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.

Bookwitch bites #83

I’m having problems. Just little ones, though. Except, I wasn’t just a little jealous when Sarah McIntyre went and blogged about going painting with Rolf Harris on television. That’s more like extremely jealous. The mitigating factors are two. I can’t draw or paint (counts as one, those do), and Sarah is so lovely it’s very hard to think badly of her.

Did I moan about the weather earlier this week? I can moan again, but the other way round. It is far too cold! But then everyone knows how cold it is in those far flung Nordic countries. It must be global warming (said Daughter) that’s behind it getting colder. I have packed swimsuit as usual. Doubt I’ll be using it. On the other hand, the Resident IT Consultant cycled off the first evening and flung himself in the sea. Not for long, but enough.

So, as Daughter speculated on Gulf streams and stuff, she suggested I could put the heating up a little. I said I could have, if I hadn’t turned it off as we arrived. I mean, you do, when it’s late May. Don’t you?

We went the long way round. No, the slower way round. Instead of getting on the through train from Copenhagen airport, we went through Copenhagen, in the opposite direction and north to Elsinore. Hamlet wasn’t at home. The sensible Danes wore coats and things, so they clearly knew it was chilly. Then we de-trained and went for the ferry, except that was more complicated than it should have been, and it was neither the Aurora nor the Tycho Brahe, both of which would have met with Daughter’s approval. It’s best if we don’t mention too much about the dubious vessel we did go on. It had (whispers) a smokers’ corner… Letting smoke out. (And, air to the smokers in. Do they really need to breathe?)

Once on the other side – Sweden, not the land of the dead – we waited for the train to take us further north, meaning we ended up on the one an hour later than if we’d picked the sensible alternative. At least the Resident IT Consultant could be talked out of the family experiencing the Copenhagen Metro, where no experiencing was necessary. The train covered the same distance admirably.

Because the ticket machine in Helsingborg panicked at the sight of my foreign credit card, we (legally) saved £10 on fares. We travelled on, and eventually swapped a pound of Stilton for a Saab. The natives really do have a liking for cheese. We stopped to stare at the red warning light for a while, before deciding to ignore it, shopped for milk and cheese and stuff (we had given our cheese away, remember), before finally picking up pizzas and driving off to see if there still was a house in which to eat them.

There was. Plenty of grass, too. But you saw that last year.

(Some) badness is in

Rats, raccoons, spirally pasta princesses and The Ass. (That’s not rude, btw.) That’s what we have to offer today. Picture books have been read, and let me tell you how shocked we are.

It seems crime is in. And by that I don’t mean crime as a genre, which I wholeheartedly approve of. No, young readers are to be taught to misbehave. To steal, to be bad.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler have a bad – if nicely rhyming – criminal rat. A fat rat. The Highway Rat. He steals things off nice people. He’s not nice at all. But luckily he gets his come-uppance in the end.

Raccoons are no better. In Hannah Shaw’s School for Bandits Mr and Mrs Raccoon are concerned for their useless son. Ralph Raccoon is quite nice, which is so not on, and they send him to Bandit School. That’s not very nice for Ralph. Then he accidentally wins the Best Bandit competition, and he gets an opportunity to show his hooligan classmates how to do it.

In You Can’t Scare a Princess by Gillian Rogerson and Sarah McIntyre we have pirates. They need to be taught a lesson, too, and who better than Princess Spaghetti? (Personally I think she looks more like Princess Spiralli Pasta, but what do I know?) So much badness. And then you think the Princess has sorted those awful pirates, when in actual fact they only have more and better crime on their minds.

So thank goodness for The Lion, the Unicorn and Me by Jeanette Winterson and Rosalind MacCurrach. It features an ass with not just a heart of gold, but a nose as well.

You think you’ve read all the Christmas stories. They are all variations on the same theme and how many can there be? Well, this was a new one to me, although I see it’s been around a few years. I read it from a sense of duty to begin with, but found pretty soon that I loved it. It’s beautiful, and would be a good book to read with a young friend when Christmas comes.

Which it will do far too soon.

I always did have a soft spot for donkeys, though.

Dame in a nebula outfit

The weirdest thing was running into Andy Mulligan at Euston. Not that he knows me, but there he was. Probably going towards ‘Up North’ like Formby (for tomorrow’s event), whereas we (trusted photographer and witch) were heading for Branford Boase, which is an award and it’s in London. (There is a point to that which you will not get.) And then there was Jodi Picoult in the tube station, but she was merely a poster, if a life size one.

I’d have got lost at Vauxhall tube station. I have been before. Once. Thankfully Daughter, who has never been, put us on the right path. So we were not lost after all.

So, there they all were, the shortlisted authors, apart from Gregory Hughes (I deduced he was not the winner). Candy Gourlay seemed to have brought Sarah McIntyre along, which was wise, and one of the men in the Fickling basement was present. That’s Simon Mason of Moon Pie fame. So we had met before, which the clever-clogs Daughter remembered and I didn’t. You can’t memorise all men kept in basements everywhere.

