The Places You Will Go

'There is a light at the end of the tunnel': Why novelist Alan Garner's reality is tinged with mysticism - Features, Books - The Independent

Fifty years on from his first novel and it's still unclear whether Alan Garner is in touch with an alternative reality or just the 'dream-maker' he claims. Here, he explains how he died three times and why spending two years in the foetal position is not the best career move

Interview by Robert Chalmers

A life in writing: David Almond | Culture | The Guardian

Leave standing ... Skellig author David Almond has gone from unpublished to a Hans Christian Andersen gold medal in 12 years. Photograph: Mark Pinder for the Guardian

David Almond had just posted a collection of stories to his publisher when the opening sentence of Skellig popped into his head. "I wasn't thinking of anything; I was planning to take a few days off. I dropped the manuscript in the postbox, turned away, and bang! Skellig was there."

Lara Jones obituary | Books | The Guardian

Lara Jones was best known for the Poppy Cat series

via guardian.co.uk

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My daughter the children's author and illustrator Lara Jones, who has died of malignant melanoma, aged 34, was best known for her Poppy Cat series of books. She produced other characters (Lola and Binky, and Davy the Dinosaur) and illustrated books by other authors (I Want a Mini Tiger by Joyce Dunbar being her final work), but Poppy Cat was her most successful endeavour, selling millions of copies worldwide. It is currently in production for television, to be screened on the Nick Jr channel in the autumn.

The Associated Press: Australian author Patricia Wrightson dies at 88

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Australian author Patricia Wrightson dies at 88

By ROD McGUIRK (AP) – 3 days ago

CANBERRA, Australia — Patricia Wrightson, the internationally acclaimed Australian children's author who attracted praise — and then criticism — for entwining Aboriginal mythology into her writing, has died at age 88.

In 1986, Wrightson was awarded the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal — the highest accolade for a writer of children's fiction — given by the Swiss-based International Board on Books for Young People for an author's body of work.

She died of natural causes on March 15 in northern New South Wales state several days after being hospitalized, her son Peter Wrightson said Thursday.

David Almond wins Hans Christian Andersen medal | Books | guardian.co.uk

David Almond, who won the Hans Christian Andersen medal for his 'unique voice' Photograph: Garry Weaser

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An international jury of children's literature experts this afternoon decided to award the world's most prestigious prize in children's literature to British author David Almond.

Almond, who won the Carnegie medal and the Whitbread children's prize with his first children's book Skellig, the story of a boy who discovers an angel in a derelict garage, was selected as winner from authors around the world, seeing off finalists from Iran, Brazil, Sweden and Denmark to win the medal. Given biennially since 1956 by the International Board on Books for Young People for an author's complete works, the award comes with no money but much honour: past winners include much-loved British children's writer Eleanor Farjeon, Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren and Moomins author Tove Jansson.

Hot Men of Children's Literature VI: David Larochelle

David Larochelle has the best smile of any author I have ever met.

Actually, I haven't met David but I feel I have. We've emailed and he very generously sent my children an authographed copy of his picture book The End.

David's also written one of my very favourite picture books, The Best Pet of All (illustrated by Hanako Wakiyama).

Absolutely, Positively Not is David's YA novel about a boy who's coming to terms with his sexuality.

To read more about David and his work, go to his website at davidlarochelle.net.

A Conversation with Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak on Life and Living

Jennifer Ludden (National Public Radio)  interviews the famed author and illustrator of books for young readers, best known for 1964's Where the Wild Things Are.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination: An Interview with Shaun Tan

From StarMag

Interview by DAPHNE LEE

MOST people tend to associate picture books with simple stories, illustrated with simple, brightly coloured pictures. Of course, those with a more intimate knowledge of this medium of storytelling know that there is more to picture books than just pretty pictures that simply offer a visual description of a straightforward, basic text.

Picture books may deal with complex and difficult themes and subject matter, and this may be reflected in either the text or the art, or both.

Shaun Tan is a picture book artist whose work is definitely more complex than what the average person might expect to find in a alphabet or counting book. I know people who started collecting picture books after they read one of Tan's. The Melbourne-based 35-year-old started his career drawing for science fiction and horror novels. His art appears in picture books written by John Marsden (The Rabbits) and Gary Crew (The Viewer and Memorial) and he also illustrates his own books (The Red Tree, The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia).

Tan's art is striking and detailed, rather surreal in content and style. The richly tinted, deeply unsettling images in The Red Tree manage to convey the idea of that small glimmer of hope that keeps many people going through the worst of times.

In The Arrival, the pictures are sepia toned, alternating between panaromic views and personal studies that relate the story of a man as he attempts to make a living and home in a new land.

Tales from Outer Suburbia is a collection of 15 short ... I hesitate to even call them stories. Some seem like fragments that have no beginning or end. Most tantalise the reader, offering glimpses into strange worlds or strange views of this world.

Tan's father hails from Ipoh, Perak, and met his Australian wife when he was an engineering student in an Australian university. Tan was born in Perth and visited Malaysia when he was a boy but doesn't remember much of it.

Apart from writing and painting, he has worked as a theatre designer, and did concept art for the films Horton Hears a Who and Pixar's WALL-E.

Browne Laureate

Picture book author/illustrator Anthony Browne has been named the new Children's Laureate.

He takes over from Michael Rosen and will fill the post for the next two years.

Read the full report here.

A gallery of Browne's illustrations can be viewed here.

Hot Men of Literature IV: John Green

John Green is the author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns.

This is the third bespectacled writer whom I've chosen for my Hot Men of Literature series. I think this says less about my taste in men than it does about writers being short-sighted and not fond of contact lenses.

(I think Green looks like a geeky version of John Mayer and and a much more attractive version of Mayer too. And, for some strange reason, I hear Your Body is a Wonderland in my head when I think of Looking for Alaska - not that I even like that song whereas I really like the book.)

You can watch Green answer questions from readers on YouTube here and here.