Remember

I couldn’t help noticing that Thomas Keneally has a new book out about WWI, about two sisters who are nurses. It’d be easy to think that this is a bit of a cliché, because so many WWI novels feature nurses. But that’s what you have to have, if you’re going to put your female characters in Europe during the war.

I’d already dug out some of my WWI nurse books, because it’s time to remember that they exist. It’s not a topic I’d expect to find in new books right now, but it’s not as if these are all that ancient.

My first one was Linda Newbery’s Some Other War, which I bought as it was re-issued about ten years ago, although first published in the early 1990s. Linda came to Offsprings’ school, just before Remembrance Sunday, so very timely. She introduced me to Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, also about a nurse.

Linda has two more books about the same characters; The Kind Ghosts, which starts during the war and ends after it. The third book is The Wearing of the Green, set in Ireland. After this I always get confused, because I tend to think her Shouting Wind trilogy is set in WWI. It isn’t. It’s one war later, about a descendant of the two main characters in Some Other War. So that’s two sets of trilogies about the same family, over many years.

The second nurse story is Theresa Breslin’s Remembrance, which Linda strongly recommended. Similar plot, in a way, with girls going off to war as nurses, and with a love story somewhere, as well as being about the village left behind. Realistic, and enjoyable, if you can say that about so much suffering.

My third nurse is only pretending. Marcus Sedgwick’s The Foreshadowing has a female character who is too young to go to war, and she’s not a trained nurse. She has ‘only’ dabbled a bit at nursing at home, before she runs off to Europe, hoping to save her brother’s life. She can ‘see’ things, and she has seen her brother’s death in her mind. With one brother already dead, she’s desperate not to lose her other brother as well.

So, there are similarities, but only because the war was fought in a limited geographical area, and the nursing of soldiers won’t vary much. We are now a long way away in time, but through these books it’s possible to feel something of what it was like.

We have no soldiers left to talk about it, but we mustn’t forget.

How can they not know about the war?

Occasionally I feel the need to apologise, quietly, for my fondness for war novels. It doesn’t always feel right. It’s like crime novels. It ought to be wrong to enjoy something that’s based on someone dying. In war lots of people not only die, but millions more are miserable. How can you enjoy that?

But you need some sort of conflict in a story, and what can be better than war? You don’t even need to blame an individual. We know who or what caused the war, and then the characters can get on with what they have to do.

I’m on this topic again, after the shock of hearing Peter Englund talking about the background to his WWI book; that his history students at Uppsala didn’t know that the war had happened. I felt a bit like, if they didn’t learn about it during history lessons, then surely they must have come across war fiction at some point?

But apparently not.

So I shouldn’t feel bad about war novels. They not only entertain, but can potentially give history lessons where history lessons are needed. In actual fact, I feel I learn more about many school subjects by reading fiction, rather than school books, or listening to teachers droning on and on.

Linda Newbery is someone who has written many WWI novels, and I might not still remember all the fictional details (I am a terrible forgetter), but they still provide me with a good feel for the war as such. The same goes for Theresa Breslin and Marcus Sedgwick. In fact, when my forgetfulness works full time, I find some of the plots blend into one, and that is pehaps because they are all pretty true, and they all share the same basic settings.

Leaving fiction behind, there is the marvellous Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. That, too, is similar to the novels mentioned above. Presumably because it is about the same period and similar activities.

There is Michael Morpurgo’s tale about the football match played at Christmas between the British and the Germans (based on something real?). I have come across it many times, and would guess many children or former children also have.

I wonder if there is a difference between neutral Sweden and countries which took part in the war? (This in turn makes me think of Bali Rai’s City of Ghosts, featuring the destiny of all the Indians who fought in Europe in the Great War.) Now that no one has a living great grandfather who fought in WWI, it must still be well known. Newspapers write about it often. I imagine families still talk about those who died. And for that matter, those who came back.

Recently I had cause to look at the family tree again (British side), and was reminded of the Resident IT Consultant’s great uncles. He had many of them, but two he never met, because they died within days of each other in July 1916. I keep thinking of how their mother must have felt.

Writing for children

I can’t believe it’s almost five years since my Arvon course. It was one of those things I very much wanted to do, but felt I couldn’t use up funds while there was no money coming in. But I felt it so very strongly that in the end I signed up anyway, when there was just the one place left at Lumb Bank.

