Thanks, Siobhan!

Easter brought back my earliest memories of Siobhan Dowd, and of The London Eye Mystery. It was as we left the local bookshop just before Easter 2007 that Daughter grabbed the proof of this wonderful book, and once she had read it, she gave me permission to read it as well.

I’d like to think that this ‘illustrious’ blogging career of mine would have gone in much the same direction even without Siobhan and The London Eye Mystery. Hard to say. It made me do my fan email thing, which in turn meant Siobhan wrote back to me, opening up a more personal view of herself; one which I might never have encountered otherwise.

Looking back, it seems so dreadfully unreal that she would die just a few months later. And who would have thought that her work would just go on and on afterwards? I won’t be alone in blessing her strength, writing four novels in such a very short time, giving us her fantastic books to read after she was gone. And her trust, which she had time to plan, helping young people to read.

This was the very beginning of my moving in literary circles, and I marvel at how I dared get on that train to Oxford for Siobhan’s memorial service in November. I met so many people there, who I would probably have met at some point, but not quite like that. Would I have known that Siobhan’s friend Fiona Dunbar would make the perfect Bookwitch Profile as seen here last month?

The London Eye Mystery made more magic later with the stage version. Again, lots of people met up, and for me a lasting pleasure was meeting her best friend Helen who came over from New York, and who provided the photo above. (You could ask why it’s important to meet the American friend of an author you never met. I don’t know. But it feels good.)

When I think back to first meeting literary people – online or in person – I can link back to Siobhan surprisingly often. It’s not just Declan Burke of Irish crime fame who popped up. He brought with him all those Irish crime writers that I’d never heard of before. Other bloggers. And in turn, these writers have taken me further in many different directions. I find paths doubling back on themselves.

Rings on the water, is what it seems like. Once this idea had come to me, the rings just grew and grew. I am not going to bore you with long lists of authors and publishers (although the lovely David Fickling must be mentioned). I started counting how many facebook friends originated with Siobhan, but gave up…

There was something in the way my brief contact with Siobhan encouraged more mad behaviour on my part. It wasn’t only meeting people. It was learning other things I could do. Was allowed to do. I owe Siobhan a lot, and I hope she’s sitting up there looking down at all of us, having a bit of fun herself. Maybe with a fluffy dog by her side, and a glass of something.

(I know. This is very much a me, me kind of post. But whenever I think ‘how did that come about then?’ my inner detective notices footprints going all the way back to this great author and person.)

Brilliant Books

It was Oldham’s first book award last night, and what a brilliant name Brilliant Books is! Queen Elizabeth Hall was teeming with beautifully dressed school children of all ages, and I must say that those authors who usually spend their days in lonely garrets scrub up really well, too.

As for your shabby looking witch, she was given her very own escort who did some excellent looking after. His name was Snape. Keith Snape. Not Severus. But anyway. (He’s older than he looks. Apparently.) He told me about the wonderful libraries in Oldham, and he is dreadfully enthusiastic about all sorts of things.

Twenty schools have participated in reading this first year, and the children came for a glittery night out at the round tables in the beautiful ballroom. The Mayor of Oldham spoke, and then it was Dave’s turn to look after things on stage. At least I think he’s a Dave. I didn’t catch his surname. He did a great job, ably assisted by young readers.

The names of the shortlisted authors for each category were read out by readers of that age group, followed by some very nicely done recorded readings from each book, along with an opinion on why that particular book was the best. (Like because the character had orange hair.)

Caryl Hart and Ed Eaves won the Early Years award for How to Grow a Dinosaur, and Caryl was there to receive the prize. She impressed Dave by reading her acceptance speech on her smartphone…

Oldham Youth Wind Ensemble played The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, before the titles of the five shortlisted books in the Key Stage 1 group were read out, by slightly older children, who in an egalitarian attempt to split the five titles, shared the last one between them.

Julia Donaldson and David Roberts won with Jack and the Flumflum tree, and our esteemed Children’s Laureate made up for having gone on holiday instead of coming to Oldham, by sending a video message, which included singing a song with her husband. Pretty good, actually.

