Walker Books and a witch with wet hands

As usual it was a case of waving your hands (or in this case, my hands) under the drier for absolutely forever, wipe them on your clothes, or go wet, hoping there’d be no hands to shake. You can guess which I chose, and what happened next, can’t you?

I was at the presentation of Walker Books’ and Constable & Robinson’s Autumn Highlights in Manchester on Wednesday evening, when I came face to face with Jo for the first time, and had to quickly get out of the handshaking she had in mind. This flustered me so much I forgot to mention my name. (But everyone knows me, right?) Besides, I’d already got the decrepit old woman treatment. Staff at the venue saw me negotiating the steps outside (which had NO handrail) and quickly bundled me into the lift before I caused more trouble.

Super-Jake was there, but I forgot to check his footwear. Representatives of our local LitFest and bookshops and that most Wondrous of blogs could also be seen. I was quite restrained prior to the talk, as I noticed there were partybags in one corner, which meant I did no stealing or anything beforehand.

Constable & Robinson went first, and I’d not realised that books on prescription, which I have heard of, is for non-fiction self-help type books, rather than patients being made to feel better after a dose of Pride and Prejudice…

They are big on halogen oven books. (Don’t ask.) They are the leaders in cosy crime. You can have books on WWII pets for Christmas. Obviously. C & R have begun offering children’s books, and they had an instructive video on how to fight zombies. (Head removal is recommended.) Gross. Shaun Ryder on UFOs. (It would have helped if I knew who Shaun Ryder is.) Joan Collins is nearly 80, in case you wanted to know. They have a book titled Going on a Bar Hunt. Droll.

This being very much a presentation for booksellers, I now know a lot more about which books are commercial, something I rarely consider in my narrow little world. There will be joke books for Christmas. And they have just begun a relationship with Brian McGilloway, who I am very interested in.

On to Walker Books, who are planning a picture book party. I think that means they have lots of picture books to offer. Vivian French has something new going; Stargirl Academy. Looks good. Pink. Anthony Browne is a Marmite author, which I can understand. That gorilla still scares me.

Cassandra Clare was there last year, before she grew so big that she doesn’t do this kind of talk. She has a film on the way. Nice for her.

Walker have travel guides, and there is new stuff for fans of GHMILY (Guess How Much I Love You books). Mumsnet have done a story collection. In fact, I reckon there is one thing parents want more than anything else. They want their children to fall asleep. Lots of books for that purpose.

Manatees and bears. A book about someone pecking (I’m thinking – hoping – woodpecker) all the way through.  Going on a Bear Hunt is out again. Michael Morpurgo will be 70, and four of his books are being re-issued, including one about funny old men who are famous artists.

Speaking of funny, Tommy Donbavand has a new series called Fangs. Walker are really really really really thrilled to be working with Anthony McGowan and his new book Hello Darkness. Patrick Ness wasn’t there except on video, where he did his best to sound interesting while not giving too much away about his new novel More Than This. His Chaos trilogy, meanwhile, is being revamped for old people.

My notes say ‘spider skeleton.’ I think there’s a book about things like spider skeletons. Kate DiCamillo and her dog spoke to us all the way from their Minneapolis dining room. While the dog made dog noises, Kate told us about her mother’s obsession with her 1952 vacuum cleaner and what would happen to it after she died. Kate’s new book Flora and Ulysses also features squirrels.

Anthony Horowitz has finally come to the end of his Power of Five books, so has had time to write Russian Roulette, the Alex Rider prequel he has had in mind for absolutely ages. He is quite satisfied with it.

Lizzy Bennet (I apologise for sounding so informal) wrote a diary in her pre-Darcy days, which will give us an opportunity to find out all kinds of stuff.

Finally, Walker are publishing the Little Island imprint, which is foreign fiction. I spied a Swedish title in among the covers they showed us, and think it’s high time there are more books from other countries.

As you can see, they had a lot to tell us. They hadn’t rehearsed, so were surprised to find it took them so long. But at the end there were canapés and more drinks and even a few authors; Steve Tasane, Sarah Webb and Katy Moran. Someone else, too. At least I think there was.

I grabbed my partybag and hobbled away home. There was NO handrail on the way out either…

Fonts

Something I didn’t have a problem with when I was young were the ‘funny fonts’ and the pretend handwriting in print. I read comics every week and managed just fine.

