FOR MY BOOKSHELF

With both adult children, a partner, and a toddler coming home for holidays, we can no longer rely on dumping books, computers, scanner, printers, etc from one room to another.  We have to reorganize and find more appropriate storage for books than the current stacks behind the door and even more difficult, we (OK, I really mean me) will have to stop buying so many books. 

Recent purchases include:

Don’t Look Now1   Paul Jennings & Andrew Weldon (Allen & Unwin)

Ricky is an ordinary boy with a quirky imagination who finds himself in tricky situations.  And he can fly.  But only if no-one is looking.  The first of a series with two amusing stories in each book; for readers from 7-11 years.

This Little Piggy Went Dancing Margaret Wild & Deborah Niland (Allen & Unwin)

A fun filled twist to the traditional tale and a wonderful read-aloud.  As each pig goes dancing, or swimming, or riding, or some other physical activity, the second pig always stays home, while the third enjoys a variety of delicious foods, the fourth has none, and the fifth gets back home, usually noisily.

I love Footy  Matt Zurbo (Windy Hollow) Tasmanian author

Football is not just about winning.  It’s about participating, having fun, friendship, and reveling in the game.  The inexhaustible unnamed boy, wearing a neutral footy jumper, loves playing; he can do anything when he touches a footy, even recovering from difficulties such as hitting a brick wall.  A delightful read.

Welcome Home  Christina Booth (Ford Street) Tasmanian author

A story about a boy and a whale, and about hope. A simple yet powerful text with stunning watercolour illustrations. Inspired by the birth of a whale in the Derwent River in 2010.

Nella Pickup

Value adding enjoyment to reading

I recently completed the UTas reading groups survey which made me think about what it was, other than the book itself, that created that feeling of enjoyment when I read.

Sharing books with babies involves lots of physical contact with cuddles, activities like pointing and touching, and conversation about the pictures.  All this is mutually enjoyable for the small person and the reader.  At the monthly Reading in the Market Place at Prospect, I find myself sitting on a hard floor surrounded by a handful of little people.  Watching their faces as they hear the story and see the pictures is amazing.  How seriously they take the story, how solemnly they concentrate and then giggle or laugh at the pictures.  How eager they are to answer or ask questions or add information about what they see and hear. However there is one little girl who regularly attends these sessions but she has never shown any facial expression or volunteered responses.  But last time when finally it was just her and me on the mat she finally pointed to a picture, named a few objects and gave a smile.  I feel sure that she enjoys the experience and I know I certainly do.

As we become independent readers, a reading guide no longer necessary, how do we compensate for that interactive element so important to baby readers?   There are several ways perhaps.

Where and when we read becomes important.  The reader finds a comfortable place to ‘curl up with a good book’;  in a bean bag, on a lounge in the sun in summer, in front of a roaring fire in winter, snuggled in bed after a day of work or school.  Whatever the physical situation, the environment enhances the enjoyment of the intellectual activity of reading.

As independent readers at school, the system sometimes creates quite the opposite effect.  There are different types of group reading in schools.  At primary level teachers regularly read stories to the whole class allowing the children to find a comfortable position on the mat, lying on the floor with a cushion, head down on the desk.... The situation created is similar to that of reading to young children and many primary children really love to be read to. The secret here is to find a book that will appeal to a group of twenty five or more individuals.  Not easy but many primary teachers manage to preserve that feeling of added enjoyment by creating a comfortable physical environment.

At secondary level the opportunity to create that convivial atmosphere is more difficult. For a start sitting at a desk or table is a far cry from the comfortable reading environments a reader usually chooses at home and asking teenagers to ‘sit on the mat’ would be a disaster.  And who hasn’t experienced reading a book around the classroom, each student reading a few paragraphs in turn?  For the fast reader this is excruciating, for the hesitant reader, reading aloud is torture, for the one that reads ahead, like me, how embarrassing when your turn comes and you have lost the place!  But how else can a teacher be sure that every student reads the book?  One could question the validity of having set texts that everyone has to read but that is still the way the curriculum is designed in secondary and senior secondary schools.  So for many students the reading in the English curriculum becomes a turn off rather than an encouragement or a value added experience.  Some enterprising teachers have overcome these problems but some old habits die hard and some can’t be avoided.

