Charley Chambers

This was quite fun, in a teen sort of way. But then, Rachel Kennedy isn’t that long past her own teenage years, so that could be why. I am quite convinced young readers will like Charley Chambers, Rachel’s story about a 15-year-old with magic.

I don’t know where the story is set, but I couldn’t help picturing it somewhere not too far from me, which added a bit of spice. You know, having demons run around misbehaving, and magic teenagers with their L-plates on.

Charley is just discovering that the odd things that have always happened to her is actually magic, when she becomes friendly – very friendly – with two goodlooking boys in her form at school. And as is always the case (or so I find) when you have two boys competing for you, it’s hard to know which way to go.

First it’s the newfound magic, and the newly found boys that fill the pages. Soon though, it’s the threat to people Charley cares about, and lots of inexplicable things that happen. It’s the usual set-up; who to trust and what to do, and who might this mysterious stalker be, the one who causes mayhem all the time?

The book could have lost 50 pages, and possibly also a character or two. And the point of view is all over the place. While it is convenient to ‘hear’ what everyone is thinking, it’d be better if you were left more in the dark.

But the plot is exciting and it’s a fun story. Very teen, a bit romantic, and slightly Voldemort towards the end.

Lowering the tone

I was struck by how civil everyone was. At the weekend there was a social media discussion about a celebrity who writes children’s books. There wasn’t much said that was positive, but people were discussing the topic like the adults they are.

The only reason I was a little surprised was because a week earlier I had taken part in another online chat about a fairly new, and therefore pretty unknown, YA author. In fact, I only contributed my bit on the grounds that I felt someone had to behave. The author had a couple of friends who spoke up on her behalf, and a couple of strangers who also seemed quite level headed, but apart from them it became pretty vile. And these were also adults, and I found it hard to believe so many would say so much that was so unpleasant. But they were mostly not my friends.

You may be aware I’m a long standing fan of NCIS. So far this year I have been dreadfully disappointed with the way the show is going, and the episode two weeks ago reached an all time low. For that reason I was glad to find last week’s episode pretty decent, and I even went to the Facebook page to see if people agreed with me. Unfortunately the consensus appeared to be that if they were going to be muslim friendly, then they would stop watching.

I’m sure people have always had opinions such as these, but have not been so quick to voice them publicly. Just as the YA author discussion went beyond what would have seemed decent until fairly recently.

On the morning of November 9th, I turned to Facebook as I turned off my mobile phone alarm clock, hoping for the best but knowing I’d not find it. Two friends had posted; one a relative who was now very worried about her recent – prestigious – job offer in California. The other, a friend from school, and a brand new US citizen, who was ecstatic over the result of the election.

I’m sure you can guess who overstepped the mark? Yes, the latter. She was so buoyed up by success that she started posting so many offensive comments on Facebook, insulting everyone from people like me to President Obama, that I did that modern thing and unfriended her. I was pleased for her that she was pleased, but didn’t feel it gave her the right to say what she said.

The relative? I understand she’ll head off for her new job, and I hope both she and the job will be safe. There was one thing I’d not considered before that morning. I’ve known her since she was one year old, but I’d never noticed her skin colour before.

As for the celebrity, I will leave him alone. And the YA author is someone whose acquaintance I hope to make soon. At first I thought it might have happened by now, as she took part in Book Week Scotland, at a venue within reach of Bookwitch Towers. But we decided to wait for a less frantic time.

And all this is why I enjoyed the discussion at the weekend. It showed me I know lots of people who are witty and intelligent, and they can be somewhat rude, while still spelling all the words they use correctly.

Taking refuge in a book

I sent the Resident IT Consultant into the offices of the Stirling Observer last week, bearing gifts. Every year they collect – new – toys for various charities, to give to children who might otherwise not receive any Christmas presents, due to circumstances in their lives.

You know me, I wanted to add some reading material to the enticingly packaged toys, and after checking last year if they would welcome books, I’ve had them in mind for the last few months. And that’s what he carried in. But he also came up with an idea of his own, which was that the Women’s Refuge might be able to use books. It seems they are one of the receiving charities, but I can see how they would have a use for books all year round. And I can see that it wouldn’t necessarily be just picture books for the under-fives.