But these days I find I just won’t read the books I receive that don’t come with ordinary print. Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid is an example. I no longer feel guilty, because the man seems to do all right even without Bookwitch reviews of his books. Daughter read the first one and loved it. I was sure I would also have enjoyed it, had it not been for the visual effects. ‘Handwriting’ and diaries with ‘hand drawn’ pictures are simply not for me.

This week I looked longingly at the new Liz Pichon book about Tom Gates. It sounds good, and looks fun, as long as I don’t have to try and read it.

Aspie book Colin Fischer by Ashley Edwards Miller and Zack Stentz contained diary sections, which I had to read if I wanted to get through the whole story. I really wanted to, so forced myself.

I have read comics in my hard-to-please adult age. Some have been better than others. It depends on how much motivation I have, and on the layout in each individual case. David Fickling’s Phoenix was actually OK. I wonder if they spent more time over design?

My Vi magazine has a regular page which I can’t tell you much about. I believe it’s a comic style political comment. But I don’t actually know, as I can neither see the pictures properly, nor even begin to hope to decipher the words. I assume someone must, or they wouldn’t – couldn’t – print the stuff.

It feels a waste to strive for the hard-to-read style, but my experience of suggesting that magazines stop printing yellow on white and similar, generally meets with surprisingly unhelpful replies. They feel it looks good. No one has complained before. They are a little sorry I can’t manage it. But not very sorry. There are many other readers, after all.

Putting your house in order

What do five-year-olds read? And does it matter if they play football?

We’ve recently had cause to use the services of a joiner. He looks about 25 (and I know I am being ageist), but I was delighted to hear he has not only a wife, but two small children. I have taken to preying on people with young ones.

As usual I am hoping to get rid of – sorry, pass on – books, and a new age category is always good. Besides, children grow so fast. Yesterday’s seven-year-old is a teenager before you know what’s going on.

The thing is, when I started looking to see what I have that would suit someone who is five, I found I just wasn’t sure. First year at school? Probably. They can’t read. Or can they? So, someone reads to them. Or not? If so, what?

You see. I know nothing.

In the end I picked out mostly ‘picture books’ that seemed too mature for a toddler, and more childish than what I think I know a seven-year-old might read. This one apparently plays football. Does that mean he isn’t into books?

I’m supposed to know about these things.

After the joiner comes the decorator, to cover up what his colleague has worked on. As I’ve already mentioned on here, he does have useful children. And they have cousins, or so I’ve been told. Between them they cover a good many ages, so it’s been easier to pick out more books for them.

Before these fathers of young readers so conveniently turned up, I was planning to cart books to Offspring’s primary school. But I’d been agonising over what to choose for them as well. I can almost recall what was in the junior school library, but my mind goes blank when thinking back to what was in the infants’ library. As with the young soccer fan, surely they must be past picture books?

Or not?

The Great Big Book of Feelings

I almost approached this book out of a sense of duty. You know how some books appear to be so ‘worthy’?  I thought that The Great Big Book of Feelings might be one of those. It’s not.

Instead Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith have come up with something really beautiful. Put simply, it’s a book that describes feelings, and as such I reckon would work quite well for aspie children (perhaps even older people) who need to learn what faces look like for different emotions.

But that’s not why I think it’s so great. It seems so full of life, somehow. (Except for the page about bereavement, which actually had me in tears within seconds. That’s how powerful the combination of Ros’s illustrations and Mary’s words is.)

Right, I will turn the page over and leave the ‘biggest rain cloud ever.’

It’s almost strange that you can get away with a book that just lists feelings, but it seems as if Mary has found every feeling you’d want, and Ros has drawn the loveliest pictures. I know that she always does, but still feel I must point it out.

(Have to admit that the Swedish proverb had me stumped. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention that day.)

And I have never been scared of knees. Thought you’d want to know…

Saviours

These two – no longer so recent – books by Michael Foreman are about saving your world. Newspaper Boy and Origami Girl deals with one kind of problem, while Superfrog and the Big Stink features a totally different situation.

Superfrog – which is probably for slightly younger readers – lives in an idyllic corner of the world, until there is a bit of a stink coming his way. Rubbish floats down the river. People become unwell.

In Pied Piper fashion Superfrog leads hordes of children to the people who are misbehaving, ruining the environment. And they convince the ‘bad guys’ to repent and improve. (As a very old person I wish I thought this would be possible, but it is a lovely idea, which will hopefully inspire children.)

