two myself) and this one was very well portrayed, with lots of details about the school, how it's run, the nuns, and the students.

Although Frost in May, by Antonia White, is one of my favourite books set in a convent school, I dislike how grim the school (the Convent of the Five Wounds) in that book is and how strict the nuns are. The students seem almost to be bullied by the sisters in that book. The nuns at my two schools were mostly lovely so it was nice to read about kind nuns in Summer's Ending.

The book led me to do some research on the two convent schools I attended. I don't know why I never until now took the trouble to find out more about the orders that founded the schools. The first school, which I attended from age five til 11 was the Canossian Convent (motto: "Via, Veritas, Vita", which means "the way, the truth, the life", badge on the left), founded by the order of the Sisters of Conossa, an Italian order. The second school was a French convent, The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (motto: "Simple dans ma virtue, forte dans moi devoir", which means "simple in virtue, steadfast in duty", badge right, read more about the history of the convent here). I was there from age 11 and a half til 17.

Of course, by the time I attended those schools, most of the teaching staff were not from the sisterhood. However, nuns still lived on the premises and I was taught by some (I still remember their names and what they looked like).

There were chapels in both schools (the one at the Canossian Convent was beautiful - I used to tiptoe in and wander around, completely spellbound) - crucifixes above the blackboards in all the classrooms (I believe these were removed in the 90s) and statues of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. At the Canossian Convent, the statue was in a grotto in a garden on a little hill that you had to climb a long flight of uneven stone steps to reach. All this is now gone and the convents are more or less like any other school in Malaysia.

Oh, I have to add that the nuns at the Canossian Convent wore longer habits than the ones at CHIJ. I was quite surprised when I changed schools and first encountered CHIJ nuns and their legs! The skirts were virtually minis (well, not quite but compared to the skirts of the Canossian nuns, they were quite daring!). Also, the CHIJ nuns wore blouses with normal collars, whereas the Canossian nuns wore high collars - they looked a little like dog collars.

However, I found the Canossian Convent more relaxed, academically. At CHIJ the girls did nothing but swot and compare marks. I hated it and after my first month there, I faked apendicitis so I could skip school!

Early Christmas Presents

I've received several presents from friends and have put them all under the tree for Christmas day (that's tomorrow!).

But today I received a parcel from Edinburgh, which is where my friend Helen Vincent lives and works. Helen is also one of I-Shan's godmothers.

Helen's parcel contained books that were not wrapped so I have decided to enjoy them as early Christmas presents. What a lovely hoard! There are books for me, and for the children too.

Here's the list:

1. The Players and the Rebels by Antonia Forest
Until now I only owned a photocopy of this book. This means a re-read.

2. Celebrating Antonia Forest - a collection of essays about the Author and her work
AF is my favourite GO author so I'm reading this tonight!

3. The Marlows and their Maker by Anne Heazlewood
Ditto

4. The Magician's Boy by Susan Cooper

5. The Small Pleasures of Life by Philippe Delerm
a "meditation of life's small pleasures", including a banana split, the smell of apples, and the motorway at night.

6. Eleanor Farjeon's Book: Stories-Verses-Plays, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
Farjeon and Ardizzone! This alone would have made me a very happy bunny.

7. Goblin Island by Elsie J. Oxenham
Oxenham's very first novel.

8. The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by E. H. Shepard
I once had a picture book version of this book, but it wasn't illustrated by Shepard. A good book for Ekath.

9. Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Lucy Richards

I-Shan will love this.

10. The Seventh Tide by Joan Lennon

"A teenage shape-shifter called Eo. A boy from the 6th century called Adam. A girl from the 20th century called Jay." It's a signed copy. Elesh should like this time-travel adventure-quest.

11. Orders to Poach by Olivia Fitzroy
In Helen's words, a "story of terribly poor aristocrats who while away the summer killing deer".

12. Summer's Ending by Helen McClelland
This one takes the reader "from colonial Malay to Scotland, via a brilliantly-portrayed convent school in Southern England". Wow, Malaya and a convent school. I'll have to start it tonight as well!

The book right on top of the pile came from Penguin Books, for review: Words & Pictures: Writers, Artists and a Peculiarly British Tradition, by Jenny Uglow. Can't wait!

Thank you, Helen! (And thank you, Penguin Books too.) You've made my day and my Christmas!

P.S. I'm currenty reading The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolff and I don't want it to end. Really, really adore the story and the characters. I want it to be the first of a series of 10 books, but, sadly, it's not.

P.P.S. Christmas music: Not specifically Christmassy, but I'm enjoying Mischa Maisky [left] playing Bach (cello sonata Nos 1-3) and Vivaldi (cello concerto in A minor and cello concerto in B minor).

Charity Begins at BookXcess

Another long-overdue announcement ... I would say I'm losing it, except I don't think I ever had it in the first place ...

BookXcess has some fantastic books on its shelves, and, as always, they're so reasonably priced.

This Christmas there are lots of great deals, plus the chance to give back to the community. The two posters (left and right) have all the details ...

Short Story Writing Competition

This is a long-overdue announcement.

Details of the competition, organised by MPH, are here.

I'm supposed to be one of the judges of the teen category, and I'm looking forward to the experience, but dreading it too.

The last time I judged a writing competition (for teens) was in 2003 and most of the stories were angst-ridden or absolutely heart-wrenching. Are teenagers really going through hell or do their hormones just tell them so?

Margery Gill 1925-2008

The illustrator Margery Gill died on 31st October. Her obituary appeared in The Guardian yesterday, along with a gallery of her work.

She drew the covers of the Puffin editions of Antonia Forest's Kingscote books, and determined forevermore how I imagined Nicola and Lawrie Marlow, and Tim Keith. She drew faces that were as recognisable as those created by Shirley Hughes, and she and Hughes are the illustrators that spring to mind when I think of books that brightened my childhood.

Picture Book of the Month: The Tiger Who Came to Tea

December 2008

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Written and Illustrated by Judith Kerr

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books, 32 pages

ISBN: 978-0007266449

ONE day, just as Sophie and her mum are sitting down to tea, a tiger shows up on their doorstep and asks, most politely, if he can join them?

The tiger is so well-mannered and so handsome. Sophie and Mummy are only too pleased to have him as a guest.

However, they don't anticipate how hungry and thirsty he is - so thirsty that after he's finished off the milk and tea and lemonade, he proceeds to drink ALL the water in the tap.

What a tiger though. With his benevolent smile and the gentlemanly air with which he wears his striped fur coat (as though it were a bespoke suit!), he would be welcomed in many houses and allowed to drink up many tapsful of water!

Here is an interview with Judith Kerr. It appeared in The Guardian on 29th November, 2008.