Usborne

When I got to the copy of The Bookseller which had its front page advertising Usborne turning 50 this year, I already knew that Peter Usborne, whose photograph was right there, had died. The day before the date on The Bookseller. Very sad, but he clearly did a lot for children’s books.

For quite a few years I believed that Usborne didn’t publish ‘real’ books, by which I mean mainstream novels and the like. I was wrong, and there have been a good number of YA novels just to my liking. It just seemed as though they weren’t always sitting next to all the other publishers’ books in the shops.

My own past with Usborne had to do with the bookselling parties. That was back in the 1990s. Possibly earlier and later as well, but this was my decade for selling parties in general. I was lonely, at home with Offspring, and as is so often pointed out, ‘there was no village.’ As an outsider I was ripe for selling parties; going to them and hosting them. I was also a pretty bad host, happily telling my prospective customers/guests that I didn’t care if they spent any money. I just wanted lots of people to come.

But I seem not to have ruined Usborne’s business. Possibly because I bought so many books myself, to make up any shortfall. We liked them. Content-wise they were just right, and they were so readable. While I can’t recall what the titles were, and I seem not to have kept them, they were gold for bedtime story reading. These stories could be read over and over.

And there was a video or two, mostly about the farmer, Mrs Xxxx (can’t remember her name). Much enjoyed.

So yes, Usborne should be celebrated.

(Coincidentally, I am reading an Usborne novel right now, and enjoying it a great deal.)

Travelling to Narnia

My first memory from meeting Katherine Langrish seventeen years ago, is that at the age of nine she wrote her own instalment of the Narnia books, because to her mind there weren’t enough of them. I was glad, because I used to feel like that about some of my childhood books, but I never got past page two. That was in 2004 and she was in our neck of the woods to talk about her first children’s book, Troll Fell, a Norwegian style fairytale. In fact, the days of Katherine are all Before Bookwitch, since the third book in the Troll trilogy was published on February 5th 2007, one day BB, making Katherine a very early author acquaintance of mine.

Anyway, back to Narnia. While I believe she might have shown us her childhood book then, I have now seen pages two and three up close, being used for the endpapers of her brand new book From Spare Oom to War Drobe, Travels in Narnia With My Nine Year-Old Self (isn’t that a glorious title?). This is a book I’ve been looking forward to so much, despite it being about books I have not read and firmly believe I wouldn’t like, just because, well because I am convinced this is a really great book (with a quote from Neil Gaiman on the front cover), and because we say that you should write about what you know best. And I believe Katherine has arrived in Narnia, where she belongs.

It’s a gorgeous-looking volume, and one I’m very tempted to read, if only to learn more about Narnia. Half the population can’t be wrong, and in her online launch this evening Katherine mentioned Philip Pullman and his dislike of the C S Lewis stories, not totally disagreeing with him. The way I understand it is that it’s a pretty academic look at Narnia and its creator. It’s got footnotes. And the support of many literary names.

One of them, Amanda Craig, talked to Katherine about her book, as one big fan to another. It was quite enlightening and I really enjoyed their chat. I like people who like things that much. It’s good to look at stuff in-depth and to have sensible comments to make. I understand Amanda encouraged Katherine to write this book, after having read her blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, which is mostly about fairytales, and which has left me in awe of all Katherine’s knowledge.

This could have been a great launch in real life, but as it was, online made for a different great event, with many of Katherine’s peers peering out from behind their respective Zoom cameras. And the sun shone on her, forcing her to keep shifting her position.

The Wolf’s Secret

The Wolf’s Secret by Myriam Dahman and Nicolas Digard, beautifully illustrated in autumnal colours by Júlia Sarda, is a romantically traditional tale.

It’s about love, and loss, and about being different. There is a wolf who isn’t exactly like wolves are meant to be, and we find out how he changes when he sees a beautiful young woman in the woods.

He can think about nothing but her singing. Then the day comes when she no longer sings, and he knows he has to do something. But what if she might be scared of him?

Well, you know the drill, something magical helps our wolf to get close, and eventually they both see each other for what they are.

