Bringing it down to 40

The idea for some kind of Desert Island Books has been with me for years, but I’ve not got round to doing anything about it. Yet. Relax, I’m not going to start now, either.

But as the panic over pruning my library was beginning to slosh around in my brain, someone posted a link to a rather interesting article. Geoffrey Best in History Today mused about his book collecting, and then the reverse; the process where he’s had to get rid of one category after the other.

It makes for sad reading, actually. (Much sadder than the chap in the paper the other day who sold off his wine collection…) On re-reading the article I noticed two things. One was that as this was a collection, Geoffrey had not read all the books. That made me feel less inadequate. I sometimes believe I’m the only one who can’t keep up.

The other was that his potential final goal wasn’t for five books. It was for one.

Shudder.

His first awful ambition was which books to choose for when you can only keep 40 books. He arrived at this figure when visiting someone in a home, where he looked around and worked out that 40 might be the limit.

I reckon 40 might be possible. Hard, but doable. You’d need good criteria for how you pick, and that probably depends on who you are. I’ve always marvelled at the choice of the Bible and Shakespeare in Desert Island Discs. Obviously they had to become standard issue once almost everyone felt they had to ask for them, whether because they genuinely loved them that much, or felt they wouldn’t be seen on a desert island without them…

Yes. Quite.

While I don’t know what I’d choose, I’m fairly certain it would be neither of those.

And while I thought the end goal was five books, I toyed with the idea of How I Live Now and Code Name Verity. Both favourites, both quite short. So perhaps you can’t do it that way?

Right now I am also having some problems with working out if I’m going to be sitting on an island or in some old people’s home. Would it be more of a blessing if – when the time comes – I am past reading, to save me doing the final prune, or am I better off with any small pile of books?

Will the grandchildren visit the old witch and bring books?

Love you, Moose Baby

Barrington Stoke certainly know how to pick them. Their latest batch of anniversary books is as good as you’d expect.

I would obviously have liked to find a new book by Meg Rosoff, but with us waiting for her next ‘normal book’ already, getting a dyslexia friendly version of Vamoose is pretty good.

In fact, it’s almost better, because it shows what you can do by adapting an already great read. OK, Vamoose was a short book, and as Moose Baby it must be even shorter. But what a story!

The plot is your perfectly normal story about a teen pregnancy that results in the birth of a moose. These unusual animal births have started occurring, and there are parental support groups, and that kind of thing. But if you are only 17 you might find them a little middleaged.

Being young parents could well be why Moose Baby’s arrival works out so well. More stamina and less preconceived notions of what’s what. Little Moosie has a good life with his young and loving parents, and the grandparents eventually come round too.

This is a Meg Rosoff tale, so expect the unexpected.

You just have to love Moosie. And his doting parents, who dote as good as any of us, and then some.

Witching it

It’s odd. Or perhaps it isn’t. The way things connect, unexpectedly. How easy it is being a witch, sometimes.

I was having Sunday breakfast, reading the Guardian Review from Saturday (someone had not provided the paper early enough the previous day). I glanced at the interview in the middle, and turned the page over as I got up to see about ‘the next course’ after my cereal.

Thought about the book by Gillian Cross I had finished the night before. Thought about the other three OUP novels from the event during the week (which I don’t -yet – have) and my thoughts strayed on to Geraldine McCaughrean.

From there I went back to 2004 when I ‘just knew’ that Meg Rosoff would win the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Knew in that witchy way I can’t explain. Then how I ‘knew’ she’d also win the Whitbread/Costa with How I Live Now. And how I had a wobble the last day in the library before the Christmas holiday and snatched up a copy of Not the End of the World. Maybe I ought to see what Meg was up against.

And there I was, reading about floods and Noah and the end of the world, as the tsunami burst forth. It was almost unbearable. After which Geraldine won the Whitbread for her wonderful, but watery, book.

Then (we are now back at breakfast, obviously) I thought about Geraldine’s new book and how that sounded so interesting. I poured the tea and sat down with the Review again, pleased to find I was actually on the page with the children’s book review. Which, naturally, was The Positively Last Performance by a certain Geraldine McCaughrean. I wanted to read the review, so I did, while hoping it wouldn’t be full of spoilers. It wasn’t. Lovely review, and I have to read that book!

Mustn’t forget Sally Prue’s blog post on The Word Den, as she set off on that OUP tour at the beginning of the week. She blogged about spaewives, taking care to mention that us in the pointy hats are the worst. I am fairly certain it was a slip of the keyboard, and that Sally meant best.

Spae is spå where I come from. Maybe it’s what I do. At least Meg Rosoff almost believed it, back then.

Swallow

It’s like being young again. Despite me never having been a real horsey girl (only dreaming quietly), K M Peyton’s horse books are just the thing. I have no idea what half the stuff she writes about means, but that doesn’t matter. For a little while I’m out there riding and having a good time.