Keren David was surrounded by admirers at all times so was hard to get close to. But her shoes were marvellous. And her glasses. (Sorry, is this a book blog?)

Had no idea what Jason Wallace looks like, but the photographer identified him with her eagle eye. There was something about her wanting his shirt for her bedroom…

J P Buxton was someone I didn’t know at all, but he turned out to be the tall guy with the impressive hair.

And Pat Walsh had a crutch with her that I very nearly stole. Being kind, I only held it for her during the photocall. Pat was what you have to call the experts’ favourite, so I am very interested in her book (which is another one published by someone I’m not managing to establish a – professional – relationship with).

Lots of other lovely book world types, including Andersen’s Clare, Nicky with the impressive memory, Philippa Dickinson, former winner Frances Hardinge and many more. Klaus Flugge, whose chair Goldilocks sat in. Super agent Hilary Delamere, Julia Eccleshare, Walker Books’ David Lloyd. And I have finally met and been introduced properly to John McLay of the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature.

And then there was Jacqueline Wilson (Dame, OBE, etc, etc) in a starry outfit that Daughter will have when Jacky is finished with it. Please.

Jason was not the only winner last night. There was a whole bunch of talented children who had won the Henrietta Branford Writing Competition. One girl was so keen to come that she’d travelled on the coach from Scotland since five that morning and going back overnight. Maybe the future of writing is safe, after all?

In her speech, Branford Boase organiser Anne Marley slipped in a Freudian Wife of Never Letting Go for Patrick Ness, son of the Walker house, which made us laugh. David Lloyd pointed out what a fun – and easy – job editing books is. Julia Eccleshare spoke about the history of the Branford Boase Award.

And then it should have been last year’s winner Lucy Christopher, but she was off on some very important business elsewhere, so had written a lovely speech to be delivered by Damien Kelleher who was one of the judges. The Branford Boase is awarded not only to authors like Jason, but to editors like Charlie Sheppard. What Lucy had to say about editors is that authors need them ‘like crazy people need therapists’. She can talk. According to Charlie, editors occasionally spend time polishing turds. I fully expect Out of Shadows not to have been anywhere near turd status.

Although, Jason did mention ‘gutted fish at feeding time’. Andersen Press is the nicest bunch of people. (I had noticed.) Jason also muttered something incomprehensible regarding cats, empty bottles and loneliness. And most importantly, he talked about Zimbabwe, where his novel is set. Things are still not good and people are still suffering. Let’s hope books like Jason’s will make a difference.

Anne Marley warned us off stealing the display of former winners’ books. Apparently Philip Ardagh tried it last year. (Could be why he wasn’t there?) The good thing about neither Candy nor Keren winning was – as they said – that now they don’t have to kill each other. Competing against friends is never fun.

As usual Paul Carter was taking photographs, and he is not above sharing the task with others. Which is why I brought my own picture person. As they do in real life sometimes, the photographers ended up taking pictures of each other.

We were chatting to Jacqueline Wilson just before leaving, when Candy sneaked up, wanting to be photographed with a star. One of these days she’ll realise that no sneaking is necessary. She too, is a star.

The Random Christmas Party

After frenzied discussions on facebook as to the level of insanity of me travelling in this snowy weather, it was all a bit of an anticlimax. Nothing untoward happened as far as my travelling was concerned. To go or not to go. That was the question. And until I put my coat on and locked the door behind me, I didn’t know myself.

Sat next to someone on the train who wrote a list of cocktails on his Macbook, and I wanted to scream when he listed vodke. But to point it out would have been to admit I was reading his document.

And while on the subject of drinks, I may have been standing in the part of the room at Random’s Christmas party where all (well, two) the wineglasses broke, but it wasn’t me. They simply exploded next to me.

I knew I was in the right place. Address, not exploding bits of glass corner of room. Partly because I’d been there before, and also because when I got to the front door Klaus Flugge stepped out of a cab, which was as good a sign as any.

Everyone was there. Except for all those less than intrepid souls who cancelled because of the weather. If I could broom in, then anyone could. Maybe. I understand it’s normally more of a crush at these parties, and although I was unable to hear myself think, Mum Clare told me it was on the quiet side. Of course it was.

Someone even missed Daughter, which was awfully kind of her, and it made Daughter’s day to have been remembered. I’d heard about these parties, and decided that people might dress to the nines for them, but that my Arctic explorer persona would allow me to be sensibly dressed. So I was only slightly disconcerted to find beautifully assembled guests ahead of me. And the rest of them changed into their party toilettes in the toilets.

So, who was there? Philip Pullman was there, until he left. I steered clear of him on account of me having complained about his writing speed only last week. Same for David Fickling, to spare him any more embarrassment. Eleanor Updale came, and I missed speaking to her too. Didn’t even see John Dickinson.

I did spy Sarah McIntyre, so decided to make myself known to her. Her beautiful spectacles and lipstick make her instantly recognisable. I looked at the floor to see if Sarah was wearing very exceptionally, extra high heels, but she wasn’t. I felt a wee bit short. Sarah introduced me to Neill Cameron, who’s one of her David Fickling Comics colleagues.