The Goldsmith and the Master Thief

Pushkin Children’s Books know when they are on to a good thing. So does the Resident IT Consultant who has, yet again, got his mitts on the most recent of the new translations of Tonke Dragt’s books. And I have to say, they always look very appealing:

“The Goldsmith and the Master Thief, by Tonke Dragt, is another translation of a Dutch children’s classic from Pushkin. Originally published in 1961, De Goudsmid en de meesterdief is essentially a series of fairy tales set in a medieval world which, in my mind, seemed to owe something to Bruegel’s paintings.

Laurenzo and Jiacomo are identical twins, and many of the stories depend on the fact that no one can tell them apart. As we read, we see their characters develop through a series of exciting adventures. Magic pays no role in these, though it often appears as if it might. Nevertheless, the tales, twelve in total, have something of the character of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. At other points they could almost be the plot of one of Shakespeare’s comedies.

The translator, Laura Watkinson, is the same as for Tonke Dragt’s other books published by Pushkin. As with these, her clear, straightforward language probably makes a significant contribution to the readability of the book.”

I am obviously still in Hans Christian Andersen land, and it really does seem as if this would also make an excellent Christmas present for someone. You will know who.

The Snow Queen

I appear to have come to a Hans Christian Andersen spot. It’s a nice place to be, now that December gets a move on, and it’s Advent. It doesn’t all have to be Andersen, however. Even though The Snow Queen originally is his, this version is by Geraldine McCaughrean.

But however great they both are, and you know they are, what really truly makes this book are the illustrations by Laura Barrett. The are simply fabulous, and I’d be quite happy to ‘read’ only her pictures, with no words at all. Done in silhouette in black and white with some pale blue, this is the most beautiful volume.

The story is the same it always was, about two young friends torn apart when the Snow Queen whisks the boy away to her palace. And then the girl searches everywhere for her soulmate, never giving up until she finds him.

It’s all very satisfying, at least if you don’t have to endure the cold, and it’s nicely romantic, and just as a fairy tale should be.

Invisible in a Bright Light

‘Se det var en riktig saga det,’ as you occasionally – but far too rarely – say.

I could have wept with happiness reading Sally Gardner’s new book for younger readers, Invisible in a Bright Light. I found myself removed from adulthood and now, straight back to my Hans Christian Andersen days.

The fact that Sally has set her story in ‘the city of C-‘ some time in the 1800s helps with the belief that you’re in Copenhagen, which I think you are. It’s where Sally discovered the fantastic chandelier that stars in this story, and it’s where Celeste and her sister Maria would like to be, only to find themselves in the city of C- instead.

As in all the best fairy tales there is confusion and displacement and an urgent need for things to be put right. Celeste, and Maria before her, is unsure where she is and what’s happened. She/they only know that life seems wrong, somewhat dreamlike, and hidden, as if there’s something they can almost touch.

But what is it? And why do some people think Celeste is crazy?

Set in a theatre in a magical city, shortly before Christmas, we meet a host of interesting characters. Some of them Celeste feels she’s known before, somewhere else. Maybe. There’s something she can’t quite put her finger on.

Drama, intrigue, an evil witch, some very talented children, a good King and a sad clown and many others fill Sally’s tale. What’s more, if this is indeed Copenhagen, she writes about it as it might have been, and not as an English town. Places are different, and authors need to show the reader this.

The whole book is so magical! Or did I already say?

Read Invisible in a Bright Light and let yourself be transported back to childhood. Give your children what you had when you were little. In fact, with Christmas so close, this is the book that can be – needs to be – given to everyone, no matter what age.

Magic with snow. And the clock is ticking.

The Wind in the Wall

Why don’t adults read more picture books? By which I mean picture books aimed at older readers. They exist, but I don’t believe I’ve come across very many.

Well, here is one by Sally Gardner, with illustrations by Rovina Cai. The Wind in the Wall is beautiful, and in a way quite like a children’s picture book, were it not for  the more mature content of cultivating an amazing amaryllis, or a prized pineapple.