It was that piece by Jenn Ashworth I had on here a week or two ago, about how she was saved by Melvin Burgess’s Baby and Fly Pie, which she discovered in the library at the age of twelve. It changed her life. And since she stole it, she clearly felt it was a book she’d need for longer than it took to read twice, in one sitting. (Btw, I’m so glad it wasn’t Junk! Good though that novel is, I was pleased someone could be that moved by one of Melvin’s ‘lighter’ stories…)

I will need to check if the refuge wants books. I’m thinking less for Christmas, but more everyday requirements. And because I don’t know if the need is temporary, i.e. a stationary library for children in a refuge to read over the hopefully short period of time they are there, or if there should be books they can pick up, but also take with them to where they go next.

If more of a library set-up, then fewer books are needed than if children can keep them. In both cases I am thinking – hoping – that used books would be fine. It’s both easier and cheaper to find lots of used, but still excellent books. On the other hand, if it needs to be new books, I could see myself trying to source them, including looking for them online, as cheaply as possible. But I know that I have books I will need to part with soon, on space grounds, and it would be great if they could find new homes. Just like the children in the refuge, in fact.

How to choose? Jenn obviously found hers by looking among many other books in the library, although her choice could still have been fairly random.

There could easily be many non-readers in a refuge, or children who find reading hard. On the other hand, the assumption that because they are in a needy situation they must be slow or un-developed readers is clearly wrong. Or that they would be quite young. Anyone could end up in a refuge. You just don’t know.

And perhaps finding the right book(s) might make a bad situation a little bit more tolerable.

I can think of several more of Melvin’s books I’d happily offer a teenager in need. But the world is full of suitable reading material. When I began compiling a mental list, it grew incredibly fast.

A spare

I reckoned I’d have a spare, once I’d placed our various Advent lights around Bookwitch Towers yesterday. It took me most of the morning, which is because we have too many lights, because I felt I had to dust before, and because it had been a very long time since any dusting happened around here.

But at least we managed to unearth all the stuff from the building site-cum-garage, which is a good thing. The spare was expected since we are currently a room down. What was surprising in the end was that it wasn’t the spare I’d been expecting. And as it turned out to be the lightbox, I put it on a shelf in the kitchen. Near the lentils.

Obviously.

While I dusted, the Resident IT Consultant was out finishing his walk around the Fife coast. I’d forgotten to warn him to look out for James Oswald’s house or he could have popped in to say hello.

And while searching for some other thing the other day, I came upon these two Advent books. One of them, the Jostein Gaarder is one we habitually lose, and have to buy another copy of. The other is Cornelia Funke’s Advent calendar in German, which I turned the house – almost – upside down for last month, before travelling to Newcastle to meet Cornelia.

Just my luck to miss it then and to find it now. Though I suppose it beats not ever finding it.

Thinking of translations, the Gaarder was the example at my ‘SELTA talk’ in London three weeks ago, of a book I have found to be much more readable in English than in Swedish. Both translations. Maybe I should have tried it in Norwegian. Whereas Cornelia’s story has not yet appeared in English. I wonder if that is because English-speaking children mainly eat chocolate in the run-up to Christmas, rather than mark Advent in other ways?

When books become retro

In the end it was the fonts that made me go all nostalgic.

I was reading Scandinavian Retro, a style magazine, featuring mainly mid-20th century things. I’d expected furniture, china, textiles. That kind of thing. But here were all 105 books by Inger and Lasse Sandberg; every cover of every book they wrote and illustrated together for over fifty years.

First I wondered why, when they started in the mid-1950s, I hadn’t really read any/many of their books. I’ve always been aware of them, but had somehow felt they were after my time as a picture book reader. And mostly, it turned out they were. They had a slow start and I must have missed the early books while I was still young enough.

I did read about the little ghost, however. Both for myself, and later to other young people, including Offspring. Lilla spöket Laban (Laban, the little ghost) is rather sweet. He is scared of many things, including the dark, which is awfully inconvenient for a ghost. Apparently he was born to help the Sandberg’s middle child who was afraid of the dark, after his older sister locked him in a wardrobe.

But, as I said, I can only have read a handful of the 105 books. They all look thoroughly familiar, however, and I worked out it’s because of the font(s) used on the covers. The pictures are also quite typical for that era, but there being so many, for me they blend into one and the same. There’s probably a name for the font, but for me it will always be the ‘Swedish children’s books font.’

And, as I also said, there were obviously more than one font, and styles developed over the years, but mostly they all look soothingly familiar.