In Newspaper Boy and Origami Girl, Joey the newspaper boy is the victim of a crime. But when all seems lost, he suddenly discovers Origami Girl (who ‘lives’ in his newspaper bag). She helps him set things right, and while they are sorting out Joey’s smaller crime problem, they also deal with a larger scale one.

Joey is a hero, and Origami Girl disappears back into his bag. Until next time.

Very satisfying book about dealing with bullies. The power of newspapers? (Good version, obviously. Not you know who.)

Bookwitch bites #106

It is – dare I say it? – getting warmer. Let’s throw the covers off. (For me personally that means one layer less. Maybe.)

Neil Gaiman has unveiled his cover for later this year. Fortunately the Milk will look like this:

Chris Riddell made that cover. He also did these illustrations – and presumably many more – for the book.

I was going to say I can’t wait. But I will have to. Fortunately the Milk will appear roundabout the time when I put another layer back on again.

And you know those other kinds of covers? The ones of girls, that scare me a little. Teri Terry’s Slated and Fractured both feature a girl on the cover, and oddly enough earlier this week I had wondered if they were the same girl. They look the same. And they don’t. A couple of days later Teri  blogged about her covers and the model (who is only the one girl). Now that I’ve seen what ‘Kyla’ looks like privately I am less scared. There is something about ‘the cover look,’ though.

I think – because I am quite forgetful – that this last cover comes from my ‘facebook friend’ Arga Bibliotekstanten. That’s Angry Library Lady to you. She used to blog, but got fed up, and now has a large following on fb. Hardly surprising, as she’s forever giving us pictures of handsome men (posing with a book, naturally) to drool over or amusing ones to laugh at, and her acerbic comments about the users of her Swedish library are quite something. I hope I am never one of her customers!

Crocodile bottoms

Mother and daughter collaboration is something I whole-heartedly approve of. And by that I mean the kind of age daughter where we are talking child labour. It’s the best!

Wendy Meddour has a new series out, about Wendy Quill, a girl who wears sensible shoes. Not willingly, but anyway. And this Wendy doesn’t object – too much – to being the crocodile’s bottom in the school play. Apparently author Wendy once suffered a similar fate.

In her books about Ramzi the detective, Wendy did her own illustrations. Very clever, if not doing a lot for her work load. This time however, it’s Wendy’s 11-year-old daughter Mina May who has illustrated Wendy Quill is a Crocodile’s Bottom, and all I can say is that Wendy needs to look out. Mina May is out-illustrating her mum. (In this case I am hoping mum will not object to having this pointed out.)

And we’re not talking the odd picture; we are looking at 150 pages of several pictures on every page. Good ones. Ones that make the story even better. And it’s a great, humorous tale; this crocodile’s bottom affair.

There are three stories in total, with the sensible shoes following the crocodile, and finishing with the plague. Although I gather there are more stories, so not to worry about a purple spotted Wendy.

I don’t know how Wendy (Meddour) does it, because funny books for this young an age group are not generally my first choice of reading material. But this is good.

And so is Mina May.

ALMA 2013

When is one o’clock not one? Or twelve, or two?

I failed on a technicality yesterday. The sandwich was ready, the orange was peeled and the tea just right. So was I. Ready, more than right or peeled. I was going to sit down to watch the announcement of who would be five million kronor better off. Yes, it was ALMA time. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was about to be awarded.

It was 11.52. It was 11.52 both in the UK and CET. That’s not possible. I checked. It’s before summer time, so it wasn’t that either. But my noon announcement was not about to happen until one. Or so the countdown thingy suggested. At 12.01 facebook (yes, fb again) pinged, and one of my savvy fb friends announced the award had gone to Isol.

I refreshed all pages that could be refreshed. It said 58 minutes to go. I did what any sensible bookwitch would do. I picked up my early lunch and went to read a book instead.

At one I tried to see if the system would be more amenable. It wasn’t. It was error messages all round. The ALMA press office had emailed the glad tidings at 12.11, so I knew I could expect no more.

Isol is an Argentinian illustrator, cartoonist, graphic artist, writer, singer and composer. From what I could see in the press release there were only Spanish titles, and whereas I have actually heard of her, it was yet another Nobel style choice of someone many people won’t know at all. I imagine the Spanish speaking world – which is large – do know her work.