Of course, I didn’t do writing for children. Mine was a sort of non-fiction, general course, which suited me just fine. I see that in this year’s programme they have something for people wanting to get started on blogs and other online writing.

In 2007 I think they offered one, possibly two, weeks for hopeful children’s writers. This year I was impressed to see they do four, and that’s before I discovered it’s actually six weeks. Three of writing for children, two for young adults and one for young people. That’s a lot. It must be due to popular demand, and why wouldn’t people want to come and spend a week in the company of real children’s authors tutoring a group of likeminded budding writers?

I heard about Arvon when Caroline Lawrence reported on having just taught at one of their centres. And I believe she had previously done one of their courses herself. That seems to be the way it is. Lots of current authors have been, and many are now taking up tutoring as the next step.

Just look at who you could rub shoulders with in a kitchen in some beautiful countryside setting; Julia Golding and Marcus Sedgwick, with Mary Hoffman as the midweek special. Or there’s Malachy Doyle and Polly Dunbar, with guest star Anthony Browne. It’s not everywhere you get to hobnob with Children’s Laureates, ex- or otherwise. The two MBs, Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess, with Aussie special Simmone Howell. Now that one would be really interesting!

You could have Joan Lennon and Paul Magrs, with yet another Laureate, Julia Donaldson. Martyn Bedford with Celia Rees, and Bali Rai doing the star turn. And finally Gillian Cross and Steve Voake, with guest dramatist Christopher William Hill.

If laureates are your thing, there is always the hope of a week with Carol Ann Duffy, but then you really have to be good. At poetry, I mean. That one is decided on the quality of your poems. Which is not going to be me.

Plus any other kind of writing. All with people who know their stuff. It isn’t cheap, but there are schemes for financial assistance. No internet, and you have to cook your own dinner in groups, so better hope for budding writers who can peel potatoes.

(We had our own laureate connection – on wall, above – during my week. That’s as well as the house having belonged to a former Poet Laureate.)

Oh, gee!

Or guh, guh, guh, as they say in schools these days.

Today children, we are doing the letter G. There is an awful lot of it about.

As you may know, the bookwitch herself is G-afflicted. It wasn’t always thus, but happily for the sake of those hand-monogrammed towels and whatnot I was simply able to add a small horizontal bar to my original letter and I was fine.

But now we are talking of books, and the placing of them in alphabetical order. (Between you and me, I did seriously consider the colour approach. And it would actually have been easier. At least for putting the books on the shelves. Finding them again might have been another kettle of ghoti.)

I’m such a sad witch that I first wrote down the alphabet on a piece of paper and then I didvided it up in equal pieces, based on how many shelves I had to hand. But you can’t actually put an even three letters’ worth on each level. (I did this because the books came at me in a most higgledy piggledy fashion, so I had no way of knowing how many I had of anything. Except too many.) Letters aren’t equal. I thought there might be a lot of Ss. There isn’t, setting that Sedgwick chap aside.

G, however. There is a lot of G here. One and a half shelf. That’s more than anything else. Come to think of it, it’s a bit like my address book. I married a G. This G had relatives who had the nerve to go off and marry other Gs. And to top it all off, I went and acquired a whole new set of relatives myself. Their name began with G. And those who had started off married, got divorced and went back to being Gs. Honestly.

And you need to appreciate that I’m the one who has to mumble ‘J, K’ to myself whenever I have to spell something out in English, before I manage to say ‘GEE.’

Where was I? On about the third shelf down, with the Gs. It starts with Gaiman and ends with Guëne. Between those two you find some nice people who have written some nice books.

So you want to know who wins?

Readers! Honestly. They think they can just write in and ask me to do things. And they are quite right. They can and they do and I might well. Lets’ see.

The Carnegie shortlist took me by more of a surprise than ever before. Had actually tried to predict when it would come. Got that wrong, so was taken aback on Friday when Facebook was awash with congratulations. But I’d like to point out that you might be on the shortlist, but it doesn’t exactly mean you’ll win. Does it?

Carnegie’s server seemed to collapse on Friday (it was April 1st, which is such a bad date, for anything), so I couldn’t even satisfy my curiosity until a lot later.

