A bit of everything ... and a happy ending

I don't know about you, but I just love a happy ending. Over the years I've read far too many books, including those for children, that end as badly as they started. So I was delighted to recently read David McRobbie's Vinnie's War.

Vinnie is an orphan who has nothing and as a result faces daily complex challenges. During the war he is evacuated along with a lot of other children, from the London he knows to a country village he doesn't. And there he is forced to get to know new people. Some of them aren't all that enthusiastic about his arrival so Vinnie has to face a whole lot of new challenges.

But Vinnie has a certain amount of luck on his side, and he's resilient. Eventually he not only meets those challenges, he exceeds everyone's expectations including his own. It's a truly uplifting story.

Reading Vinnie's War got me thinking about other books I've read where children, particularly boys, have faced adversity due to either being orphans or being removed from their families. Their circumstances are dire, but somehow they have the strength of spirit to face their challenges and make a success of themselves.

Two such titles immediately come to mind, both of which stand proudly on my bookcase. The Ship Kings: The Coming of the Whirlpool by Australian Miles Franklin winner Andrew McGahan, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the brilliant graphic novel by Brian Selznick. The first is set in a mysterious magical land where the people live and die on the water. The second is set in a railway station in Paris. They couldn't be more different, but I really felt for both Dow Amber and Hugh Cabret as they faced their challenges, and I celebrated with them when their lives finally took a turn for the better.

I know authors have different motives for writing; some want to educate us, some want to help us escape to exotic or unusual places. Others want to make us laugh or cry, and still others want to imprint a message upon our hearts. But personally, I like a book that has a bit of everything ... including a happy ending. What about you?

Penny Garnsworthy

How childhood experiences influenced my writing

I was born in Tasmania more than sixty years ago and went to Princes Street Primary School.  There weren’t a lot of children living along our windy bush road so a grocery bus picked us up at six in the morning and we waited for it after school. The kids on the bus had to deliver newspapers in the morning and groceries in the evening, as we bumped our way to school and home again, often sitting on provisions, packaged in brown paper and tied with string. 

Back then, our neighbour drove a horse and cart to Hobart once a week, and there wasn’t a public bus to take people into town.  The government, however, provided a library bus that visited our neighbourhood once a week.  My mum would walk me down to the bus to borrow a book.  It was a real treat.  I was particularly impressed by an entire row of books about myths and legends from all over the world.  I just loved reading (we didn’t have TV) and I would fly to magical worlds through these books and hear about wondrous creatures like unicorns, witches and evil trolls.  So my fascination for magic, myth, and mystery probably influenced my popular girls’ series, The Faraway Fairies. 

I was a lucky kid because my parents raised me using the ancient, practiced art of benign neglect.  This custom has largely been lost today.  Also, I was the only girl in the area so I learned to box, play footy, cricket and British bulldog (British bulldog is now banned and children aren’t allowed to play it, but my parents didn’t seem to mind if I got squashed, had my knees skinned and was covered in bruises afterwards).  For my eighth birthday I was given a sheath knife and a bow and arrow set.  My brother and I soon became American Indians and found good use for the knife, scalping my little sister’s dolls.  We ran wild through the bush and my parents never saw the risks we took, climbing cliffs, shooting those arrows and leaping amongst branches and occasionally sneaking off and bare-back riding various local horses, without the owners’ permission.  I also loved the ocean and learned to surf and sail.  When I wrote my series The Dragon Blood Pirates, as Dan Jerris, I drew on these experiences.

My grandfather had a shack at Clifton with a locked gate across the only access road. There were aboriginal middens behind the sand dunes and my brother and I found old axe heads and flints amongst the cracked shells and bones around the fireplaces.  We loved the idea of being aboriginals and formed our own tribe.  We collected shellfish and ate them, threw spears, took sacred vows, and read everything we could about the mysterious people that once walked on the land where we now played.