Now her Swallow tales have been reissued – possibly due to the influence of fan number one, Meg Rosoff – and I have been gorging myself on all three Swallow stories, published in one volume.

What’s so nice, apart from the books being just the way you want children’s books to be like, is that Kathleen doesn’t waste her, or my, time on what doesn’t belong. Plenty of horsey detail, but none of this boring going to school stuff or doing homework or anything else. If the next important development in the book is what happens on Saturday, then we don’t have to suffer through the mid-week happenings, but can go straight to the Saturday business.

Originally published in the mid 1990s, to my mind the books feel as though they were written longer ago, during the avocado bathroom suite era. Even 15 years ago I doubt children would have had as much freedom as these ones do, at such an early age.

The books are about 11-year-old Rowan, who has moved to the countryside and who falls in love with a wild pony that she names Swallow, and also a little in love with older teenager Charlie, who is a wizard with horses.

But wild ponies are no use when you can’t even ride, so Rowan gets to know a number of other, calmer horses, that help her to learn. It’s the stuff dreams are made of!

Rowan makes friends of the best sort, she rides, and she has just the kind of life so many of us once imagined we might have. Along the way, Rowan learns you can love many different horses, and no love affair is totally straightforward. If something seems difficult, or impossible, you have to think and work hard to change fate.

Lobbying for Libraries

Not all of us who would have wanted to, could make it to London on Monday for the mass lobby to save school libraries. Luckily, quite a few people did. Authors, librarians, readers.

I didn’t even get the t-shirt.

Looks like they had fun, too.

Some people clearly didn’t take it seriously, at all…

I’m hoping it doesn’t say ‘The Best Ardagh’ on this sign.

Thanks to Candy Gourlay for the photos.

Mary Hoffman’s blog.

Censorship

Seems it’s not only Meg Rosoff who gets uninvited to schools (last year in Bath, in case you’re wondering). Found a link to an article by James Klise in the Chicago Tribune about being invited to speak in a school and then being uninvited again. He is very understanding, and it is easy to see the librarian’s plight. The thing is, if you are inviting on behalf of someone who might take offense, why not check extra carefully before you end up in a pickle?

Then there was this piece Keith Gray wrote for PEN. As with everything Keith writes, it’s a wonderful and considered keynote address. It’s just a shame that they need to be written at all.

At that point I was thinking there was a lot of coincidental censoring going on. That’s until I discovered it was Banned Books Week. (Is my diminished reading of newspapers beginning to show?) Here is Dead Guy on banned books.

I am obviously against censorship. But then, perhaps writers ought to self-censor certain things before someone has to do it for them? Except in some places it would appear you have the right to do whatever you like.

I’ve got ‘distinguished’ Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård in mind. He put someone he knew (a little) into one of his books, with name and everything. Also the woman’s four-year-old daughter. He didn’t think terribly highly of either of them, apparently, and felt the need to say so in the book. (Min kamp, since you ask. And yes, it does sound pretty similar to another book title I can think of.)

Personally I can’t help feeling his editor or publisher should have sorted him out. But they do things differently in Scandinavia, and who cares whether they are hurting real people?

Bookwitch bites #89

Anyone wants to hire an author? There is a new company called Authors Aloud UK who can put you in touch with one. I suspect they will only do author type stuff, no singing or washing up. It makes sense to have lots of authors under one organisational roof, and it will hopefully prove useful for schools, etc, as well as for authors who don’t mind getting out there.

The capable hands behind this venture are those of Jacqueline Wilson’s lovely publicist Naomi Cooper, along with super librarians Anne Marley and Annie Everall.

2013 will be a Neil Gaiman-y sort of year by the sound of it. He has an adult novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, coming our way, and quoting from Headline’s press release: ‘a new picture book Chu’s Day will be published by Bloomsbury Children’s Publishing at the start of 2013, followed by a children’s book for older readers later in the year. There is the eagerly anticipated prequel mini-series to his seminal comic book series The Sandman.  Neil is also scripting a new episode of Doctor Who to be screened in 2013, having written the multi-award winning 2011 episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife’.  Neverwhere is to be dramatised across two platforms on BBC Radio Four and BBC Radio Four Extra in the spring. HBO is developing six seasons of a television version of Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel American Gods.’

Phew. I wonder if some of these are things Neil ‘wrote earlier?’ Even he must sleep occasionally.

You might have noticed that J K Rowling has been in the news recently. What you might not have come across is a webcast about Potter-y stuff. It’s rather American, but never mind. They like their romantic Scotland.

One way of – almost – ending up with as lovely a bank balance as Neil’s or J K’s would be to win the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The longlist (which as far as I know never turns into an official shortlist) was published this week. It’s longer than ever.

