It was time for another Sefton (‘see if you can find us this time’) Super Reads yesterday afternoon. And yes I could. Eventually. This venue, Southport Arts Centre is even larger than Crosby Civic Hall, and was thereby proportionally harder to find. But you can’t keep a good witch away. (I had a choice of Sefton on Tuesday or Carnegie today…)

You could call it Ladies’ Day, since it was the girls on the shortlist who made it to Southport. Tony from Formby Books seemed to feel that recent fatherhood (David Walliams) or living in Italy (Fabio Geda) was reason enough to stay at home. And he came up with no excuse whatsoever for J D Sharpe.

And then there was Ruth Eastham who had come here all the way from Italy. (Girls rule!) Caroline Green came from London, and Barbara Mitchellhill had done something for the first time (or so she confided to me) and had had eyes for the Manchester train only. But she was nevertheless the first one to arrive.

So, when I had finally deduced that what I wanted was the enormous building in the middle of Southport, on its impressive Lord Street, I popped in and asked for more directions. Was told that I wanted the same as ‘that lady’ so followed her, and found it was Barbara. Which is why we shared travelling information with each other, as we waited for the others.

It’s a fabulous old/new theatre and library and museum, which has been done up so recently that not all areas are 100% ready and there is a fresh paint kind of smell. The theatre we were in was great, and the charming man in charge of it serves coffee very nicely. (It seems we had a narrow escape. The people before us had been served dinner by staff from Fawlty Towers.)

When the invited school children were given a guided tour of the place, the rest of us tagged along, admiring the chandeliers and stucco ceilings and purple armchairs.

After threatening the audience with a Latin lesson and some singing, Tony introduced the three ladies, before opening the floor to Q&A. Writing a book takes anything between two months and three years. All three authors save the stuff they’ve written but have decided not to use. Just in case.

Caroline had an inspiring teacher in Year 6, after which there was a gap in writing until she was an adult. Barbara loved Enid Blyton, but after the age of twelve she found her library so stuffy that she went off reading. Meanwhile Ruth relied on reading recommendations from librarians.

Character names can be difficult, especially historical ones. These days you can be called anything (Caroline made up the name Kyla for her book, only to find Teri Terry had done exactly the same) but in Shakespeare’s time there were only certain names to choose from.

Barbara had inspiration for her 16th century novel, Road to London, from The X Factor. But she herself would really like to be Anthony Horowitz.

Ruth began by reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials ‘backwards’ but was still very impressed. And Caroline has read everything by Marcus Sedgwick and thinks he’s fantastic.

They were all a little embarrassed to admit they hadn’t read each other’s books, but at least Ruth has now put the other two on her tbr pile. And I can no longer remember why Barbara told us that she ‘likes killing people!’ but I’m sure she only kills for a good reason.

After learning all about our three ladies, it would have been a bit of an anticlimax if the winner of the Sefton Super Reads had not been one of them. But you can relax. She was there!

Before Ruth Eastham could receive her winning trophy, there were prizes for best book reviews to be awarded. The participating children had read and reviewed the shortlisted books, and there was a first and second prize for a review of each of the six books.

Once the winners had received their book tokens and been photographed with the authors, it was time for Ruth’s winner’s speech (when all she wanted to do was show Caroline her trophy).

Long before the afternoon was over, the children had bought nearly all the books for sale and queued up to have them signed, and to be photographed with their favourite author. (And it has to be said, one school – very sensibly – ate a late lunch first.)

I had rather witchily managed to put my copy of the winning book, The Messenger Bird, in my bag before I left home, so I joined the signing queue.

Then it was time for goodbyes, with all three authors sprinting off to catch trains. Possibly even the same train. I’m hoping to see them at another award ceremony soon. And having checked out Barbara’s and Caroline’s books, I’m thinking I’d like to read them.

As for me, I called the Resident IT Consultant (who had very kindly driven me all the way to Southport) and ordered him to take me for a walk on the pier. I hadn’t come all the way to the seaside not to see where the sea ought to have been if it had any sense at all.

This being Southport, there was no sea below the pier, obviously, but we had a most acceptable stroll along it anyway. Made the mistake of not buying hot donuts as we passed on the way out, meaning the mug of tea the Resident IT Consultant bought me at the end of the pier, had to go unaccompanied. But we bought some on our way back, and had them for dessert.

Very nice. Very seasidey. Apart from the distinct lack of sea.

So here I give you the original The Dragonsitter!

Reading backwards, as it were, means some things came as no surprise, but that’s OK. I like amusing little stories, although it was rather deadful that Uncle Morton’s dragon ate Edward’s sister’s rabbit Jemima. But like all (maybe I mean most, now that I think about it) young owners of pets, Emily (that’s the sister) is so enthralled by the dragon that she soon forgets…

There’s more frantic emailing when the dragon causes mayhem, but Uncle Morton doesn’t reply. The trouble with dragonsitting a troublesome dragon is that the RSPCA doesn’t believe you when you call to ask for help. Because dragons don’t exist.