Not wanting to be outdone (as if they would be!) the Wind Ensemble gave us the Drunken Sailor, and then it was straight on to Key Stage 2. I am pleased that Philip Caveney won with Night on Terror Island. It’s especially nice, because it’s a local award. Philip thanked his daughter for making him a children’s author, and his soulmate, who then ended up carrying his rather lovely trophy around for him.

Clive Goddard, who didn’t win, but who was there anyway, stood up to wave, so we know what he looks like. He wrote a book with the tongue-twisting title Fintan Fedora the World’s Worst Explorer. I agree with Dave; I don’t think I can say that too many times.

Before moving on to the Key Stage 3 books, we enjoyed a performance of Stanley’s Stick by young actors from Oldham Coliseum. The winning book in this category was The Memory Cage by Ruth Eastham. She gave a great speech, which partly consisted of reading us her first published poem, written when she was nine. Basically, we should be aware of our inner caterpillar. I think. We will eventually turn into butterflies.

By this time poor Dave wasn’t sure if he was even at the right stage, but he was, because it was the turn of the oldest readers (so much taller than the first ones) to announce that Patrick Ness and Jim Kay had won with A Monster Calls. Unfortunately they were running late with their homework, and had been given a detention so couldn’t be there.

Sarah from Walker Books read out a message from Patrick, who regretted that his nice suit wasn’t going to get its annual airing, and he thanked Siobhan Dowd, on whose idea the book was based. Another shortlisted author, Ally Kennen, was in the audience and we got a wave from her.

Dave said he’s happy so many children can and do read more than 140 characters, and then everyone thanked everybody else. Andrea Ellison, whose brainchild Brilliant Books is, spoke and listed all her helpers. She waved her plastered arm around, and I wasn’t sure how much she had used it to persuade people… She finished by asking the children to parade round the room, to show off their beautiful outfits and perhaps to get some restlessness out of the way by marching round to the upbeat music.

After which there was nothing more to do than buy books and chat to authors and give Lady Caveney advice on the Scandinavian languages and their differences. And seeing as it took me two hours to get there by public transport, I then decided I had to start working on my return journey. (Car would have been 30 minutes. Broom probably even faster.)

I feel honoured to have been present at the birth of a new award, and here’s to many more Brilliant Books!

He can marry me anytime

Patrick Ness wanted to be an author from an early age, but had no expectations about getting to where he is today. Not through misguided modesty or anything, but his Pentecostal church knew the world was going to end (in 1980, I believe), so there was no point in looking further. He is now living on borrowed time, and reckons God just hasn’t noticed.

At this point Patrick tried to deflect the attention from him to Keith Gray by talking about Ostrich Boys, but Keith told him in no uncertain terms that this was no debate; it was an interview.

He – Patrick – actually entered the Corner theatre so quietly we hardly noticed he had arrived. But Keith made sure we knew all his achievements by listing Patrick’s awards, from the Carnegies and ‘down.’ The place was packed, and mostly by teenagers, which is almost unusual these days.

So it was interesting to hear Patrick’s next book is an adult one. The Crane Wife was written because he needed to write it, and he sort of omitted telling his publisher about it. It will be out in 2013, and so will the next YA book he is currently two thirds through editing the second draft of.

Keith asked him about his rather public argument with G P Taylor, on age banding, which Patrick felt had more to do with G P T’s wish for publicity (he’s not here today, is he?) than anything else. Then it was on to Will Self, and later Stephen King, after which Patrick might have run out of steam, coming up with caustic comments about his peers… He doesn’t mince words, and I suspect that’s something young readers notice and like.

As for his own writing, if Patrick doesn’t like it himself, why should he expect anyone else to? You need to laugh at your own jokes. He needs to want to hurry back to writing, or we won’t want to hurry back to where we left off reading. You can’t be both an oracle and an author. To him being an author has to come first. Always.

