Magyk, Quidditch and Fantastic Beasts

I do like ‘fake’ books that belong with books. You know, like J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them, which is supposedly written by Newt Scamander. And her other fake, Quidditch Through The Ages ‘by’ Kennilworthy Whisp. It’s fun.

These are the ones published eight years ago for Comic Relief, with a quarter of the price of 1 galleon 11 Sickles going to the charity. Now Bloomsbury are bringing them out again, in association with the obscure publisher Obscurus Books and Whizz Hard Books. Albus Dumbledore has written the blurbs on the backs of the books, which is good going for someone dead. At least he has a sense of humour.

At the same time The Magykal Papers, the companion to the world of Septimus Heap, is available. It looks pretty good, and is exactly the kind of thing for keen Septimus Heap fans. Journals, recipes, guides and facts about famous wizards in a fun looking book.

I have to come clean and let the world know I have only read the first Septimus Heap novel. I would have read them all, but this witch is seriously running out of time. I have the books standing by for the eventuality of house arrest, which I’ve mentioned before. Offspring and I met Angie Sage in Gothenburg a few years ago. Hope that counts for something. Preferably in my favour.

Book Fairs and Festivals

Programmes have been perused at length. Why do they have to be quite so long? Could be because book events have a lot to offer, which is good.

I’ve had the printed programme for the Gothenburg Book Fair for a few weeks, and it’s made me see spots. Probably due to the cover being very spotty, in black and white, and I hope they’ll do something less dizzying next time. Might mean that the book bags and the water bottles available at the Fair will be spotty, too. Won’t find out, as I most likely won’t be going. If money grew on trees I would. The programme lists many of the usual suspects, like the archbishop and Mark Levengood and Henning Mankell. Plus lots of Spanish writers, as the emphasis is on Spain this year. ¡Hola!

Bath is also on in September, and usually clashes with Gothenburg in my diary. Bath is special, being children’s books only, so it’s right up my street. Except it’s a bit further away than that. The annoying thing with events spread over two weekends with a week in the middle, is that there is usually something particularly good on at each end of the thing, and you either go for too long, or have to go twice. Or, horror of horrors, you may have to choose.

Most of my recent muddling has been around the Edinburgh programme, which I’ve tried to decipher online, which is very green of me. Or maybe not, as I burn electricity every minute on the computer. It’s a lovely, long programme, covering three weekends with two weeks in the middle. ‘Luckily’ Daughter’s needs mean that the beginning and end of my available period is decided for me. So I have a shortlist of people I want to see. Except by now most events are sold out, so I have to hope that they will want to consider this outstanding (!) blog as press-worthy. Don’t know yet. But do feel free to tell them that you need to hear what went on in Edinburgh from me.

It’s That Summer, again

Did I ever mention being impatient? When Puffin began publishing Sarah Dessen’s novels, I began cheating a little by buying the American editions once or twice. Simply because I didn’t want to wait. So, I blogged about That Summer last summer, and this summer it’s here in its full Puffin glory. The UK cover is so nice. I will discard the US copy and keep this one. I can’t help it. It’s a girl thing.

That Summer is Sarah’s first novel. It’s about the summer when Haven’s father re-marries, and her older sister Ashley is planning her wedding, and Ashley’s old boyfriend Sumner (!) turns up, and their mother defrosts the fridge.

As usual there are complications, and then there are solutions and understanding. Try it!

Personally I’m hoping this means Puffin are working their way through all Sarah Dessen’s books. Just think; a whole shelf of these delicious covers. (Very shallow-minded of me, but it is still hot this morning.) It goes without further saying that the contents are more than readable.

Sally wins

While the witch gallivanted south to Birmingham on Saturday, Sally Nicholls most likely crossed paths with her en route to Bolton, where Sally proceeded to win this year’s Bolton Book Award for Ways to Live Forever. Well done!

There is an article in the Bolton News, with a photo of Sally and the local judges. And on the website of the Bolton Literacy Trust you have the shortlist, as well as the names of those authors who were present on Saturday. Glad to see that Zizou Corder made it, but I do wonder which half of her? If I’d not been otherwise engaged, I would have been there, and could have told you.