I wish Isol all the best, but I can’t help feeling that my first thought when I saw ISOL in capitals on fb was that it was an organisation getting the money this year. I believe organisations can do more with these kind of sums. I sometimes wonder if the jury are aware quite how much money they are handing out. I mean really, really.

Bookwitch bites #103

Close encounters.

Daughter had a busy Friday. Not only was she expected to do normal lectures, but I had said she’d be better off travelling ‘home’ that day and not waste all Saturday on a train. Not that time on a train is wasted. Then they (uni) decided to serve up a lecture by Chris Lintott Friday morning, and not content with a mere lecture, she acted on the insanity that runs in our family and requested an interview.

So, that was one tall, famous person. Once on the train she phoned to tell me her favourite children’s illustrator was sitting further along in the same coach. I told her to go talk to him. She phoned back later to say she chickened out. I said, was she sure it was him? She said there can’t be too many men carrying a Tracy Beaker bag. She’s probably right. So that was tall man number two.

Then she arrived ‘home’ and after barely any sleep, I forced her to travel on another train, all the way to Manchester, early Saturday morning. It was time for encounter number three. (We only have a week. Much has to be crammed into it.)

We had arranged to meet Fletcher Moss in the café at Waterstones Deansgate. It’s quite fun arranging to meet a pseudonym somewhere public. We allowed this man who came up to say he was meeting someone there to buy us a pot of tea. It seemed like more than a coincidence. He was probably ‘Fletcher.’

He was tall, but not as tall as the other two.

There will be more on Lintott & Moss another day. (They’d make good solicitors.)

Best of Scottish 2012, or ‘An awfy dreich day in Dundee’

In the end it didn’t matter that I went to Dundee the wrong week. I was able to ‘sort of’ be there yesterday, anyway. It was WBD. It was time for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards at Caird Hall, filled with a thousand children (so there might not have been room for me). And they very kindly filmed the whole shebang and made it available online. Thus I watched it all from the comfort of my own desk.

They had that Chae Strathie in to do the host stuff. Apparently when he didn’t win last year he sulked until they offered him this job instead. He was very noisy, but he was a competent MC. Perhaps a few too many ‘yoohoos.’ That’s all.

The shortlisted authors were lined up on stage and then sent off again. Seems they have some kind of authors’ enclosure where they are kept. There was a band with such an odd name I can’t tell you what they were called.

For the Younger readers category they had written little theatre sketches based on the three shortlisted books, which were performed by school children. I am fairly intolerant of this type of thing, but have to admit this was first class stuff. Very well done.

Jonathan Meres won with The World of Norm: May Contain Nuts. His thank you speech turned out to be his shopping list; tea, milk, etc. (But at least he was English… I was beginning to think you had to have a beautiful Scottish accent to even make it onto that shortlist.)

Scotland has a minister for children! Aileen Campbell was there, and made a good speech about the importance of books and reading. I suspect the Scottish government might have more sense than Westminster.

For the Bookbug category we got story time, and then the Children’s Laureate sang her book, and finally John Fardell drew pictures of scary monsters. He finished with a giant rabbit with horrible teeth, before winning the Bookbug prize for The Day Louis Got Eaten.

To make life easier for the Older readers category, Barry Hutchison became Elizabeth Hutchison, so he wouldn’t feel like the odd one out, sitting as he did, between Elizabeths Laird and Wein. They had to answer questions. Ms Hutchison has no shed, which is sad. (S)he likes horsepie best. (Dundee delicacy?) Ms Laird told us to run downhill if ever attacked by elephants, which is something that has kept me awake at night, so I’m very grateful. Ms Wein opted to go to the South Pole in the company of a ‘Norwegian who knows what he’s doing.’ Sensible woman.

While this was happening, Chae wore an outlandish gold jacket, two sizes too small. And then they danced, Gangnam style. I’d have to say Ms Wein did that far better than her namesakes. (She is an American, so clearly you don’t have to be Scottish to be there.)

But it helps, because Barry Hutchison won that category for The 13th Horseman. His speech was mercifully short. (He’d had a busy day the day before. Maybe he was worn out.)

Chae finished off by saying he loves us all.

Love you too, Chae. Great event!

*I borrowed that dreich quote from Barry. I’m sure it wasn’t really dreich, but I just love that word! Maybe the weather cried because I wasn’t there?