‘Momentum is everything’ and the Chaos trilogy really has come to an end. He can’t rule out another book set in the same world, but these books are done. There will be no more. When he wrote The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick knew what the last line of Monsters of Men would be. (Although, there could be a few more short stories…)

For those who might not already know, Patrick explained the background to A Monster Calls, talking at length about Siobhan Dowd. It was important to him that the book should be his book. He didn’t want to pretend to be Siobhan. When he began, he could see the ruined living room in his head, so he knew what to do.

As to whether the tree is real, he leaves that to every reader to determine for themself. He knows what he thinks. But he won’t tell. He has written the screenplay for A Monster Calls, because he didn’t want it changed by someone else.

Patrick might feel he has left the church behind, but the phrase ‘totems are the work of the devil’ tripped very easily off his lips. One piece of advice he has for would-be writers is to write from a totally new or different point of view. If you are a boy, write as though you’re a girl. And write the best you can. You can always go back and fix it, so don’t wait for perfect.

And then to the last question, which Keith bagged for himself: ‘Will you marry me?’

Patrick pointed out they were both happily married, and not to be an idiot. (He might not have used that exact word.)

The explanation for all this was simpler, and also stranger, than you’d think. Patrick’s oldest friend in America had got married recently. She wanted him to marry her. So he went and got ordained online, and then he married his friend.

Form an orderly queue here.

A Little, Aloud

This is one anthology that I won’t be able to carry around with me in order to catch all its participating authors for autographs. Many are dead, and anyway, there are so many of them. Many means good, because there is a tremendous variety and choice, and once you’ve read what you fancy, you might pick something you don’t. That way you discover that is actually also perfectly fine.

You don’t always get anthologies intended to be read aloud, which of course doesn’t stop you from doing so. Short stories and excerpts and poems are just right for that bedtime read, when you are praying you won’t be sitting on the edge of the bed half the night. This book obligingly tells you how long you can expect to spend reading each contribution, so no nasty surprises.

The royalties for this collection of good reads go to The Reader Organisation, which has as its aim ‘reading and health.’ Very nice to see those two words used together. I frequently sit down with a book even when far too many little jobs and crises scream at me that my attention is of the utmost importance. I know that I will feel so much better after a read.

Foreworded by Michael Morpurgo (naturally) and with blurbs by Philip Pullman and Stephen Fry (two men whose voices I just love listening to), the book begins with Instructions by Neil Gaiman. I mistakenly thought he was needed to tell us what to do, but it was actually a proper poem.

Many of the stories in here are ones I have already read, as part of the novel they hail from or as works in their own right. They have, for instance, had the good taste to pick my favourite Shaun Tan story, Broken Toys. There are excerpts from Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery, Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase as well as Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

You have Shakespeare and Kipling, Stevenson and Larkin, and even good old Anon. I haven’t read them all. Yet. This is another of those volumes I want to keep somewhere near, just to dip into. The pile for dipping is getting taller, but that just can’t be helped.

I will want to dip.

(Apologies to all those, dead or alive, whose names I haven’t listed. They are many. And how marvellous to be able to share classic writers in an easy bite size form with a child.)

A Pope kind of moment

I recall Putney Boy’s reaction to hearing that the Pope had died. Being very Italian and impatient with it, he pointed out to the bearer of this piece of news that it was old news. Very old news. What this favourite waiter of mine had missed was that Pope John Paul I had died, and that we weren’t still talking about the death of Paul VI.

But it’s easy to miss even the biggest news on occasion.

I had one of those dead Pope moments on Thursday evening. I saw a mention on facebook that Carnegie winner Patrick Ness had made some speech about the government and books. I thought irritably that it was all very well to post this if you care about books and reading, but that it had been a year since Patrick’s speech.

By Friday morning I had cottoned on to the fact that he had only gone and been awarded the Carnegie again. And the speech was a new speech. My next piece of intelligence suggested that A Monster Calls had actually won the Kate Greenaway medal, which to my tired mind (two days on the road and very little sleep) meant that it was really Jim Kay who had got the medal.

Over mugs of tea the witch family slipped onto the subject, and I shared this Greenaway thought when Daughter said A Monster Calls had received both awards. Personally I thought it unlikely, and we only managed not to come to blows over this by some unexpected maturity we must have had in us.