These experiences further developed my love for history and artefacts.  Later, I was lucky enough to travel widely, through Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and explore ancient monuments and see for myself all the wonderful things I had read about as a child.  My brother also developed a fascination for aboriginal history and became an archaeologist.  He has just been involved in the new ABC documentary, First Footprints, about the history of the Aboriginal people.  He’s also had some amazing experiences and been caught in storms, tsunamis and earthquakes. 

I believe these influences have helped me create my latest books, Arky Steele, The Cursed City and Arky Steele, Guardian of the Tomb, which are about two boys having exciting archaeological escapades in Mongolia and South America.

Underpinning my writings, I believe that children should feel safe, so my stories have happy outcomes.  Parents are never far away and, in the case of Arky Steele, his parents are venturesome and caring. Perhaps they are a little like my parents, they let Arky play and explore, fall, take risks, encourage him to get up again when he makes mistakes, and give him the ability to think freely and see adventure as a way of life.

Eleanor Coombe (aka Dan Jerris)

IN THE BEGINNING…

A blurb probably isn’t as useful as we tend to think it is. My boss never used to read them, saying they “spoiled the story.” He would go straight to the beginning and decide if he wanted to read more from there, and lately I think I’m starting to agree with him. The real truth about a book is best found in the author’s own words, with that opening line.

Often the opening line is the part of the book that stays with me. I will never forget that the Dursleys at number four, Privet Drive, are perfectly normal, thank you very much. I will never forget the bright cold day in April when the clocks struck thirteen, or that in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

This year’s shortlisted books have offered up some corkers, too.  Sonya Hartnett’s glorious opening line: She heard it: footsteps in the dark. I love Vikki Wakefield’s: My life has been told through campfire tales—stories that spill over when the fire has burned low and the silence must be filled.

A great opening line is as much about what it doesn’t say as what it does say. The best introduce us to a character and an action - driving us forward because we must know more about this place, this person, and these things that are happening. A perfect opening line gives us exactly enough information to know that something here is different to what we might normally expect, but if we want to know more we will have to keep reading.

That’s why, I think, the best opening line ever (so far) is from my favourite novel, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book:

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

Even typing it sends a shiver up my spine. Perfect. A big picture in very few words, like a photograph of one of the bricks in a sprawling, monumental tower. Calling you to see the rest.

So let’s take a moment to notice the places where we start these incredible journeys. Go on, what’s your favourite opening?

Lyndon Riggall

And from Patsy Jones, who puts the blogs up – Lyndon has referenced five opening lines – let’s see if you can write me a comment telling me the names of the books and their authors – I promise I won’t publish your answers until next week…. (of course Neil Gaiman’s book is not one of them – he told us all about it!)

Are we experiencing a Fairy Tale Revival?

Recently I participated in a book group that undertook an exploration of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Well I guess we all know about Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and all the other well known stories of childhood, but this series of discussions made me realize there is so much more to fairy tales than this. I contemplated the place and importance of this genre in our literary heritage and how much, if any, of this heritage is being passed on.

I began by wondering how many of these traditional tales are actually known to current generations of children.  With the volume of beautiful new books published each year and the surge in children’s involvement with technology; television and film, I wonder if fairy tales have gone the same way as other pieces of traditional childhood literature like ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, bible stories, ‘Aesop’s Fables’, ‘The Just So Stories’ to name a few.  When searching second hand book stores for fairy tales I came across many different publications but compared to the many new books available not many of  the fairy story publications are attractive or user friendly for younger readers.

I recall the era of intensely serious discussion about the violence in fairy tales and nursery rhymes and the criticism of political incorrectness in some children’s stories like the golliwogs in ‘Noddy and Big Ears’.  Did all this adult angst and moral affront precipitate the traditional stories to fall from favour and unfortunately slip quietly out of our children’s literary experience?  From the number of cast off fairy tale books in the op. shops, it’s obvious that grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents do buy them for their children but how many are kept as treasured reading or even read at all?