It’s full of magic, which must be how the pineapple grew so perfect and caused our main character so much anguish. He is the Duke’s deposed gardener whose fondness for amaryllis lost him his job when the Duke decided he wanted pineapples from now on.

And who enjoys being replaced by a charlatan? Someone who’s both successful and cruel. A bully.

You are swept away by what happens, but at the same time you don’t really know for sure what’s going on. Just as we loved our childhood picture books, The Wind in the Wall enchants the adult reader.

Witches and legends

We talked mostly about toilets. Sometimes you need to cheer yourself up when you’ve strayed too close to the state of things today, as Daughter and I found when we had coffee with Theresa Breslin and Kate Leiper after their Stirling Tinkerbell event on Friday.

Tinkerbell had invited them to do a signing of An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Castle Legends. We were quite gratified to find a queue out in the street when we arrived. (Not surprising, I suppose, as we discovered the sign outside promised singing by the two ladies…)

The deluge of rain had stopped, so we sat on a stone wall outside in the [pedestrian] street, next to the parked police van, studying the fans and waiting for room to enter the shop ourselves.

We went in to chat for a bit, and Daughter might just have had a slight accident, buying something lovely-looking. Then all of us trooped outside and sat on the stone walls again, while Theresa read her Stirling-based story, with Kate as the crazy man who thought he could fly. Thankfully she only jumped off the wall in the street, not the side of Stirling Castle.

Daughter and I went off to secure and warm up some seats at the Burgh Coffee House before the ladies arrived, each carrying a gift bag full of shop goodies. Where will they keep their new dragons?

Then it was all toilets and laughter.  There were tales about a librarian, and about Terry Pratchett, even a disposable Starbucks mugs, ‘fuel’ in other countries, and so on.

And then I might have suggested they perhaps had trains to catch. They did. I obviously wasn’t trying to get rid of them, but they had further to go than we did.

(Photos by Helen Giles)

Return to Wonderland

Many writers have a relationship with Alice. A whole bunch of them have now written their own new stories about Wonderland and the wondrous creatures you find there. It’s Alice Day on the 4th of July, or so I’ve been told, and here’s a whole new story collection featuring your favourite characters.

In fact, I was struck by how nicely these authors played; they all seemed to have an affinity with a different character from the other authors, which seems to mean there was no fighting. They simply sat down and mused in an interesting way about the Cheshire Cat, or the Knave of Hearts, or any of the others.

To tell the truth, I only ever read the original Alice once, and don’t have a deep and meaningful relationship with any of them. I like tea parties, but prefer them to be normal. I like my head attached. And so on.

Some of these stories were great, lots of fun and interesting new takes on the old tales. I didn’t like all of them the same, but that’s understandable as the eleven authors don’t write the same way, and maybe for me some of Wonderland’s characters are more my cup of tea than others.

‘One morning, Pig woke to discover he had been turned into a real boy.’

How can you go wrong with a start like that?

Sleeping Beauty?

I had been saving this, but it seems the time has come. Do you know your Sleeping Beauties from your Cinderellas, or more pertinently, from your own obscure and weird little passed-down-the-generations tale? Have you even heard of Simon & Garfunkel?

Apparently you can’t use Sleeping Beauty as a reference in academic circles. It’s not politically correct, for one. And secondly, most people across the world will never have heard of her. They’d be at a disadvantage. Whether because it is truly believed that Sleeping Beauty is a rather limited fairy tale, only found in, say, Hollywood, or because most of the rest of the world’s academics are both foreign and ignorant, I don’t know.

The Guardian article about the prohibition on mentioning Sleeping Beauty was interesting in itself. But then, as the Resident IT Consultant said, what happens to the Goldilocks Zone? This term appears to be used by scientists all over the world, and I’d hazard a guess they know what is meant. (They could always Google it, if not.) They’re astrophysicists, so not all that stupid or badly educated either.

I don’t believe the pc brigade have hit on Goldilocks yet. And please don’t let me be the one who leads them to her!

But it’s rather satisfying having the rightness of porridge define planets in other solar systems, don’t you think?