So after school, how do mature readers seek to wring all that is possible from their reading?  Well perhaps some of the really dedicated readers join book groups.  Picture a convivial group sitting round a coffee table in comfortable chairs sipping coffee or perhaps a wine.  What better environment than that for adding to your reading experience. The opportunity to not only read a book, but then discuss it with fellow readers, is a fulfilling experience akin to watching the faces on those small children at the market place or cuddling your grandchild on your lap while reading a beautiful picture book.  When readers don’t agree about a book, the different perspectives that members bring to the discussion helps to broaden one’s appreciation and understanding of the book.  I have come to many a discussions not liking a book and left with a much more positive attitude and appreciation.  When readers do agree, the enjoyment of sharing relished events, characters, or insights makes the reading more valuable and agreement reinforces the validity of one’s own ideas and opinions. 

If adult readers gain significantly from discussion of books would younger readers find the same post- reading satisfaction?  Would informal book groups in schools at all levels provide added value for those students who love reading?  Would just reading the book, enjoying the contents and sharing the thoughts stimulated, without the onus of doing work on the book, encourage more young people to enjoy and voluntarily partake in reading?  I’d love to hear from young readers and teachers about this.

Carol Fuller

Lian Tanner's new book

‘The day was so clear that she could see for miles.  There was pack ice everywhere, huge flat slabs of it that the Oyster swept aside with ease.  An albatross hung on the air, its wingspan twice as wide as Petrel’s height, and the wind fiddles sang in time with its swooping and rising.  In the distance a cloud of seabirds was gathering.  The beauty of it all snatched at Petrel’s heart and made her more determined than ever that neither she nor Fin would die today.’ (p. 199, Ice Breaker)

Lian Tanner

Lian Tanner’s new work, The Hidden Series, was initiated recently with the launch of the first in the series, Ice Breaker.  Anyone who had attended the launches of the books in her previous series for young readers, The Keepers, would have been expecting an entertaining hour or so of theatre – and we weren’t disappointed!

The stage is set

The venue this time was the Art Space in Salamanca, and Lian’s imaginative decoration of the space, in my opinion, outdid her earlier work in preparing for an event that would fire the imaginations of her young audience.  Many of these youngsters were dressed to fit the theme, and the décor echoed this.

MC and Reviewers discuss their responses 

Lian works very closely with groups of children in producing her material; this year it was Mt Nelson Primary School students who provided reviews of the book to be launched.  This close contact of author and audience is not only beneficial to Lian and her writing; it must be valuable indeed to the staff and students of the schools with which she works, and I congratulate her on her ability to form these links with local schools.

Petrel and Bratlings 

Members of a local group provided a short but lively dramatization of an early scene in the novel, where the Bratlings pursue and terrorise Petrel, the Nothing Girl.  Anyone who had not yet read the book was itching to get started, by this time!

All of us, on entry, were provided with a numbered ticket – mine indicated that I was an Officer and therefore belonged to Braid territory.  I might have been a Cook or an Engineer, of course, if I’d had a different ticket.  But my ticket, I was very happy to find, provided me with the second luck prize! But my pleasure soon faded when I found that the first prize winner and I were to be tied to the mast by an intimidating Engineer  –  “I’m too old for this!” I thought. ( I’m certainly pleased that no photos of my comeuppance have surfaced as yet!) 

The setting of the novel is grim, with two children who have grown up with hardly any experience of loving and supportive human interaction struggling to form an attachment and find a future for each other and their environment.  But the end is more optimistic, though the sequels no doubt will provide difficulties to be overcome.

Congratulations, Lian!

PATSY JONES

Remembering, not Celebrating

I cheered the day my son failed his Air Force medical.  So what if his engineering degree would have been fee-free? He would have been sent to fight and possibly die in a futile war.  I preferred him ill than dead.   

I’m currently reading Elizabeth Wein’s Rose Under Fire (Electric Monkey), a story about a young ATA pilot in World War 11.  For me, Wein’s Code Name Verity ranks with Markus Zusak’s Book Thief as one of the most moving books I’ve ever read.

With Remembrance Day looming, I thought readers might be interested in some books that refute the propaganda that war is glorious and honourable.  

In Kerry Greenwood’s Evan’s Gallipoli (Allen & Unwin) a 14 year old faces many dangers (and the ineptitude of the Allied military leaders) after following a mentally ill father behind enemy lines. On the journey to freedom, Evan finds ransacked villages, displaced people and learns that places such as Thrace, Bulgaria and Greece suffer because of the war. The Turks (and the reader) struggle to understand why Australians invaded their home to fight a German enemy.