It can’t be possible to have too many literary events, can it?

Eat me!

We’ve got the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, with its resident food which begs to be eaten. And now we’ve got peas. Give peas a chance, as this picture book demands.

At first I felt Andy Cullen and Simon Rickerty were doing a picture book about something that is just that little bit too simple and obvious, but then it struck me that now that children don’t know where fish fingers come from; why should they understand peas?

So here we get the story of peas, from the farmer sowing, via rain and sun, to the ‘pea factory’ where some peas chill – and freeze – until their teeth clatter. No wonder they beg the faddy child eaters to try them. At least the mummies and daddies have made them warm again.

Maybe I need to pass Peas! It’s not easy being Peas-y on to Pizzabella, now that she has converted to peas. Maybe.

Campaign for the Book (3)

Just imagine! There I was in a classroom sitting next to Linda Newbery, with Frank Cottrell Boyce and Beverley Naidoo rushing in late (and without a reservation, I believe), sitting down at what they soon named the ‘naughty table’. In fact, Frank continued looking slightly naughty throughout the session with our ‘teacher’ Bali Rai. Our workshop had the fancy name ‘The Importance of Identity and Race in Young People’s Fiction’, but Bali called it Diversity. I’d like to think that our room was so crowded, because it was the best of the workshops.

I was somewhat dubiously placed, sitting right underneath a photo of the recently departed President Bush, but then Obama was there, too, and Yeltsin was nearby with Gorbachev. I’m full of admiration for Bali’s powers. When the session began it started raining fairly heavily. Before long we had a full-blown storm with thunder and lightning and rain cascading down from the gutters outside the window. Very dramatic. It ended when the workshop was over.

As so many people on Saturday said, Bali reckons he wouldn’t be where he is now without the library. Books were a precious thing for someone growing up in a one-parent family with little money. If he’d asked for pocket money he would have had to go without food instead.

Bali feels that to get ‘minorities’ to read you have to start by putting them in the books. When he talks about minorities he doesn’t just mean poor immigrants; it covers anyone who is different in some way. One of his most favourite books recently was The Curious Incident, so he and I are clearly on the same Aspie wavelength.

His local library in Oadby, Leicester, is ‘brilliant’, and seems to do all that Bali wants from a library. He tells of the father who comes in to use the computer, and whose daughter learns to look at books while her dad goes on the internet. So in effect the girl becomes a reader simply because they don’t have a computer at home. The reverse can also be the case; with library staff putting adult books near parents who bring their children in for various child sessions. It’s a case of catching people where you find them.

Libraries need to shout ‘we are here!’, so prospective users can find them.

Another thing Bali has noticed is that as soon as you have a book about a single parent, they are immediately labelled ‘issue novels’. He himself  has a book on a recommended reads list for schools, which he is pleased about, but also annoyed, as it comes under ‘reading about other cultures’, when Bali has written about life in Britain. So if it’s about people with another skin colour it automatically turns into ‘other cultures’.

He also mentions schools which shadow the Carnegie, where books on the shortlist can be too inaccessible for keen but less able readers. There needs to be alternate lists of books.

Bali’s most recent novel is a mirror image story, about a white boy who is in minority, and is bullied by a group of coloured boys. His next one is about non-white British soldiers in World War I, something that comes as a surprise to people who think that British soldiers always are white.

Publishers need to adapt and publish more ‘minority’ books or they will soon not have any readers left. And it could be a good idea for bookshops not to treat prospective customers as hooligans just because they are young, male and non-white. They might just still want to read, and even buy, a book. Or two.

Campaign for the Book (2)

Thank heavens for people like Alan Gibbons. Someone who not only thinks that things are wrong, but who does something about it. I have barely had time to take in all his emails and newsletters this winter, let alone act on them. Just imagine how busy Alan has been; writing, digging, travelling. Possibly even doing some writing for himself once in a while. Must find out.

