The Places You Will Go

Cost Vs Quality

from Tots to Teens, Star2 on Sunday, 18th September, 2011

I’VE been exchanging emails for the last couple of months with Deborah Ahenkorah, the young Ghanaian who co-founded the Golden Baobab Prize, a literary award that aims to inspire African writers to create African literature for African children.

Ahenkorah grew up reading British and American books and this made her sensitive to the lack of African children’s books. Malaysian readers can surely relate to that. Did any of us grow up reading Malaysian children’s books of good quality?

Malaysian Art, for Children

By DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens, The Star, 10th July, 2011

ONE rarely meets a child who doesn’t like to draw. And one rarely meets a child who doesn’t draw spontaneously and effortlessly. Show me a child who fusses with perspective, setting and composition, and I’ll show you a child who’s very likely attending art class. At very least, I hope it’s not the sort of class where the teacher says the sky and sea must be coloured nothing but blue, and the trees and grass are always a non-negotiable green.

Are we all artists until we’re taught that we’re not? Do we need to be told what is good art? Is there such a thing as bad taste? Isn’t it just about personal taste? These are questions I’m constantly asking myself in relation to art and the arts.

Monstrously Wonderful

By DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens, StarMag, 3rd July 2011

IN a radio interview, Patrick Ness said that he wept during the writing of A Monster Calls (Walker Books, 215 pages, ISBN: 978-1406334906). “If I’m writing anything that’s this difficult and I’m not upset, then I’m not doing it right,” he said. “If I’m not crying why would I think anybody else will be moved?”

When I received my review copy of the book, I read the last couple of pages and found myself simply blubbing. I then read the book all the way through and, at the end, I cried again. Ness has obviously done it right.

A Monster Calls was a book that the Irish author Siobhan Dowd wanted to write. She had made notes, had imagined the characters, planned the premise, written a beginning. But Dowd died before she could write the book. She had cancer and she was only 47.

Stories that are the Cat's Whiskers

By DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens, 19th June, 2011

So, I hope you’re eager to learn of more fictional felines this week.

One of my favourite novels about cats is Jennie by Paul Gallico. Unfortunately, it is no longer in print. However, you can find secondhand copies online.

It’s about a boy, Peter, who is transformed into a cat and is cared for by a cat, called Jennie, who
has been abandoned by her owners. If you’re familiar with the way cats behave, you will realise that
Gallico was obviously very fond of and familiar with cats. In fact, he also wrote The Silent Miaow
which is a manual, supposedly written by a cat (translated from the feline into English by Gallico),
that “instructs stray kittens and homeless cats in how to obtain, captivate, and dominate the families of their choice.”

There’s also The Three Lives of Thomasina (readers of a certain age may remember the 1960s Disney adaptation) and Honourable Cat, a collection of poems and essays about cats.

Furry Muses

From Tots to Teens, The Star

12th June 2011

ABOUT three weeks ago, we adopted a cat (left). His name is Igor and he is four years old, which makes him about 32 in human years – a bachelor in his prime, although, as he’s been “fixed”, he won’t be fighting other Toms for the love of the neighbourhood she-cats.

Igor is beautiful – large and muscular, with white fur, touched with cream, and ice-blue eyes. He has a mean stare and I have this theory that he amuses himself by thinking of ways to kill us in our sleep. However, I don’t think he will act on his fantasies just yet as I feel he is rather pleased with his success in training us to scratch his back and tickle his chin and toss his catnip-filled mouse in the air.

Igor is a great source of amusement and joy to the whole family. I think it’s only a matter of time before he sneaks into my writing. Already, during my evening walk the other day, I was thinking him into a book. The things he gets up to – he got very excited over the unrolling of my yoga mat – and even his expressions, which range from dreamy to scathing, are all begging to be made into stories and turned into illustrations.

Old Tales Made New

From Tots to Teens, 15^th May 2011

By DAPHNE LEE

I’M in the midst of editing a collection of stories based on traditional tales from the region (Malaysia and Singapore).

When I first thought of collecting stories for this anthology, I imagined it would be for children. I didn’t grow up with Malaysian fairytales, myths and legends. Like many Malaysian children from English-speaking families, I was raised on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. I was baptised in the Catholic church and so Christian mythology was part of my life.

As an adult I felt something was missing. Why did I know European fairytales, myths and legends and not the fairytales, myths and legends of the country in which I lived and belonged? The obvious reason was because my parents never told me any of the latter. My mother would occasionally relate bizarre stories, of Chinese origin, about a filial son who went to incredible lengths to prove his love for his aged mother, but for most part she (and my sisters) read me stories which included fairytale staples like Snow White, Cinderella, The Goose Girl, The Bremen Town Musicians (my favourite) and Rumplestiltskin.

We had a few lovely hardbound copies of fairytales by Andersen and the Grimms. We did not own any collections of Malaysian traditional tales. This was why I thought of compiling one. However, this was several years ago and since then a few anthologies, including two fully-illustrated ones, have been published for children.

More Lip Service?

From Tots to Teens, 8^th May 2011

By DAPHNE LEE

I WAS interviewed last week about what I thought about the poor quality of local children’s books, written in English. The reporter’s daughter had been recommended a book by her teacher and this book contained grammatical errors. Why had the teacher not noticed the inaccuracies? In my opinion it’s probably because he would not recognise a grammatical mistake even if it turned up at his home and performed a song-and-dance routine for him.

Different Seasons

 

From Tots to Teens, 17th April 2011

By DAPHNE LEE

ALLEGRA (Ally to her friends and family) Katz has been playing the piano since she was four. She’s now 13 and belongs to a pre-college music programme at the Juilliard Music School. Her dad is a violinist with a famous quartet, and her mother trained in opera and now sings the blues in jazz bars in Manhattan’s Alphabet City.

Ally’s life revolves around music. She has to practice six hours a day and spends practically the whole of every Saturday at Juilliard, attending various music workshops and classes – theory, chamber, composition, solfege, master class, and her piano lesson proper with the relentlessly demanding and unsympathetic Miss Pringle.

“It felt like the world was passing me by,” says Ally when she can’t make it to her best friend, Opal’s art exhibition. Slumber parties, just hanging out eating hotdogs or watching movies, dating, all the things that most teenagers take for granted have to take a back seat to her music career, or rather making sure that she has music career to look forward to – “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice.”

Warped!

By DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens 29th May 2011

I WANTED to review Warp Speed (Scholastic Press, 311 pages, ISBN: 978-0545122764) by Lisa Yee for three reasons: Firstly, the main character, Marley Sandelski, is a Star Trek fan (as am I); secondly, I thought my son would enjoy reading the book too as he is a Trekker as well; and finally, because it is set in Rancho Rosetta, the same town in which Yee’s books Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Standford Wong Flunks Big-Time and So Totally Emily Ebers are set (I love those books). In fact, Marley first appears in Standford Wong and Yee decided to give him his own book when, during a school visit, a reader asked her about the character.

No Bed of Roses

From Tots to Teens

By DAPHNE LEE

GO the F**k to Sleep. I’ve just seen the cover of this book and I want it even though I haven’t read it yet. The title is worth the price though. How brilliantly honest! I don’t know about other parents, but “Go the f**k to sleep” is what often crosses my mind when I deal with my childrens’ bedtimes.

Even during my recent stay in hospital, when my son was recovering from heart surgery, I was swearing to myself every time I was woken up in the middle of the night by Elesh wanting a drink or to be sat up or to go to the toilet. Most parents (apart from the saintliest) should be able to relate – we love our kids, we would do anything for them, but it doesn’t mean we don’t wish they would just go the f**k to sleep at the appropriate time.