 

Davide Cali and Serge Bloch’s The Enemy (Wilkins Farago) and Joy Cowley’s The Duck in the Gun (Rigby) are anti-war picture books with a simple yet powerful message.

In Flanders Field by Norman Jorgensen and Tasmanian based illustrator Brian Harrison-Lever (Simply Read Books) (sadly out of print), shows us a small act of humanity contrasting with the carnage and devastation of war.

Billy Mack’s War by James Roy (UQP) tells the trauma of a returned soldier, a victim of the Burma Railway. 

Suzanne Collins’ (of Hunger Games fame) Year of the Jungle: Memories from the Home Front (Scholastic) is based on her own struggles as a young child when her father was fighting in Vietnam.

Of course, these books and many others such as Morris Gleitzman’s Once, Then, Now and After quartet (Penguin) and Ruta Sepetys’ Betweeen Shades of Gray show there is love and hope in the midst of despair. Maybe if our children and their children read books like these, we might be less likely to start another war.

Nella Pickup

SELF ESTEEM

It takes a whole heap of self-esteem to be a really effective villain.

In the 1970s, a dreadful myth was perpetrated by the likes of Roy Baumeister*. He maintained the worst thing that parents can inflict on a child is low self-esteem. Luckily, authors have never been led astray. They, like me, have recognised that the true villains of the world have excessive self-esteem.

Sometimes it manifests itself as truly despicable villains in the mould of Lemony Snicket's Count Olaf. I include Lian Tanner’s Flugleman in this group. In fictitious schools, the villain is often the beautiful bullying queen bee or her male counterpart, the jock, who delight in making it hard for our sensitive/bookish/nerdy/lunch-in- the-library protagonists. Think of pushy manipulative Holly in Fiona Wood’s Wildlife. These villains never seem to suffer self-doubt.

Of course modern psychology has moved on. It is now known bullies do not have low self-esteem. It is now known that there is no relationship between the view that individuals hold of themselves and their peers’ evaluations. It also cannot be presumed that those with low literacy skills have low self-esteem but we do know those who enjoy reading understand themselves and the world better whether they aim to or not.

Our heroes are all the more heroic because they do show humility and our villains more hateful because they do not. And is not it much more enjoyable when villains get their comeuppance?

*http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/25/opinion/oe-baumeister25

Richard Pickup

WANDERING IN ITALIAN BOOKSHOPS

Browsing Italian bookshops for children’s books and, in particular, a book for my 13 month old grandson, was a huge disappointment.  In La Feltrinelli (Italy’s biggest bookshop chain with over 100 bookshops across the nation, http://www.lafeltrinelli.it/) the children’s area was overflowing with Peppa Pig books and toys. While Peppa contributes greatly to my salary, (Fullers Bookshop Launceston has just won the 2013 ABC Centre of the Year), I wanted something ‘authentically’ Italian for young Nicholas.

Books for 0-3 year olds were mainly didactic with themes such as sharing, being polite, taking turns etc. Many books were character based chunky board books.  Where is Commercial Free Childhood (http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/) when you need it?

Books for 3-6 year olds included many colouring and sticker books and some books in translation – mainly from Australia and UK with names changed to “protect the innocent”.  Freya Blackwood’s Ivy loves to give is available as a hardback. Ivy has been renamed Lulu.  The few paperbacks were reminiscent of the design style of the 1980’s.

Older readers had many books in translation with a strong emphasis on classic titles such as Treasure Island, The Little Prince, etc.  Thankfully there were also the books by Geronimo Stilton (one of the few Italian authors I could find) as well as Rick Riordan and other best selling US and UK authors.

Mandragora (http://mandragora.it/) in Florence and La Toletta Librerie in Venice were free of character based books but had nothing for a very young child.

 

So what will Nicholas be reading?  Not Italian authors.

Favole di Espopo illustrated by Fulvio Testa (Einaudi Ragazzi)

64 page book but only sadly 51 pages of introduction and fables.

Dante’s Journey, An Infernal Adventure (Mandragora) by Virgina Jewiss illustrated by Aline Cantono di Ceva.  Jewiss is a lecturer in the humanities at Yale University and director of the Yale Humanities in Rome program.   I’ve never seen a picture book version of Inferno. 