Neill has a book launch (for Mo-Bot High) today in Oxford, so make sure you don’t miss it. I hope Neill doesn’t miss it either. He looked worried when I said the forecast was for his non-return to Oxford, and said he’d leave at the first sign of a snowflake. We spent some time shouting to each other on a variety of subjects, from what three-year-old boys should read to me being followed on Twitter (and I don’t even tweet) by a fictional 17th century Scottish faerie (hi, Seth!).

I saw Jenny Downham, who actually had a new book out yesterday. I say they missed a seriously good opportunity for a book launch party there. I was introduced to Klaus Flugge, who is too old for blogs. I’ll show him!

Ian Beck was there, and so was Steve Cole, but I never made it across to say hello. Didn’t speak to Anthony McGowan either, and I so wanted to ask him to smile at me. Lindsey Barraclough was there. She’s the neighbour of Random’s Annie Eaton, and who will be a publishing sensation next year. Annie smiled at me and touched the sides of her head. She might have been saying her hair was very nice or that mine was awful. Either way she’d be right.

Agents Rosemary Canter and Hilary Delamere chatted by the window, and Philippa Dickinson made a good speech. It was all about hairnets and labcoats and Puffin’s Kaye Webb, whose biography we must read. I’m more worried about needing to wear a hairnet to operate my laptop.

At some point I found myself clasping a small spear and wondering why, as I had no intention of stabbing anyone, until I remembered it had arrived with a tasty mozzarella ball which I had eaten. Many delicious canapés were being walked around the rooms, but I seemed to attract mostly the sausages and the chicken. If there were no breadsticks left, I suspect it might have had something to do with me.

I have finally met Pete Johnson! And he wasn’t anywhere near as short as his name had lead me to believe. I was so overcome I couldn’t even recall the title of his book which I read about a year ago, so I had to assure him I could remember everything about it except the title. (The TV Time Travellers)

With elderly knee and hearing both giving out, I decided to call it a day before I ended up spending the night (I had threatened poor Clare that I’d come and sleep at her house if the trains were cancelled!) and broomed away pretty swiftly and caught the second last of the offpeak trains where I had a choice between sitting next to a John Boyne lookalike and a Nick Green lookalike. I picked Nick because he had a window.

VTAs and VTBs

Outside the hotel where we were meeting with one author, we ran into another. Jeanne Willis arrived at the same time as we did, and it was all I could do not to ask her to pose for a photo there and then. Managed to contain myself.

Ever since reading that Simmone Howell was coming to the Edinburgh International Book Festival, I’d been wanting to meet up. So I’ve probably stalked her a little by email for a few months, but Simmone of the two Ms gamely turned up at the suggested spot for some tea on Tuesday afternoon. Well, not much of a tea, seeing as we could probably have sat there for hours having a good time, but not much to drink. Service wasn’t slow so much as not really there. At all.

She’s been in the UK for a few months, but is going back to Melbourne later this week. We talked Melbourne a little (not that I know it, you understand), and sex in Y A books, and how the Australian school year is arranged. She doesn’t know Adrian McKinty (yet), nor Sonya Hartnett, though they share a teacher in their pasts. Simmone was getting ready to do an event on making zines, which we didn’t have tickets for. Will see her this morning instead.

Had been going to see Andrew Sachs talking to Alexander McCall Smith, but Manuel cancelled, so I did too. At this rate my events with Mma Ramotswe’s author aren’t going too well.

So in the event the day’s only event was this VTB hearing a VTA talk about ravens. And rabbits and de-iced squirrels. (Barry Hutchison should look out.) Marcus Sedgwick did a talk on the Raven Mysteries, and he explained he was a VTA, very tired author. Courtesy of Ry****r he had flown over from Sweden where he’s been busy writing a book, and what the maneater* jellyfish didn’t manage to do, the airline did. Marcus had had two hours of sleep, he was having a bad hair day (or so he claimed), and he’d allowed himself wine with lunch, which resulted in the purchase of new boots. (Footwear purchases do happen so easily…)

Marcus proceeded to perform literary cruelty to an amphibian. He read a bit, and talked some nonsense about peanut butter, and then he made some of the assembled children take part in a short play on the stage. He even had a raven glove-puppet which had passed muster as handluggage. It seems that we are able to enjoy the Raven Mysteries, which are great fun, due to a very early graveyard encounter for young Marcus.

Sarah McIntyre, of cartoons fame, was signing at the table next to Marcus, and then the photographer persuaded Marcus to jump into the Charlotte Square mud with his new boots. Never mind. He can always buy new new boots.

Attempted to wait around for Seamus Heaney, but this photo-shy man took his time to turn up, so we sloped off to another poet. Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross had finished their event and were signing books until we took them out and asked them (reasonably politely) to pose. I suspect Tony missed the lesson on not sticking his tongue out at people.

I feel we got the better looking poet. Jeanne had warned me she’d be the one covered in tomatoes. Some tomatoes…

*Jellyfish in Swedish is maneter, and Marcus’s pun was very bad. But then, the jellyfish probably did something not very nice to him first.

(Photos by Helen Giles)