Toasted postman, incredulous firemen, and barely escaping neighbourhood cats are all part of dragonsitting. And once you’ve spent a fortune on chocolate, you’re fine.

So is this book. Chocolatey fine.

Melinda Szymanik’s book brings home the sheer pointlessness of much that happened in the war. The fighting itself is not good, but it at least has a purpose, however bad. But it’s the putting people into concentration camps or carting them across half a continent, simply because they are ‘unwanted’ and no one can think what to do with them, that really gets to me.

After American Rose’s internment in Ravensbrück in Rose Under Fire, and the interminable travels of all those Lithuanians in Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray, as they are shunted from place to place, I have read more of the same. Only now it’s Poles who are taken on a strange journey where no one wants them. They are to be kept out of the way.

The story about Adam and his family is based closely on the real experiences of Melinda’s father Leszek. First the Russians come and take thousands of Polish families through Russia because they are somehow the enemy. After enduring a couple of years of cold winters and unbearable summers doing hard, but pointless work, including seeing members of their family die; when Germany invaded Russia ‘they were transformed from being an inconvenience into something useful.’

After more politics the British take over and the Polish soldiers end up fighting for them instead. They are taken from the cold north to the warm Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and ultimately to Persia. But it’s not only war that kills the new soldiers. Illness spreads even before they have fought. More people die.

Mercifully the descriptions in A Winter’s Day are sketchy at times, and there actually is no need to go into excrutiating detail. It is grim, and it becomes quite clear what made this a world war. It wasn’t merely that many countries fought, but that people ended up fighting in the most unexpected places, where they didn’t belong, for armies other than their own.

And afterwards they are in many cases displaced forever, needing or wanting to start new lives somewhere else. That’s why Melinda is a New Zealander.

(It’s because it looks a little fireplace-ish. More than mine, anyway.)

The Resident IT Consultant and I enjoyed looking through Helen’s shelves when we were waiting for her to get lunch ready the other week. (She had declined my help. I let her. That’s the kind of visitor I am.) They are shelves that anyone would enjoy browsing for unexpected – or for that matter, totally expected – books. We flitted from side to side, since there was no discernible system. Lovely.

They are nice bookcases. The furniture, I mean. Dark brown. Not too plain and not too ornamental. Just right. And one of them sits where the fireplace would be if there was one. Hence my understandable memory lapse. As befits a proper library, the room boasts leather sofas. And cats.

I am sure that Helen, or the younger Grants, own every one of the Harry Potter books. But they are so nicely spread out that you could never accuse the family of believing in alphabetical order. The HPs are not even in the same bookcase, or along the same wall!

And they have at least two copies of a book about witches and magic. Either they don’t know this, or they need both. I felt suitably appreciated, anyway. There are books by Johan Ajvide Lindqvist, or what I call horror of horrors. Someone likes outdoorsy books. They have books on food. On health. And, er, some by Helen Grant.

Some books stand in front of other books. In other words, the Grant book collection is very, very normal. I suspect they haven’t acquired books with an eye to what others will think. Which is just as well, since when they moved (I have forgotten now if it was to Germany or to Belgium) their new neighbours asked why they’d bothered dragging all those old books with them.

Yeah, I mean, you’d think people wouldn’t take things they’d already used when moving house.

He came and waved the Weekend at me one recent Saturday morning, wondering if by any chance we still had those old Penguins we found in a Swedish countryside fleamarket years ago?

Apparently you can decorate with them. The Weekend team had done up someone’s boring front room. (Although I didn’t think it was bad at all.) I suspect they started with the rug. Many of the accessories they put in the room matched the slashes of colour from the rug.

That will be why they used Penguins to decorate. The nice orange and the nice blue went perfectly with the rug. Except the books sat on a ladder on the wall. And if you need such colour coordinated vintage books to put in your home, their advice is to try eBay.

Here I am, with too many books to even dream of displaying a handful of them on an old ladder cut in two! I have to admit, it looked good. But Penguins from eBay! Honestly. They would have to be the only books in that home. You just couldn’t have a display like that and then keep ‘real’ books on real shelves elsewhere?

What if someone tried to have a conversation with you about what’s in the books, rather than what beautiful colours they come in?

And I’m very glad she is. I’m grateful she was able to leave Germany 80 years ago, and that she was able to make a good life for herself in her new country. Some immigrants are now so old and established, and above all, so well loved that people forget about their foreign beginnings.

I wish that could be said for all who seek safety in this ‘paradise.’

Judith has given us Mog and, although we never got properly acquainted with it, a pink rabbit. The world is a better place for it, even before we factor in tigers who come for tea and other outlandish ideas.

A quick internet trawl for pictures of Judith – before using my own, slightly wobbly one – tells me she looks great in pink. I’m glad she had draped herself in pink the day I met her.

Lovely lady, and fantastic books for all to enjoy for years to come.

Or The Case of the Pistol-Packing Widows, as Caroline Lawrence’s third P K Pinkerton Mystery is officially called. That sounds good, too, but nowhere near as satisfying as all this romance stuff.