Guido’s Gondola by Renee Riva illustrated by Steve Bjorkman (Waterbrook Press)

Another cautionary tale about consumerism and a young Italian gondolier rat named Guido.  Before anyone thinks I’m driven by moralistic aims, the real reason I bought the book – I liked the blue cover and Nicholas’s great grandfather is named Guido.

Nella Pickup

MORE EVACUEES

Having read Penny’s August blog about, among other titles, Vinnie’s war by David McRobbie (published 2011), I was inspired to read it myself.  And yes, I found it very rewarding.

 

I was brought to consider, yet again, how fertile a source of inspiration human conflict has been for writers over the centuries.  It is an enormous irony that death, displacement, injury, can provide such inspiration for literature.

And that, and Vinnie’s story, reminded me of Michelle Magorian and her novels set in the Britain of World War II and immediately after.  So I looked for my copies of Goodnight Mister Tom and Back home (I had to borrow a library copy of one of them, as I couldn’t find mine….).

Goodnight Mister Tom is Michelle’s first publication (1981), and it won the Guardian Award and the International Reading Association Award; a good start for a writer!  Back home came out in 1985 and is rather more polished, with the occasional sentimentality of Goodnight Mister Tom having been weeded out.

Both books deal with child evacuees and the culture shock they experience through their removal from their families and their lives as evacuees.  Willie is a child from the London slums, with none of the family support and love which was able to ameliorate the deprived conditions in which such children lived.  His new home is in a country village, where physical conditions are just as bleak, but the care and affection he experiences in the community enable him to turn his life around.  So for him, separation from his mother through forced evacuation to the country is a life-changing opportunity and advantage.

Rusty, the heroine of Back home, was evacuated to the USA at the beginning of the war – her family is upper middle-class and well-to-do.  However, her five years in America in the consumer society there insulate her from the conditions which those who stayed behind in Britain endured during the war years.  The drama of her story stems not only from the shock she experiences in returning to an England which is still enduring rationing, but also from the differences between her relaxed and loving family life in the US and the  stiff and narrow requirements of her own family to which she returns.  The adjustments required of her as a returning evacuee potentially result in an uncertain future.

Any teacher exploring the history of World War II would find these books of interest to a class of upper primary/lower secondary students, providing opportunities for enthusiastic discussion in many areas.

Patsy Jones

THE LIBRARY IN THE CLOUD

I have long held the opinion that e-books are here to stay. There is plenty of time still for wistful sighing over the smell of the printed page, or the way that books furnish a room with their testament to our good taste and cataloguing skills. Yes, paper books can be lent to our friends, and discovered on coffee tables by visitors. Yes, they don’t run out of batteries. Ever. I’m first in line to announce that when the zombies arrive to devour us all you’ll find me tucked in the nearest corner beneath a good old-fashioned bookshelf. But e-books are here to stay, and many of us with an eye to the budget of our addictions, the portability of our travel selections, and the ever-diminishing space on our shelves, are listening to anyone who promises to make getting hold of stories easier.

One of the first places we used to turn to for this sort of convenience was the library. Now our libraries are like us: navigating a new way of reading. This month I read an article in Locus by Cory Doctorow, (http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2013/09/cory-doctorow-libraries-and-e-books/), which discussed the difficult situation that libraries find themselves in. Doctorow reveals that libraries are paying premium prices for frontlist titles as e-books, and using expensive software such as Overdrive (used by our own state libraries here in Tasmania), in order to preserve restrictions from the publishers and prevent copyright infringement. This makes it even more difficult and sometimes impossible for libraries to do many of the things they have always done so well—interlibrary loaning, re-selling old stock as second-hands. Bizarrely, hold-waiting still remains, and books that could theoretically exist in almost infinite numbers are reduced to a single copy for which patrons find themselves in a queue. Most shockingly, Doctorow reveals that HarperCollins insists that libraries delete their e-books after they have been circulated 26 times – a projected parallel to how long a book might be expected to remain intact as a physical edition.

The concept of a “library in the cloud,” and a world of reading that can be accessed by any reader with an Internet connection, delights and fascinates me. But before that idea becomes a reality we first need to embrace the way that e-books can give new life to the landscape of reading—not ham-fistedly try to push the digital revolution into the world that already exists. There is great evidence to suggest that publishers would love us to embrace the e-volution of literature. But to convince us, they’ll need to start us off, and that means giving a better deal to libraries. After all, that’s where the readers are.