Meg Rosoff is on it, and so are 206 others. Many are ‘always’ on the list, and most would be very worthy winners. What I find odd is that along with the well known British names, there are people I’ve never heard of. British ones, I mean. I suppose it’s the judges’ way of doing a mini-Nobel, picking obscure writers.

And if you fancy a more normal competition, there is one on Sara Paretsky’s blog; Where in Chicago Is V I Warshawski? ’Every Tuesday for the next seven weeks we’ll post a picture on my blog of V I in a different part of Chicago. Guess the right location, and you’ll be entered into a drawing. The winner will get an early copy of the paperback edition of Breakdown, in bookstores on December 4th. The final week, November 20th, will have a grand prize drawing from all of the entries to the quiz (note: there will be no quiz on November 6th, election day. V I expects all Americans to be going to the polls).’

Get guessing, and don’t forget to vote.

Rosen on Dahl

I wonder if Roald Dahl caused Bookwitch to be born? (Yeah, I know. It was Meg Rosoff.) But even so. It’s because I am old. So old that I never read Roald Dahl’s books as a child, and it was this deficiency that made me read some of them when Son was Dahl-age. I had to know if they were any good, because you can’t leave it to those little boys who read nothing but Dahl.

And if I hadn’t done that bit of catching up, I might not have continued on a life of reading children’s books, third time round.

For Roald Dahl day this coming week, there is a new biography by Michael Rosen, Fantastic Mr Dahl. To me this is one funny man writing about another funny man. And in a way there is nothing new here. Michael says he has based the book on what you find in those other biographies, which I have also read. But he writes in his own kind and thoughtfully funny way, adding his own experiences at times. (Like when Dahl talked to Rosen Jr about his dad’s beard. Or comparing his own father’s life with Roald’s.)

Because Michael is writing for young readers, this biography is probably more accessible to fans than Roald’s own Boy, for instance. And as befits a Dahl/Rosen book, it has been illustrated by Quentin Blake. Obviously.

Michael likes the way Roald (as I write this, I find myself saying Roald in my head, the Norwegian way, and not ‘in English’) made up his own words. I wonder if it is actually less strange than he thinks. It feels natural to me, and perhaps also to a fluent Norwegian speaker?

There are Roald’s letters home to his mother, both amusing and a little heart-breaking. I remember feeling desperately sad when reading his own book about his time at school, but Michael has thought about this, and has some comfort to offer.

Divided up into three parts, boy, man, writer, Michael finishes by teaching his readers literary analysis. It might not be necessary, but it happens so rarely that I found myself quite fascinated by it all. And it goes well with the way Michael and Roald both treat their young readers as intelligent individuals, with feelings, and a sense of humour.

Martinmas drugs

I’d like to show you the drugs I sent with Daughter, for use this Martinmas term. (I think it’s so quaint with these terms for terms…)

Following on from the session we had in the Scottish Parliament back in August, we fully agree with the use of books for medicinal purposes. They make you feel better. Probably much better than the stuff you get on prescription. (Even when prescriptions are free, as they are north of the border.)

Anyway, when exam nerves or essay stress take their toll, Daughter can grab one of the lovely titles you see above. (Guess which one is her own input?)

So, there are fairies and faeries, Irish and Scottish, and their cousins the angels. Nicholas Flamel, a Stockport cinema, cat people, various Victorian ladies, code breakers, resistance boys and ugly people. Keith Gray’s wonderful anthology. And the Doctor.

We think there is enough for one term. If not, I suppose she will actually have to buy a book. Shocking concept, but a feasible solution.

The photo is partly to make sure I get back what I sent out, but also to assist when I need to advise on which one to choose, according to specific needs.

The Talk

You know how it is, when your child’s reception class teacher phones up, fifteen years on, and asks you to do something that you really, really don’t want to do? You say yes. Not because you’re a coward, but because she was such a very good reception class teacher, and provided great support during what was not the best of years.

Mrs C wanted me to be one of her monthly speakers at her Ladies Group. She thought it’d be interesting for me to talk about blogging. It was quite a good idea, had the intended talker not been me. I blog. In private. Alone (if I can manage it). I don’t talk in front of an audience, be they ever so nice and friendly and interested.

I had twelve months to get ready, but in the end I went totally unprepared. At least I knew my subject well. I informed Daughter she was coming with me, as my technical expert (well, slideshow) and to metaphorically hold my hand. Mrs C gave us a lift, which kept any kicking and screaming to a minimum.

I forgot to look at my notes, I rambled, I darted back and forth between all the ‘subplots’ of blogging. I got to the end, and found I was still alive.

My audience was a very nice audience. They laughed at my jokes. Nodded in an interested manner, asked questions. Some came up and discussed things afterwards.

Thank you, Ladies of Disley. My ordeal could have been a lot more ordeal-like.