It’s funny. P K finds kissing disgusting, and there is a fair bit of that going on in Carson City, where he/she has gone on a case. It appears to be yet another ‘romantic job,’ which is tedious for this rational detective, but it pays well. So P K leaves Ping to mind the shop in Virginia City, and goes off to see about widows and other unusual females.

I loved this adventure, where P K is almost growing up; learning about legislation, learning shorthand and coming to realise that whereas never having time to yourself can feel bad, the opposite is not necessarily better. (I know that feeling well!)

This is another great history lesson disguised as a fast-paced and funny crime western. I could barely put it down, and I suffered when P K suffered, and triumphed when he/she did. (One ‘clew’ for you; we learn which it is in this book. Is P K a boy? Or a girl?)

Those widows are really something. Is the pistol-packing one good or bad? Who is killing all those men? And can P K trust his/her old friends? As ever, P K also makes new friends, and it seems that if you know your Bible, you can always count on making decent and true new friends.

The endings of the first two mysteries were more than satisfying. The finale of this one is extremely funny and just what I would have hoped for. Not too much, and not too little. (Of – you know – what…)

Please let there be many more!

I ask, because on our recent trip north, I found my dream street. It is not the area I first had in mind when I came up with this moving idea. Nor does it offer the kind of house I first coveted. Or the views. Or even the distance to ‘the middle,’ which is that vague spot that covers the railway station and M & S.

There is only one problem with the street I have fallen for. It has no houses for sale. So, do I leaflet the houses, suggesting there are far nicer places people could move to?

I had this idea much earlier, when I came across what is now my second favoured area. Actually, this ‘area’ now consists of primarily one house. Perhaps I could haunt it? Though, haunting would go better with the newly discovered street, seeing as it’s next to a graveyard.

This means Daughter will never come and visit. Which would be a shame.

It’d be quiet, though. And sort of old, and nicely different. Aunt Scarborough’s only comment was that she finds the street rather twisty when she has to give someone a lift there in her car.

The Grandmother remarked that she knows an old lady in one of the houses…

But there can be no haunting or hounding without some effort at the current home end. We need someone to suggest to us that there are better places to live. It’s back to more getting rid of stuff.

In Max the Champion it is Ros’s pictures that make the book. My sincere apologies to Sean Stockdale and Alexandra Strick who wrote the words. (You should have chosen a really rubbish illustrator…)

Max is a crazy, but also completely normal, little boy. He is crazy about sport. He lives and breathes sport, and I do believe there was even sport in his breakfast cereal.

He wakes up, he eats his cereal. He goes to school. He and his classmates do the sorts of things you do at school. Max turns everything into sport. His still life ‘fruitbowl’ full of (sports) balls is quite something.

In the afternoon they do sport at school, and he loves it.

As a reader you are halfway through the book before you realise that’s a hearing aid in Max’s ear. And he’s so excited he’s got his inhaler out. His classmates are also a little ‘different.’ One is in a wheelchair. One has an eye problem.

Apart from Max’s sheer enjoyment as he goes through his day with nothing but sport on his mind, nothing much happens. But that’s fine. We want to see those ‘different’ children behaving just like everyone else.

We shouldn’t need a special book to do so. But we do. Here it is.

The same as for the inmates of Ravensbrück in Elizabeth Wein’s new novel, Rose Under Fire. They just got on with it, in an almost unbelieveable manner. That way, some of them survived until the end of the war.

Starting with a funeral, and going on to a wedding, this story revisits some people and places from Code Name Verity. I like knowing what happened later. (Ideally you should read CNV before embarking on Rose Under Fire. You don’t have to, but you would be cheating yourself out of a most marvellous book if you begin at the end.)

Although, we know Rose survives the war, because her tale about how she ended up at Ravensbrück actually does start at the end. This is another journal, both similar to and very different from Julie’s diary in CNV. Rose is an 18-year-old American ATA pilot, and her voice is very much that of the surprised American girl who wonders how she ended up starving in a German concentration camp.

Rose is a lovely character, but it is perhaps the European girls and women at Ravensbrück who impress the most. It’s easy to think of them as mere victims, dirty and hungry and looking like walking skeletons. Here you find university professors, continuing their work by educating fellow inmates. The solidarity as people go without (impressive, since there is so little, that to go with less should be impossible) in order to assist with the current plans for helping someone escape, or hide, or any other desperate action forced on them.

This is no Code Name Verity. It would have been impossible to repeat. Rose Under Fire is a very well researched ‘inside a concentration camp’ story. People have to die, or disappear, because it’s what people did. I had heard of the operations performed, but had had no inkling as to what it really meant. I almost prefer not to think about what I’ve learned.

Rose Under Fire is a must read. Elizabeth’s done a great job creating another girl pilot, letting us see war torn Germany from the inside, not to mention the inside of the hole under the floor in the toilets at Ravensbrück.

It’s a love story, even if not in the traditional sense.