Struck by a need to know, I researched the whole thing and found she was correct, and that the 2012 medals had been awarded in an unusual way, with one book sharing both.

Well deserved, as everyone has been saying. And some of us feel that it is perhaps an award shared by three people if we count Siobhan Dowd as well.

I really, really need to get on a Carnegie mailing list, if there is such a thing. Longlists and shortlists and award dates and winners must no longer slip through my keyboard in this embarrassing fashion. And to think I was actually, for once, in London on the day, too…

In a minority

I need to disagree with Simon Mason. At least, I think I do. His review in Saturday’s Guardian of Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine wasn’t terribly favourable. That’s fine. For all its merits, Mockingbird wasn’t my favourite aspie book, either. But as an aspie book, it is of interest to me. It has a job to do, and I believe it does.

I suspect Simon ‘only’ reviewed Mockingbird as he would any other book, and he’s probably right to do so. You shouldn’t be more positive about a novel featuring black characters only for that reason. Nor should you get a black reviewer in to ‘do it justice.’ So my feeling that the Guardian would have been better to ask Charlotte Moore is possibly also wrong.

But then I was wrong back in the infancy of Bookwitch when I produced a list - soon followed by a second list – of aspie books (and ultimately a blog in the Guardian). I imagined they were for normal people wanting to read up on aspies or enjoy a novel featuring people who are different in some respect. I felt there was more to aspie literature than Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident. There is, and if reviewers of aspie books will insist on harking back to Curious Incident and compare unfavourably, then I will end up resenting Mark’s wonderful novel.

My own epiphany back in 2007 was that aspies actively look for – and don’t often find – books about themselves. There is a need, and it needs to be filled. Mockingbird does that. So do many other aspie novels. They might not be great literature, because they are often written out of a sense of need and desperation. Unless we can commission top authors to write aspie books as though they were writing one of their ‘normal’ novels, we have to be happy with what we’ve got.

Simon’s is a neurotypical review. It doesn’t allow for the need for aspie books, nor that top writers don’t ‘go there.’ For children’s needs, and especially British children’s reading needs, I want a Jacqueline Wilson book with a main character who has Asperger Syndrome. Not the best friend or the sibling, but the main character.

Once or twice I have suggested to authors I admire that they’d do many readers a favour by incorporating aspie characters in their books. Usually the response is that they know too little (research!), and why don’t I write one myself? That, of course, is what many aspie authors have ended up doing.

Most of my aspie novels are American. Simon is right; there is a difference between our two countries. So far the US appears to have been better for aspie children. A recent suggestion for changing the law means that they will soon have it as bad as we do here.

There are one or two inaccuracies in Simon’s review. Maybe they don’t matter. Although I think they do. Too fast reading of the book is what I’m thinking. Caitlin isn’t into video games. She likes videos. The games were mentioned as part of her ‘conducting small talk.’ The way she talks about her brother is because her Dad fell to pieces and seems not to respond to her. Devon didn’t go to Caitlin’s school, so wasn’t killed there. The lack of colour could constitute a possible angle of aspie life. Caitlin is surprisingly good at drawing. I don’t think her drawing has to be the passion Simon expects it to be.

OK, I’m being petty. But I’d rather a book like this was pulled to shreds for the right reasons. In some ways I wonder why the Guardian bothered reviewing Mockingbird at all. I think it’s important. But I would rather they picked a book which a reviewer could wholeheartedly recommend. Until Carnegie level authors write aspie books, we need to nurture the ones we get. The books still have a value.

Bearded off

You can’t leave a good yurt alone. It grows. The Edinburgh press yurt has sprouted an extra room over the winter. The sideways growth will no doubt prove to be a blessing. As the witch and her photographer fell across its threshold yesterday afternoon, suitcases and everything in tow, we found Claire Armitstead from the Guardian interviewing away in there. (Come to think of it, perhaps it’s the Guardian as BookFest guardians we have to thank for the space?)

My photographer returned General Sutton’s press pass from the Science Festival in April (don’t ask…), and then we set off with our fresh press passes for the year, with much softer ribbons, so we won’t be uncomfortable. At least not round the neck area.