I have fond memories of Roald Dahl’s ‘Revolting Rhymes’ that turned the traditional into humorous poetry even more blood thirsty than the originals, and I have a slim volume called ‘Kid Rotten’s Tales for Rotten Kids’ which presents Red Riding the Hood as a much less genteel and gracious young lady than the traditional story does.  There is also the politically correct version of ‘Red Riding Hood’ that has the wolf and Red Riding Hood turning on the wood cutter because he had ‘assumed that womyn (not women) and wolves could not solve their own problems without a man’s help!’

However, the important question is, can one appreciate these modern variations on the traditional tales if one has not first experienced the original stories?

Serendipitously, since engaging in this fascinating study, I came upon the work of German author, Cornelia Funke, and read ‘Reckless’ and its sequel ‘Fearless’.  The stories are set in Mirrorworld where the hero, Jacob Reckless, is a treasure hunter seeking out fabulous treasures such as the glass slipper and the magic table that are an important part of traditional fairy tales.  Mirrorworld is of course peopled by fairies, dwarves, elves, witches et al. but also has some of the trappings of the industrial era, making this genre an interesting amalgamation of history and magic much as steampunk links history and fantasy.  I’m not sure if there is a label for what Funke produces but it certainly is an attractive mix.  Every time there is a reference to a fairy tale connection, the knowledgeable reader receives a double hit of reading satisfaction.  Or at least I did.   Would this happen if I had not been familiar with the traditional stories?  I doubt it.  While I don’t doubt that anyone could read Cornelia Funke and enjoy Jacob Reckless’ adventures, it’s that extra depth that turns a good read into a great read.  Hence my concern that young readers, deprived of reference to fairy tales and other traditional literary experiences, might be missing out on some of the new and exciting variations available.

I have also noticed a recent television series called ‘Once Upon a Time’.  I haven’t watched it yet but wondered if it was a similar variation on the fairy tale theme.  It certainly sounds promising and something that brings a renewed interest in traditional fairy stories could win my vote, as long it has a genuine connection.  I am aware of other programs with fairly tenuous links to the real thing. I am not sure about the worth of the current series ‘Beauty and the Beast’.  Perhaps ‘Once Upon a Time’ should be my next stage in rediscovering traditional fairy tales.

And by the way, I can’t wait to start reading Cornelia Funke’s ‘Inkheart’ series.

Carol Fuller

Graphic Novelisations - from Tehani Wessely

As a teacher librarian, one of the things I’ve done in all my schools has been to build up the graphic novel section of the collection. I’ve read comics since I was a kid, though never on a serious fan level; I would read a cereal box rather than nothing, so anything with words that told a story was a bonus for this kid from the country.

I loved Teen Titans, Wonder Woman and Batman and the Outsiders, X-Men and Firestorm and Dial ‘H’ for Hero and Archie and Garfield and anything else I came across, really! Back then, I was a fairly scattershot reader, mainly because I read so much I was always searching for new material. I’m a little more discerning now (no, really!) but I still like comics (though I generally read trade editions now) and I’m a big fan of the graphic novelisation.
 

While there are many excellent original graphic novels, and hundreds of trade compilations of comic issues every year, the graphic novelisation of popular books particularly appeals to me because it can be a gateway for readers into the “real” books. I’ve had several successes with students reading the first few volumes of graphic novels and then moving onto the original books because they don’t want to wait for the next installment, or simply because they want more story. It’s excellent!

I’ve seen brilliant graphic versions of classic works, including multiple versions of Shakespearean plays, stories from Jane Austen, Dracula, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, but easier sells to kids are adaptations of current popular books. I’ve read a number of great graphic versions that I can personally recommend (for the appropriate ages), such as:

Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz
Twilight and New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (I’m not a huge Twilight fan, but the art in this is beautiful, and NOT inspired by the film, which I really liked!)
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore
Percy Jackson by Rick Riorden
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Daniel X: Alien Hunter by James Patterson
Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan (the Darren Shan saga)

Others I haven’t yet got my hands on that look really interesting include:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Discworld graphic novels by Terry Pratchett
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

One note of caution: by nature, graphic novels can be a bit more confronting in terms of violence and nudity than the source material, so it’s worth previewing books which may have questionable content. Sometimes it’s played down in the art, other times it is front and centre, so checking books out is essential.