So, let’s have the list:

Theresa Breslin, Prisoner of the Inquisition

Geraldine McCaughrean, The Death Defying Pepper Roux

Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

Meg Rosoff, The Bride’s Farewell

Marcus Sedgwick, White Crow

Jason Wallace, Out of Shadows

Good list. But then there is an equally good list of people and books which didn’t make it. Let’s not dwell on that. I have read five of the six, and the one I haven’t is Geraldine’s Pepper novel, which I’m sure is as worryingly perfect as her other books have been.

Well, even though you know I would like all six books to win, you also know I want Meg to win. And she stands a very good chance. But with that Patrick Ness around, the vibes tell me he will wipe the floor. Again. Preferably chez Bookwitch, because we badly need it.

OK then, Adèle? I have spoken. And you weren’t the only one. My inbox literally popped with requests.

Bookwitch bites #44

Let’s have some bites with a Scandinavian slant. Even if it’s just about me. (Isn’t it always?)

I’ve been working on the Tim Bowler interview (which will be with you very shortly), and it was nice to see I made the news on Tim’s website. He’s either very polite, or has got his priorities all muddled up.

Something – and I don’t know what it was, but it certainly wasn’t the speed of my dial-up this week – had me surf round blogs and websites. Nice to find that some of my favourites make it into translation. Here are Marcus Sedgwick’s ‘Swordhand’ and Chris Priestley’s horror stories, Swedish style.

My Danish blogger friend Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen does not only blog in two languages, getting the English version correct, but she writes fiction as well. (I believe there might even be a paid day job somewhere and possibly household chores, too.) She has a small story collection available to buy online for those of you who are equipped with e-readers. That does not include me. I love the title, which is really witty: Candied Crime.

Someone with a different kind of language issue is Rhys Bowen, the British crime writer transplanted to America. In her latest newsletter she told fans about breaking her wrist, which is delaying her next novel. Trying speech recognition software Rhys found it couldn’t quite deal with what she was hoping to write; ‘heir to the throne’ became ‘air to the thrown’ and ‘to let’ changed into what I always see it as when out and about and morphed into ‘toilet’.

Seeing as I mentioned e-readers just now, Rhys says she has a short ‘Molly’ story (The Amersham Rubies) coming out soon, to coincide with her next Molly novel. Free on Kindle. And how does that help me?

The Truth is Dead

What if?

What if it had gone the other way? This short anthology, edited by Marcus Sedgwick, takes history and turns it round. Some famous times in the past get a new look through eight authors. Marcus has rounded up some of our best writers, like Philip Ardagh, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Anthony McGowan, Linda Newbery, Mal Peet, Eleanor Updale and Matt Whyman, and asked them to rewrite history.

I was fairly taken with Anthony McGowan’s Jesus, and I sincerely hope he will not get into trouble for this. Anthony, I mean. Jesus seems to have messed up, and he even passed on the Nike trainers. Honestly.

And I loved Mal Peet’s character, almost from the first sentence of his short story. I knew Mal is talented, but this is quite spectacular.

Linda Newbery does what she does so well, offering a tale from WWI. Philip Ardagh shows what a space nerd he is with his story about the moon, and Matt Whyman does other strange things to the same moon.

Marcus gives a new side to Napoleon, and Eleanor Updale tackles the millennium bug, while Frank Cottrell Boyce has a related topic in the world ending next year. That’s after the Aztecs colonised Glasgow.

At times I had to work to keep my wits with all this back-to-frontness. Makes you think.

Authors in the kitchen

The 2011 author calendar has landed. I know. It’s late. I put my order in late. The calendar maker was busy. After which the calendar maker made, and I was too busy to proofread. There were two 27th of Februarys. No 28th. That’s been fixed.

Then there was the printing of. Ran out of time. Then ran out of legs. Eventually stashed laptop in bag on back and dragged myself upstairs towards printer. And printed. And guillotined. Even worked out a way for authors not to have their heads stapled.

No, I mean hole punched. It always used to look so uncomfortable with the little hole at the top of their heads. And heads are useful things for authors to have.

This year’s crop is exclusively from the Edinburgh festival, so if you weren’t there you’re not in. If you’ve been in before, you are less likely to be in this time. And in the end it was down to best photos, and then the calendar maker was allowed final say.