Just as Laban was born to deal with the dark, many of the books were written by Inger to cover a small matter of some importance to small people everywhere. I really like the sound of the story about the man who suddenly shrinks and discovers what it is like to be small and treated like a child again. He becomes a children’s politician after that, with notes explaining to young readers what a politician is.

Never mind your ABCs. You can have a book about the number 0, which when standing next to other numbers, becomes terribly important.

And when all is said and done, this whole concept feels frightfully Swedish and egalitarian, besides being trendy and nice to look at.

Threadbear

Occasionally I feel a little threadbear myself, not to mention washed out. But I’ve never featured in a Mick Inkpen book.

Here, 25 years on from his first appearance, we have Threadbear again, the slightly worn bear with no squeak. It is very sad. I’m not sure who is saddest, Threadbear himself for not squeaking, or his owner Ben who keeps squeezing and thumping and doing all sorts just to get a noise out of his bear.

It’s probably Threadbear, because who wants to be a disappointment, let alone fail in what their purpose in life is? He has the squeaker; it just doesn’t squeak.

And then, it is Christmas, and that jolly fat man in red rides past. And Threadbear is suddenly full of hope. But still no squeak.

Oh bear!

Don’t give up on the man in red’s powers just yet. You might get that lovely shrunken feeling.

Squeak.

Oranges in No Man’s Land

It seems so easy; write about what you know, what you have experienced, just a simple little story. Can’t be much to it, can it?

Looking at Elizabeth Laird, you realise that that isn’t true. It takes a lot of talent to write a short children’s novel like Oranges in No Man’s Land, even if she did base it on what she had lived through with her family, in Beirut, many years ago.

And her foreword to this book when it was first published in 2006, was about her own story, and also how sad she was to find history repeating itself, with more unrest for Beirut, thirty years on from when she lived there. Now, of course, there is more sadness still, because after another ten years many more children and their parents are suffering like Ayesha and the others did. Not perhaps in Beirut, but not that far away, either. The destruction and the deaths of innocent civilians happen in far too many countries.

What’s more, if you read Oranges in No Man’s Land and you feel that it isn’t right, what happens to young children and their grannies, or even to their ‘enemies,’ you know that what happens in countless places all over the world is wrong.

You feel that people will learn, that they will change. If I’d been a child reading this in 2006, I’d have been full of hope that things would get better now.

10-year-old Ayesha lives with her mother and grandmother and her two brothers in a small house, when they are bombed and have to flee. Her mother dies before she can get out. The children eventually end up in a bombed out flat, well, part of a room in one, with their granny. And then Ayesha’s granny’s medicine comes to an end and to save her granny’s life the girl has to cross no man’s land and go to the other side of Beirut, where the enemy live.

More than anything, this story shows that mostly people are still human beings, before they are your enemies. They can and will be decent, and they will help, sometimes putting themselves in danger. But you can’t control the warlords.

Elizabeth’s experience is having temporarily lived in a flat like this one, with her young family, and having spoken to the soldiers at checkpoints. That’s why it rings true, and why this is a tremendously powerful story. Short, but it tells you about what’s important for humanity.

To Sir With Love

I freely admit to having a Reader’s Digest past. Somehow some sales person must have managed to bypass Mother-of-witch and her frugal approach to most unnecessary things in life, and persuaded her to subscribe to those books. I have no idea how many of the abridged novels she read, but I got through a lot of them. I was at the age when there simply weren’t enough books around to read, and I searched the bookcase daily for more entertainment, and discovered that quite a lot of those odd looking titles were not that bad. Nice, easy reads, and quick, due the their abridged nature.

To Sir With Love by E R Braithwaite was one of them. It was probably also one of my best loved books on the RD shelf. That will be why I introduced Offspring to the film starring Sidney Poitier, when the opportunity arose, years ago. When Daughter was last home, we watched it again. It made us talk, and think about things.

Do you remember my Canterville Ghost Favourite Teacher? I thought of him then. Not long before I had read a letter to the editor in a Swedish magazine, and I’d wondered if the writer might have been him. Right name, and I believe, right town. And what he said seemed to fit as well.

So I Googled a bit, as you do, and came to the conclusion it very likely was Favourite Teacher. On Swedish sites you get some odd information, like date of birth, and thanks to Mother-of-witch who was also a teacher, I knew how old he’d be. And then I hit on the idea of Google images, and found a photo that could very well be him, ‘a few years on.’