 

Enjoy!

 

Tehani Wessely is the current Tasmanian Children's Book of the Year Judge.

Midwinter at Varuna

I am writing this blog on my last morning of a three week stay at Varuna – The Writers’ House in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. What a gift Varuna is! It’s a wonderful place to work; it’s both restful and intense and you feel you are being helped on every level. Writing is such a difficult business – there’s the excitement of endless possibilities at the beginning of a book, and the relief and satisfaction at the end, but the time in between – the two or three years that it takes to make a story – is rough going, so a place like Varuna is much appreciated.

It’s so important to get out and about, I find, both as a Tasmanian and as a children’s book writer, and although Varuna is a retreat, it’s a rich experience socially. Days are silent (except for the screech of cockatoos) but evenings are full of conversation in which you get to visit other genres and other worlds – Zhiling Gao’s memoir about growing up in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution; Kerri Melehan, the sleep scientist’s PhD on sleep and sex; Graham Nunn’s 70 love poems to Eleanor Dark; and much more – biography, romance, fiction, creative non-fiction. It’s a diverse mix. I’ve been the only children’s author here in the last three weeks and certainly the only person working on a comic book.

My writing desk and props and the view from my window at Varuna.

It’s strange the way the details of your environment creep into the story. In the outline of my book there was no mountain retreat, no mist and fog, no 999 steps into a ravine and no elderly women sitting in cane chairs taking the air as they look over a breathtaking escarpment, but they are all in there now.

The days are long ­– 12 working hours ­–  but I’ve had time off: a coffee with local illustrator, Beth Norling, who did the pictures for my Little Else books; and a trip to Sydney for a SCBWI meeting presided over by the ebullient (I’ve been looking for an opportunity to use that word) Susanne Gervay, who surely must have a parallel career as a standup comic. I went to the meeting to hear Margaret Hamilton speak of her journey through picture books from librarian to bookseller, publisher and writer, and a few days later visited Pinerolo Children’s Book Cottage at Blackheath. A summary of Margaret’s talk can be viewed at: http://scbwiaustralianz.com/national-blog.

So, all in all, a rich midwinter. Many thanks to Varuna and the Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship for the opportunity to spend time creating, exploring and expanding.

Julie Hunt

Please have your say!

Please have your say!

I am sure that you are all aware that the CBCA has a new management structure. Gone is the rotating 2-year National Executive term, which had its own strengths, but also many weaknesses. Instead, we now have a National Board, made up of one representative from each of the eight branches, the past National President, and a rep. from each of the following : Reading Time, the Awards Foundation, the Lu Rees Archives. The new structure may well have its weaknesses too but we are doing our best to minimise them. And hence this blog.

I am the Tasmanian representative, chosen after our original delegate Angela Briant was elected President of the National Board. In that role, Angela is non-partisan so Tasmania needed another voice. We have been working hard since the CBCA AGM last November. The National Board meets regularly by teleconference as it’s far too expensive for us all to travel to one venue for a monthly meeting, but we have had one face-to-face meeting since the last AGM in November 2012, and another is planned for August before this year’s AGM in November.

A lot of the progress has been administrative: putting in place good governance and organisational strategies to take CBCA well into the 21^st century. I would like to acknowledge all the work done within the Governance and Constitution portfolios. But of course, the Book of the Year Awards process is well underway. The Australian young people’s book world is looking forward to the announcement of the CBCA winner and honour books in Canberra August 16. The next round of judging has started too, and the judges are into their demanding reading schedule.

The next major National Board task is a strategic planning day to be held at Pinerolo in the Blue Mountains at the end of July. Thanks to Margaret Hamilton for making her children’s book cottage available. For this, each board member is canvassing opinion from his or her branch membership and will be completing the same questionnaire. And so, if you would like to contribute, please do so. If you are not a CBCA member, your opinion will still be welcomed, but could you include this within your response, and please seriously consider joining CBCA and helping to promote all the organisation’s aims.  Please send your comments to maureen.mann@cbca.org.au by July 18. No names will be included so it will be completely anonymous, except the compiled report will show that it comes from Tasmania. After July 18, it will be too late to give me time to collate it and send it on.