So, after the lighter introductions, we settled down to more serious things. Question Time with the politicians, except we ‘only’ had Ed Vaizey and Richard Younger Ross, because Lyn Brown had been promoted to the Whips office during the week, and in this mad world that means she can no longer say in public what she thinks about a subject she is very interested in. A lot was said by those present, but whether any of that will ever happen is anybody’s guess. The panellists had reasonable ideas, but they would, considering the circumstances. The audience had lots of questions and ideas, and we could have gone on forever.

After lunch it was time for two wonderful talks by the librarians who have been in the centre of the storm, so to speak. Clare Broadbelt, who was made redundant when her school library was closed, spoke eloquently on what it had been like both before – when things were normal – and during the period leading up to the closure. It was a good thing to hear how many of her pupils had spoken up. They had started petitions, only to find them torn up and told they were rubbish. And the reading room that had been promised in place of the library has not materialised.

The second talk was by Cath McNally, librarian from the Wirral, where they have an awful lot of millionaires, but also a great deal of child poverty. If all librarians can speak as well and as touchingly as Cath did, then we have much to be proud of. She cried at the end, describing how ‘her’ children had recommended books back to her, which just goes to show how much influence the library has had. I wonder if the suggested small stock of books in the GP’s surgery will have quite the same effect?

Gillian Cross spoke about her use of the mobile library, both forty years ago, and now, noting the changes in needs. The difference is the internet and as she said, the old ways won’t be coming back.  Miranda McKearney from the Reading Agency and Marilyn Mottram from the UK Literacy Association spoke about their findings from experience and research. According to Marilyn there is plenty of money out there; we just need to look for it in different places. Martyn Coles, head teacher at the City of London Academy, is unusual in his love for libraries in schools, and he reckons that architects need to be pushed in the right direction by caring head teachers, if new schools are to be built with sensible libraries.

After a number of smaller workshops, the day finished with Beverley Naidoo and Frank Cottrell Boyce. Beverley spoke movingly about her own early experiences from South Africa. Post-Sharpeville Beverley learnt to look at things in new ways, and she was introduced to other types of books than those she’d been reading. She mentioned a number of books that have helped her and inspired her. She was saying how wonderful it would be if our taxes were spent on books instead of on bullets and bombs, and her vision of planes dropping books instead is a powerful one. She told a Nigerian friend about coming to this Campaign for the Book conference, and her friend was shocked that we in the UK would need a conference like this. Beverley quoted Susan Sontag,  ’libraries are a precious treasure chest.’

Frank Cottrell Boyce told a long and funny tale about his daughter’s tin whistle ‘lessons’, which was a random way of describing how anything that is good should be taught. You share, rather than teach. He had had a recent bad school visit, which convinced him of how books should not be treated in schools. As Frank pointed out, his own father had taught him a love of football by playing it with him, not by turning it into lessons. One of Frank’s daughters who is not into reading, had been given Northanger Abbey on her iPod. Apparently Austen doesn’t work so well on shuffle, however; you just don’t know who is married to whom or for how long.

Alan Gibbons finished by saying that he is in this for the long haul. He wants more names on his petition, and he wants us all to organise many smaller local meetings like Saturday’s conference. He’d like authors to adopt an area as their own. ‘A library without a librarian is no library, but a room.’

Campaign for the Book (1)

As I usually seem to do, I ran into Fiona Dunbar in the Ladies at the start of the proceedings of the Campaign for the Book. Since this was held in the impressive King Edward School in Birmingham, which is a boys’ school, we have to be grateful for there being facilities for us girls at all. And while in toilet mode, I may as well admit to ending the day in the Gents, where the lone male customer was showing considerable courage in the face of so many women invading.

Having spent a whole day looking into the future of libraries in schools there is a lot of stuff to tell, so let the number one in the title be a warning that I will not disclose all right now. In actual fact, having begun by not being serious, I may as well continue not being serious. I had a surprisingly easy journey, only getting a little lost cutting through Birmingham University. That is despite the great help from that super-organiser Jean Allen, librarian at KES. Beautifully visible in cerise, and with a beautifully audible voice – so many people whisper, you know – Jean masterminded a first class event. Lots of food. Good food. Things worked.

