The Places You Will Go

Fish Out of Water

By DAPHNE LEE

Tots to Teens, Star 2 on Sunday

I’M told that mermaids are the next big (floppy and wet) thing in YA fiction. A rather anatomically inconvenient mythological creature to write about if you ask me. The tail, of course, would be an excellent method of birth control. In fact, it would prohibit sexual intercourse altogether (wouldn’t it? My knowledge of aquatic vertebrate anatomy is practically non-existent) and this would surely meet with the approval of nervous parents and those who promote sexual abstinence among the young.

And what about the settings of these books? Mermaids have restricted mobility and any action would have to take place by the sea, on the sea or in the sea. I’m not sure if they need salt water to survive. If not, then at least these mermaid characters could also hang out in a swimming pool, or bath-tub. At a pinch they might also be propped up in a shower stall with the water running.

In The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, a mermaid manages to replace her tail with legs and feet, but at great cost. Every step she takes with her new feet, feels like she’s walking on sharp knives. I have always found this story really off-putting because of the extremes this little twit is willing to go through for a man.

What Love Means

It’s a question that fascinates this young adult fiction author — and her many teen fans.

By DAPHNE LEE

AND it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”

It was this bible verse (Genesis 6:1-2) that inspired Lauren Kate’s Fallen series. The books are about the romance between Lucinda or Luce, and Daniel, a boy whom she meets at a reform school. Daniel, it turns out, is a fallen angel with angelic looks to match.

“When I read the line from Genesis something about it struck me – that such a complicated, tragic sacrifice that could be made for love,” said Kate who was in Kuala Lumpur early this week as part of a world tour to promote the Fallen series. “It sounded like the start to a really interesting love story and made me wonder who that girl could be – why would an angel look down from heaven, see her, a mortal woman, and fall in love with her? Why would he give up so much for love?”

R.I.P. Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 – 26 March 2011)

This calls for a massive re-read of all Diana Wynne Jones's books.

Her books started me reading fantasy fiction and she remains my favourite creator of stories in that genre.

Read The Guardian obituary here.

Michelle Paver wins Guardian children's fiction prize | Books | guardian.co.uk

Michelle Paver, winner of the Guardian children's fiction prize.

Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via email from daphnelee's posterous

The writer Michelle Paver has won the 2010 Guardian children's fiction prize for the concluding volume of her bestselling Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, Ghost Hunter. Set in an imagined prehistory, the series follows a young boy called Torak, who finds he can communicate with a wolf cub, and becomes his companion.

White Time by Margo Lanagan | Book review | Books | The Guardian

I picked this up with a slight sense of temporal displacement – a perfect state of mind in which to read a collection of short stories from the winner of the 2009 World Fantasy Award (for the brilliantly surreal Tender Morsels). White Time predates that book by nearly a decade and has only now been published in the UK as "new".

There is a great deal to admire about these stories, not least the author's terse, angular prose and her extraordinary talent for creating hybrid worlds. As in the best fantasy and science fiction, the characters and settings are familiar enough to resonate emotionally while remaining wholly other; Lanagan's vision of the world skews effortlessly towards the seriously weird.

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón | Books | The Guardian

Before the international runaway success of Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón was an award-winning children's writer in his native Spain. The Prince of Mist, in fact, was Zafón's first published novel, back in 1993, and was followed by three more children's books. At last reaching these shores in English translation, does The Prince of Mist offer tantalising clues of the world-beater to come? Will it thrill the millions of English Shadow of the Wind fans?

To be honest, I have absolutely no idea, being one of the handful of living adults in the UK not to have read Shadow of the Wind. This does, however, mean that I approached The Prince of Mist as the children who are meant to read it will, without baggage or expectation. I can also answer the more important question: does it deliver on its own terms? The answer is a qualified yes.

Angels are People Too?

By DAPHNE LEE
Tots to Teens

IN a Publishers Weekly article (tinyurl.com/yjn7yme) about this year's Bologna Children's Book Fair (March 23–26), Japanese publisher Rei Uemura said, "There are too many zombies, vampires, werewolves. I can't tell them apart anymore. I'm looking for something uplifting and positive, but I haven't seen many of those."

Would angels meet his requirements? I'm told that they are the next big thing in teen fiction.

According to a recent piece in The Observer (tinyurl.com/ykgkxzs), "at least seven new literary series about angels targeted at young adults" have been published in Britain and the States this spring, and more are are scheduled for release over the next year. Some focus on romantic relationships between angels and humans.

For example, Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (published late in 2009) is about a fallen angel and the girl who has a crush on him.

A Wrinkle in Time, well worth two Newbery medals | Books | guardian.co.uk

Madeleine L'Engle in 1946

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via web from daphnelee's posterous

Writing yesterday about Rebecca Stead's Newbery medal win for When You Reach Me I was catapulted back to my 11-year-old self and my total adoration for Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Stead's heroine is engrossed in L'Engle's book, itself a Newbery winner published almost 50 years earlier, and according to reviews A Wrinkle in Time plays a large part in Stead's novel (I haven't read the Stead yet but it sounds fun and is on my ever-expanding list.

Strangely, I'd reread A Wrinkle in Time only a couple of weeks ago, after spotting it in a secondhand bookshop complete with one of its follow-ups, A Wind in the Door, which I'd never read before. Having written previously about children's books that don't live up to an adult reread, I was slightly nervous about tackling such a favourite, but it was just as wonderful 19 years on and I can't believe I'd forgotten about it for so long.

The Associated Press: Australian author Patricia Wrightson dies at 88

via google.com

Posted via web from daphnelee's posterous

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.

No Waiting Required

By DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens, StarMag

DON'T you love it when you "discover" a series that has already been written and published? If you love the first book, the second, third and so on are ready to be  read. No waiting until the author completes the next instalment, and then for the paperback edition to be released (I'm cheap that way - I only buy hardbacks if they're remaindered or hugely discounted).

There have been times when a publisher or distributor gives me a review copy of the first book in a series but the other books, when they're published, are not sent for review and I've been (once again) too cheap to buy them. Or, I forget to look out for the sequels. That happened with Hilari Bell's Shield, Sword, and Crown trilogy. I enjoyed Shield of Stars (2007), but missed the release of Sword of Waters (2008). Crown of Earth (2009) was released this October.

Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games was so good that waiting for the sequel, Catching Fire, was sheer agony. And now that it's been published and I've read it, I have to wait until sometime next year (so I've heard) to read the final book in the trilogy. Woe is me!

Recently, my friend, Kit (the best book merchandiser in the universe) introduced me to Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series. Three books are available (The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia) and a fourth (A Conspiracy of Kings) is due out in 2010. The books are mainly about the intrigues of royal courts of three neighbouring countries - Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia.

In the The Thief, a thief called Gen is taken from his jail cell by the magus of the King of Sounis. The magus wants Gen (who boasts that he can steal anything) to help find Hamiathes’s Gift, a stone of legend, said to be the gift of a goddess. According to tradition, he who owns the stone has the right to rule over Eddis. The magus wishes to use the stone to force the present Queen of Eddis into a political marriage with Sounis.