At the moment I have Lucy Christopher smiling away. She will be followed by Marcus Sedgwick, after whom come Francesca Simon, Stuart Neville, Eleanor Updale, Sally Gardner, Keith Gray, Debi Gliori, Philip Ardagh, Jacqueline Wilson, Theresa Breslin, Michelle Lovric and Sophia Jansson.

Yes. That is 13 names. Two share. And Ardagh has been before, but since my pet name for him is Calendar Boy, I suppose it’s OK. Fully dressed. Always.

And all the heads intact.

It’s not easy having a kitchen wall 13 cm wide. In fact, that is anything but wide. 13 cm narrow, is what it is.

Bookwitch bites #38

January brings not just bad weather and the opportunity to send Offsprings everywhere back to school, but paperbacks galore. Or it seems that way. Candy Gourlay’s Tall Story is out in soft version, with the same cover except for the changes. Jon Mayhew’s Mortlock is also out there somewhere, but I’ve just heard the rumours. Not actually seen it. Marcus Sedgwick’s Ghosts and Gadgets have likewise been paperbacked. Hair raising cover.

If you don’t like paperbacks there is always the Kindle. Philip Ardagh was back on morning television this week again, to talk about Kindling. It was very early, and all he did after travelling across Kent (or whoever it was he crossed well before dawn – who is she?) was sit there on the sofa and say that he doesn’t want a Kindle. Luckily they had a JKR lookalike to tell people all the techy details about bookless reading.

There are new books out there, too. Marie-Louise Jensen’s Sigrun’s Secret has arrived, and I’m in the midst of reading. A more contentious ‘new’ book is Huckleberry Finn without the n-word. A pc world is a much better world, or so some people believe.

You can clean up too much. At university I read Under Milk Wood. An English friend made a joke about reading the placename backwards and how I’d see an interesting word. I read and I read and saw nothing terribly fun at all. You try backwardsing on Llaregyb. I had been sold a sanitised version! B*gger.

How I Live Now is about to become a film, at long last. Possibly. Probably.

And finally, Anne Cassidy, Keren David, Linda Strachan and Gillian Philip have clubbed together to become Crime Central. I will return to them soon, but have to reflect a little on what is meant by crime. Books for oldies still seem to be more about solving the crime. These ladies are more into committing the crime, which is an admirable way to go about things. True role models. ; )

Halloween reads

There are more – and squishier – pumpkins in Vampires and Volts, but other than that it’s always Halloween at Castle Otherhand. It’s the kind of Goth/Halloweeny place that will never be normal, and where weird is the norm.

The Raven Mysteries written by Marcus Sedgwick and illustrated by Pete Williamson are – as the name suggests – about a raven. He’s called Edgar. He is so me that we could be brother and sister and I love him. And as Edgar is my dear brother, I don’t have a problem with him being a raven, or even a bird. I’m so pleased that we can finish this Halloween week of horrors with something quite sweet and funny, while still a wee bit creepy.

It’d be so easy to sniff at these books and dismiss them as brief entertainment for younger readers. They are extremely intelligently written; brief but using grown-up and mature words and sentence structure, which is the way forward for tomorrow’s readers. The humour in them is totally ‘adult’, and can possibly be explained by Edgar’s advanced years. He’s seen a lot.

The Otherhands are somewhat careless with their staff. They have so many, but they do go through them slightly too fast. It doesn’t do to call the people who supply them with maids and footmen several times a week. They will run out of prospective employees before long. And it would look better if they seemed to care when yet a few more maids snuff it.

Mum Minty is a wee bit lacking in the lady-of-the manor department for an ex-witch. Her husband is mad, but we expect husbands to be mad. Son Cudweed is dim and likes his food rather too much, but daughter Solstice is quite lovely. Goth and capable, and so articulate. Gasp. Gulp. And dear Edgar keeps them all going and assists at all times.

I read Flood and Fang when it first came out, and after that the Raven Mysteries piled up until I had a Raven weekend reading Ghosts and Gadgets, Lunatics and Luck, as well as Vampires and Volts, which is the latest one and out just in time for Halloween. But as I said, they are all Halloween books. And you don’t need to have read one before you read another. They stand alone very well. But you’d be an idiot not to read all. We all need some fun in our lives.