At my age you can’t take for granted your teachers will still be alive.

Apart from being such a great teacher, and managing the difficult balance between fun and friendly, versus knowledge and discipline in the classroom, he was also the politest teacher I’ve ever had. We were between the ages of 13 and 16 and he addressed the boys by surname and the girls were Miss and surname.

Just like Sidney Poitier, in fact. That was one of the details I’d forgotten, but which came back when I watched the film again.

There were two Misses C in my form. I was Miss C at the front, while the other Miss C sat at the back. ‘Mats hört immer zu’ is a phrase I still remember, helping me know what to do about the German verb zuhören, while chuckling about Mats who never did any kind of zuhören whatsoever. And as all you English native speakers must know, ‘skulle heter would, skulle heter would, skulle heter would.’ As opposed to should, which is what we might have guessed and what Favourite Teacher was there to prevent.

And there were many more where those came from.

Two languages, for all three years of secondary school. I was very lucky.

He wasn’t easily taken in, either. When one girl asked to copy my homework, I wasn’t worried. She came back and said he’d given her [her first ever] full marks, while adding he thought she had ‘cooperated with Miss C.’

The last year we gave him a – collective – gift when we left school, because he had been our form teacher that year. He wrote each of us a thank you card, posted to our home address. That’s what I call class.

The Territory – Escape

The second instalment in Sarah Govett’s trilogy set in a future Territory is as great as the first. With all my newfound fears regarding dystopias, I worried that Escape wouldn’t be able to grab me. For one, I felt the premise that two of the – teen – main characters would willingly attempt to enter the dreadful place where others are sent to die, in order to rescue the third main character, was a bit much. I mean, how could they, and surely there couldn’t be a happily ever after even if they did?

But, the story drags you in before you know where you are. Which is the Wetlands, since you ask.

You know that something will go wrong, and something else will – hopefully – go right, but my first theory proved incorrect. Which is good, because it wasn’t a terribly good one.

Noa and Raf seem pretty naïve in their planning to go after Jack, but by sheer determination these two get further than you’d think. And that’s when things don’t happen as expected, for anyone.

This is exciting and inspiring, but – given our current circumstances – worrying nevertheless. I’m glad there are characters out there, in fiction, doing what many of us would never dream of attempting, let alone be successful at.

The way the book ends, I can see what they must try and do, but I can’t see how they will be able to make it happen. As it’s fiction, I imagine it will work, somehow, and not quite everyone will die trying.

So, not just ‘another flooded dystopian romance.’ And I suppose knowing what moss or seaweed you can or can’t eat will come in handy one day.

Those murdering Scots

How I love them!

It’s Monday morning, and it’s Book Week Scotland. And here at Bookwitch Towers, I am most likely to spend it reading, rather than being out and about, despite all the events on offer. I feel as if I’ve finally got into the swing of reading again, after far too much travelling, or agonising over things, and it does my mental state a lot of good.

And you really don’t want me too mental.

Scottish Book Trust have looked into what everyone else in Scotland is doing, and it appears that Scots are into crime, in a big way; ‘crime/thriller books are the single most popular type of fiction in Scotland.

In a recent Ipsos MORI Scotland survey of 1,000 adults, just over 1 in 4 Scots (27%) who read for enjoyment said that books which fictionalise crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives topped their choice of reading or listening genres. — While the crime genre was the most popular among readers of all ages, the second most popular genre among young readers (aged 16-34) was science fiction/fantasy (15%). — Eight in ten Scots (79%) read or listen to books for enjoyment and 39% do so either every day or most days. Additionally, among those —  50% read or listen to more than 10 books per year.’

Well, that’s good to know; both that people read, and that they like what I like. (If I hadn’t given up ironing, I’d be listening to more audio books as well.)

I suppose that with their fondness for a good murder, the Scots really are – almost – Nordic. It’s dark up here, although possibly more cheerful than ‘over there.’

And, on that cheery note I will dive back into my waiting book mountains, before the January books arrive. There tends to be this brief lull for a couple of weeks, or three, as one year [in the publishing world] comes to an end and the new one begins. When the publicists go off on their Christmas holidays, they might fire off the ‘first’ 2017 books. (That’s apart from the ones I’ve already received and filed away because 2017 was such a long way off…)