There are 5 major areas, where I would like to hear your opinions. If you don’t have an opinion for one or more I’d still like to hear from you. Your response can be as informal or as formal as you would like. And your point of view does matter. Please try not to be one of the silent majority.

1.       What does the CBCA do?

List all the things you think the CBCA does or should do at the National level. List everything that comes to mind – no matter how insignificant. (This will help the planners determine what outside help we may need.)

2.       As an individual, what do you think ought to be the aims and objectives of the CBCA National Board?

3.       As an individual, what do you think should be the main priorities for the National Organisation for the next 3 to 5 years?

List the 5 (or less) most important goals that you consider need to be addressed.

4.       To assist with the process of a Risk Assessment, please list all risks that you perceive are facing the CBCA.

(Definition: A Risk can be broadly defined as any event that has an impact on the realisation of the CBCA’s stated objectives. Significant areas of risk include those that may reasonably present a risk to the CBCA's key assets: reputation, people, finances, infrastructure, and intellectual property.) 

5.       SWOT. This is made up of 4 subsections. The aim is to look at Strengths and Weaknesses as internal matters and Opportunities and Threats as external influences.

A.      Strengths

What does the CBCA nationally do well?

What unique resources can we draw on?

What do others (branches and other organisations) see as our strengths?

B.      Weaknesses

What could we improve?

Where do you consider we have fewer resources than others?

What are others likely to see as weaknesses?           

C.    Opportunities

What opportunities are open to us?

What trends could we take advantage of?

How can we turn our strengths into opportunities?

D.      Threats

Keeping your list of Risks in mind, please answer these questions:

What are our weaknesses?

What are other organisations in our market doing?

What threats do our weaknesses expose us to?

I realise that asking you to respond to all these points is a fairly daunting task and that some of the answers will contradict each other. Despite that, I really would appreciate hearing from as many people as possible. I’ll be happy to receive a single sentence answer but will also be delighted if anyone has the time to write several pages’ worth.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts. Many thanks to those who take the time to send me something.

Until next time, and thanks to http://www.freestockimages.org for some of the images

Maureen Mann

Mem Fox and memory

 

I have been reading Pieces of light: the new science of memory by Charles Fernyhough.  It is one of the oddities of life that I happened to be reading a book about something that subsequently became important.  My father is 96 and his short term memory is not what it was. When discussing something that occurred a year ago, he can remember it quite well; however, any explanation about the current status of that matter has to be repeated so many times we end up with sore throats.

If put on the spot and not given the chance to reflect, many people would describe memory as a sort of video recording. On reflection, this is nowhere near the truth.  I, probably like most people, can remember my first day at school. However, who can remember anything about the 7^th or 15^th or any of the hundreds of nondescript days of our schooling. To tell the truth, I do not remember the first day at school. I only really remember going home at lunchtime and the fuss I caused because I was supposed to have lunch at school.

One of my recent duties for my father has been to construct a time line. It is surprisingly difficult. Mostly it depended on events coinciding with other events with known dates e.g. niece’s weddings, did it happen in the old car or the new etc.

However, true remembering is best explained by Mem Fox in Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge (Scholastic). Memories are as Miss Mitchell explains “something that make you laugh, my darling” or Mr Tippet says “something that makes you cry, my boy” and to Mr Drysdale “are precious as gold”. 

Emotions are the handle by which you catch those memories time and time again. Photos and other memorabilia enable the memories to be reinforced (and sometimes invented).  When Dad looked at the photo of himself and me taken at least 60 years ago (my dad is the one on the right) he could tell me how important the hat was to me yet I have no recall at all. The sad thing to me is that though I read Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge to my children many times I did not really understand its message until now.

Richard Pickup