We went looking for Philip Ardagh, of long beard fame. We found someone with an even longer beard! Although PA will be pleased to know he still leads in the excessive height and very large (red, nice) shoes department.

Philip had moderated the Horror boys, aka as Alexander Gordon Smith, Barry Hutchison and Darren Shan. We missed their event, but not their signing, with a mile long queue of mainly boys, and some very useful mothers who queued for them.

(I fully believe Darren is starting an argument above.)

I can tell you that Patrick Ness doesn’t arrive in time for official photocalls. And we had been so pleased that he’d been considered important enough to merit one… Oh well. We got Nick Sharratt instead. Although as the photographer pointed out, there are only so many pictures you can take of a man wearing a cloud shirt, even of someone who happens to be her favourite illustrator.

‘Hi, here we are!’ said Patrick when he arrived for his event A Monster Calls, in the company of moderator Julia Eccleshare. (Too late, I say.) He read the first chapter of his book with the same title. Then he and Julia talked about how the book came to be written, after an idea by Siobhan Dowd.

It was something she wanted, and Patrick has written it as a tribute to Siobhan, rather than trying to copy her style or even using the first chapter she had written. He got the general idea for the plot and the characters from Siobhan’s notes, and then he did his own thing.

That’s generally important to Patrick, writing for himself, keeping it private, and he reckons A Monster Calls is a sad book, but a hopeful one. He remembers only too well what it was like to be a teenager. He feels it’s important to have picture books like this, for older readers, and Patrick was involved in choosing the illustrator, Jim Kay.

To engage in some name dropping I can tell you that the Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson was in the audience, joining in asking questions afterwards. It was an almost full event, after which most of us obediently toddled over to the bookshop for a spot of queueing. It’s a something we can never have enough of.

Although it might have been the after-effects of the massive queue round most of Glasgow Queen Street station earlier in the day that finished us off pretty promptly, and meant that all my earlier ‘coughing’ all over Philip Ardagh came to nothing. I’d been hoping to hear him and Jenny Downham talk about her second novel You Against Me. But I’m sure it went well, even without my witchy presence.

We just went and stood in a few more queues on the way to our BookFest home-from-home. Edinburgh in August, is there anything better? (That’s a more or less direct quote from one of the natives. It would have been rude to disagree.)

A Monster Calls

I was ridiculously relieved to find on starting A Monster Calls that Conor, the main character, is 13. It was the almost picture book quality and the description of what happens that lead me to expect a much younger child. And that felt unbearable. I don’t know why. But Conor was the right kind of character for me. His age also means it’s a more mature story, and I would go so far as to say this is very much an adult book. Not that a child can’t read it, but I don’t know who I would suggest it to.

The other thing was whether Patrick Ness, who is a marvellous writer, should be allowed to write the book which Siobhan Dowd didn’t have time to even start. She planned it, and it’s easy to see where her thoughts must have been heading. Conor’s mother is dying of cancer, and knowing what we do, it feels as if it’s Siobhan’s own illness we are reading about. Or perhaps it’s simply Patrick’s skills in interpreting Siobhan’s plans which make the story what it is.

It feels almost wrong that two such great writers should somehow be ‘collaborating’ on a book. One early reaction I had to the news that Patrick had been asked to write the book with the help of Siobhan’s notes, was that he ought to be able to come up with his own story. He obviously is. What was needed was someone to write what Siobhan couldn’t.

And he certainly has. A Monster Calls feels like neither a Dowd or a Ness, which is probably for the best. It’s like having a baby; you get a little of both and it’s surprising how well the two go together.

Conor has nightmares about a monster. Some boys at school bully him. Then another monster turns up in his already difficult life. And his Grandma. As with all really good stories it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what isn’t.

The plot turns around the yew tree outside Conor’s home and his mother’s illness, which is further advanced than he’s willing to admit. Because she is a single mum, the situation feels much more threatening than if Conor had had a resident father, and his fears are ones I can identify with totally.

I mentioned there are pictures. The illustrations by Jim Kay are suitably menacing, and fit the story perfectly. I thought I wouldn’t want pictures, but I was wrong.