I have always wanted to write the words stone mullioned windows. There! I have done it! They had them, you see. Great Hall. The school’s Chief Master (what a title!) spoke. He’s a former pupil, along with his mate Lee Child (who I distinctly remember saying a few years ago that he had had an ordinary English school background…), and he was suitably amusing before leaving in order to stop his son setting fire to their house. Or maybe that was a joke.

It’s fascinating with events where the authors are mainly in the audience. I have only listed the ones I know and recognise, although the list provided had more people on it. (From an alibi point of view I don’t want to state that X was there, in case he wasn’t.) Was pleased to discover Theresa Breslin was on the list, and worked hard at deciding what she might look like. She was, of course, the one sitting to my left.

Alan Gibbons is the driving force behind the whole campaign, so he was there. Celia Rees had a speaking role, and so did Gillian Cross. Steve Skidmore kept people in order during one discussion, and Beverley Naidoo and Frank Cottrell Boyce ended the day.

We had two sittings for lunch, and if I say that I first lunched with Theresa Breslin and later with Fiona Dunbar and Lucy Coats, you’ll wrongly assume I ate twice. I just didn’t leave when I should have, since it was so nice to finally meet Facebook friend Lucy.

Most of the 200 conference goers were librarians and others similarly occupied. And not a single Gudrun Sjödén stripe in sight. With so much on the programme I was amazed to find we finished on time. I had done a little autograph hunting during the day (my bag would have been a lot lighter with fewer books carted round), and then I finished off the day’s hunt by catching Gillian Cross and Beverley Naidoo as they were leaving.

The Haggis-knee played up on the way back through the university, so some hobbling was engaged in, and I was overtaken by loads of librarians. Like the famous tortoise however, I caught the train and they didn’t. Ticket issues, I believe. Found Beverley Naidoo again at New Street station, where I was also offered a Malteser by polite young Muslim man. All in all, very nice.

(Sincere apologies for being such a very dreadful photographer.)

An Aspie crime

I was contacted a while ago by Sue Birch, who has written a short children’s crime story called Dead Puzzling. It has an Asperger theme, so I was interested, and as I’m always keen to promote anything suitably Aspie, I said Sue could send me her book. It’s doubly worthy in that she donates half of the profits to the National Autistic Society.

Sue was wondering if the book would be right for children with Asperger Syndrome, which is actually harder to say than you’d think. I don’t know. Two years ago when I wrote about Aspie books I only thought of spreading the word to the neurotypicals in this world, but then I found that Aspies are, understandably, looking for fiction featuring people like themselves.

But short of testing any book on a large scale, I can’t say. It is good that there are books about Aspies. I think that older Aspies need books, but younger ones may well not. Sue reckons her story is suitable for ages eight to thirteen. I’d say more like seven to ten or eleven. It’s a young theme, albeit using slightly old language. It’s obviously set today, but has a flavour of the Blyton era.

Dead Puzzling has been self published, I think, and it could do with more editing, but the Aspie aspect (sorry!) may not always appeal to regular publishers. The story is partly about illegal immigrants, and this bit of it feels a little too politically incorrect for today’s readers.

There is a dead body in the cemetery, and three young children try to solve the murder. One of them has Asperger Syndrome, but seems not to know it (although he is miraculously diagnosed in the course of the book). He sees what his normal peers do not, so helps solve the mystery with his special ‘powers’. The Dad is also very Aspie, but that fact goes almost unmentioned. It’s fun to see though.

Carnegie for Siobhan Dowd

I’m really, really pleased that Siobhan Dowd has won the Carnegie medal for her third novel, Bog Child. As I said a couple of months ago, the shortlist was a particularly good one, but I do have a special place in my heart for Siobhan. And I hope all the other shortlisted writers can go on and win the Carnegie another year.

I didn’t know this, but it seems they haven’t had a posthumous Carnegie before. There’s been a lot of celebrating by Siobhan’s friends over on Facebook, which just goes to show how much everyone cares. And David Fickling has even turned to blogging, which must prove something.

If you haven’t read Bog Child; why not? Go and do so now. Might as well give a copy to someone you like, too. Or two.