This is very much a Siobhan Dowd story, and the description of the chemotherapy and other treatments is harrowing. I’d love to know exactly how much material Patrick had to work with.

Bookwitch bites #4

The week before last at the Unicorn Theatre, I had a long conversation with Sara Whyatt, a friend of Siobhan Dowd’s from International Pen. Or rather, Sara had a lot to tell me. I can’t pretend to know enough about the areas of Pen, except to know they do very worthwhile work. Sara talked a great deal about an Albanian writer, and about plans they have for things to do.

Angels are all the rage, it seems. Lee Weatherly has some Angel books coming out later, but she’s not the only one. Isn’t it strange how things come at the same time? How does it happen? I mean, it’s easy enough to see the copycats once something has taken off. But when it all starts, without prior contact or discussion.

I can’t believe that Penelope’s new novel still isn’t out. And you know I mean Eleanor Updale, don’t you? Her Johnny Swanson still has a few weeks to go before it’s in the shops. P aka E sent me a lovely letter on Random’s special stationery featuring the cover design for Johnny, and it looks so good! Mum Clare did describe the cover design to me, but I can assure you it looks even better when you see it. Looking like an old newspaper, which is relevant to the plot, it’s got a drawing of Penelope, sorry, Eleanor, in full 1920s style clothes. I wonder if she got to dress up?

And Eleanor has a launch party in a couple of weeks’ time, which I can’t go to. It’s in a bookshop in Kew, which is somewhere the witch used to go a lot in the days when you got into the gardens for 10p. Now it’s in the region of £10, and less of a bargain for a green day out. But they do have a nice tearoom. Do you reckon I could persuade Mr Branson to give me a free annual ticket to London?

Nicola Morgan is trying to get some publicity in for her ‘soon out’ book Wasted, in between dealing with plumbing disasters. She says that she will hand out prizes to those who can unblock her kitchen sink the fastest. No, that’s not right. You have to become a follower here. Random prizes to random followers, or something.

And what’s your opinion of the new covers for Harry Potter? My press release says November, but somewhere else I saw July. Never mind. They’ll be here one day. Do we think they look Harry Potterish enough?

Finally, the young blogging colleague whom I’ve mentioned before, has taken up fiction writing on his blog. I say the adults have to look out. Very carefully, even.

Bookwitch bites #2

As my arms grew longer and longer on Thursday afternoon, I found myself looking forward to meeting up with Nick Green with rather more fervour than I had anticipated. It was a case of a paperback relay across Europe, and even the Atlantic. Some of the books I’ve finished with are going to Germany, and Nick was the intermediary for this. He will store the 27 books in the cupboard where he keeps his biscuits, or so he said. And some time next week Lee will turn up from Germany and retrieve them. She reckoned she could manage 8 kg of books, but the bad news is I only made it to 6,5 kg. I’m glad it was no more, if only for the sake of my arms.

The Atlantic book selection was for Siobhan Dowd’s New York pal Helen, who very rashly agreed to take some. Once I’d disposed of both book bags I was back to more elegant travelling, with just my own bag containing toothbrush and a couple of books to read on the train.

Meeting Nick was lovely for more reasons than length of arms. We had tea at a coffee place near his day job. Or it was more that I asked him to get me tea and a piece of cake, and the nice man obeyed. He didn’t even take my money, saying tea was far cheaper than rounds in the pub.

We talked about his writing, naturally. For someone with a ‘proper’ job, as well as a young family, he writes very fast. There is the reissue of Cat Kin in May, and the very happy news is that he will actually write the third part of the trilogy now. And there is another as yet unpublished trilogy on the way, so plenty to look forward to.

The previous day there had been more Siobhan Dowd news. It seems she left a partly written novel behind, and Patrick Ness will undertake the job of finishing writing her book. Unlike Siobhan’s other books this one will be illustrated.  There was quite a bit of discussion about this fresh piece of news at the Unicorn Theatre. As a fan both of Siobhan’s and of Patrick’s I hope this will work out well. I’m not convinced about people finishing someone else’s book, but I’m willing to keep an open mind about it.