“When I Grow Up”: A Review of Matilda: The Musical.

Have you seen Matilda: The Musical? Thank you Lyndon for sharing this wonderful experience with our readers.

Matilda is a pretty weird book. It’s also one of children’s literatures greatest classics, with a brilliant and bold young girl taking on the world as its main character, and written by one of the all-time finest and funniest writers of fiction, Roald Dahl. I love it. But that said, it is quite weird. There is hammer throwing, torture-by-cake and a box of horrors, as well as the very strange addition of telekinesis that on every re-read you almost forget is going to be there.

But of course Matilda isn’t about controlling objects with your mind - it’s about the power of stories. Although Matilda Wormwood is squashed down by almost every adult in her life, she rises through the gifts of reading and discovering. She is raised in a library, not in a house.

These same themes play out in the musical stage production of Matilda that I had the pleasure of seeing at the Sydney Lyric Theatre, with a book by Dennis Kelly and songs by our own lyrically-brain-bending Tim Minchin. The weirdness remains (as it should) and so does the enduring reminder that reading gives us power, as Matilda’s father’s song “Telly” tells the audience that television will provide you with “all you need to fill your muffin, without havin’ to really fink or nuffin” by “watching slightly famous people talkin’ to really famous people,” and Matilda realises in her sublime song “Naughty” that she will not become an “innocent victim” of her own story, and must stand up to the Trunchbull.

The set was an astonishing array of alphabet blocks, into which encroached libraries, loungerooms, and the dreaded “chokey” as the story played out. Everyone I saw left the theatre beaming and presumably feeling the way I did; like creativity, humour and the power of a great story would triumph over rigid discipline, and like the musical we had just seen was one of the best ever made. It adds a few features and plotlines to Dahl’s book, but all serve to enhance the story as a stage piece, and the classic Matilda is still very much in the foundations underneath. I only ever knew Roald Dahl through his work, but I can’t help but feel that he would have been immensely proud of the performance I saw. As I re-read the book to compare the two versions of the story, the songs slipped into my mind against my will, as easily and irresistibly as Bruce Bogtrotter’s first bite of forbidden chocolate cake. And upon entering my head, they sparked in me the best kind of joyful defiance: the desire to be clever in a world seemingly characterised by ignorance, and the willingness to hold on to the childish things that make me happy. The adults in Matilda have lost their wonder – but there is a simple solution offered: Never grow up.

Matilda: The Musical is in its last weeks in Sydney before it moves on to Melbourne. See it any way you can.

Lyndon Riggall is a  young writer and previous judge for the CBCA in Tasmania. You can find him at http://lyndonriggall.com or on Twitter @lyndonriggall.

Editor's note: As a Matilda fan for many years I can't resist sharing a photo of a figurine from the Roald Dahl collection and the fact that I met the man himself at a book signing in Harrods, in London to promote the publication of the BFG - and yes, I have a signed copy :-)

In Praise of Libraries

I recently visited LINC Launceston to borrow some books I had ordered online. As I begin each new writing project I first go to the LINC website and select appropriate research material. This day I picked up my books and a DVD and lined up to check them out.

Both check-out machines were being used by young mothers with small children in tow. I watched, fascinated, as the mum in front of me scanned book after book after book - with the assistance of her five year-old - all the time explaining the types of books they were borrowing.

A friend who loves to cook, frequently borrows audio books so that she can enjoy 'reading' whilst cooking. And for those of us who try to read a chapter or two in bed at night - and constantly nod off - this makes a lot of sense.

My elderly father who has finally exhausted his own DVD collection, borrows DVDs from LINC, the most economical form of movie entertainment for home. And of course libraries also allow us free use of magazines, music, the Internet, reference material, and the opportunity to attend events and exhibition for all ages, with of course - coffee.

Libraries date back to 2600BC. The Library of Alexandria provided an early organisation system and the first classification system was created for imperial libraries in the Han Dynasty in China. From there libraries just got bigger and better.

So where would we be without them? Kathy Dempsey on her blog 'Libraries Are Essential' says it all.

"Libraries are portals to all of the world's knowledge. And librarians make sure that knowledge continues to be recorded and saved for the future, even as information-storage devices and formats change."

I couldn't agree more. What do you think?

Penny Garnsworthy
Freelance Writer and Editor, Tas e-News

The wonder of a character’s appearance

This week Tricia Scott ponders on how the reader construes the appearance of the character - words, imagery, film characterisation and even the role of the plush toy.

A well-written novel for any age group will enable readers to visualise the appearance of charactersand develop empathy for their adventures, struggles and relationships. Supporting illustrations may assist in character visualisation, however, they themselves are the illustrator’s own interpretation of what a character looks like based on the text. Books transformed into other mediums provide yet another interpretation of how characters look and this in itself can be controversial, as recently reported by the ABC News, in relation to the casting of Noma Dumezweni for the role of Hermione Granger for an upcoming production based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. 

Picture books, of course, more clearly provide a specific interpretation of a character’s appearance and many popular children’s books are now sold with a supporting plush toy for children to hug and play with to create further adventures.

In my own bag of tricks to use in sharing literature with very young children I have a number of book inspired toys. Favourites include: the green sheep from Mem Fox’s Where is the Green Sheep?, Pig from Pig the Pug by Aaron Blabey, and the very Australian Grug by Ted Prior.  The proliferation of marketing and merchandise in relation to books often does affect how a character is perceived, however, ultimately a reader’s imagination brings characters to life.

Tricia Scott

Teacher Librarian and 2016 CBCA Book of the Year Judge (Tasmania)

The Hero’s Journey Through Literature (and LEGO)

 Welcome to 2016 and our first post for the year by guest author Johanna Baker-Dowdell as she explores heroes, villains and the wonderful creations from LEGO blocks.

When Dorothy embarks on a quest along the Yellow Brick Road, vanquishes the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of water and taps her heels together to be transported home in L. Frank Baum’s 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the reader, her family and friends all celebrate their heroine.

 

Dorothy’s mission, and the growth of her character as a result, followed the Hero’s Journey, a plot outline developed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces in 1949. This structure appears as the plot in many of our beloved books from childhood onwards, such as Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, with readers subconsciously following the cues throughout the protagonist’s journey.

There are 12 steps in Campbell’s Hero’s Journey outline:

1.  The ordinary world – introduction of our hero and setting the scene
2. The call to adventure – something forces the hero to face change
3. Refusal of the call – the hero is scared and tries to avoid the adventure
4. Meeting with the mentor – the hero meets someone wise and courageous who will train him or her or offer advice
5. Crossing the threshold – the hero leaves their ordinary world and enters a new region or condition (special world) with different rules
6. Tests, allies and enemies – the hero is tested and makes alliances in the special world
7. Approach – the hero and allies prepare for a major challenge
8. The ordeal – the hero confronts death or faces their biggest fear
9. The reward – the hero is rewarded for facing death
10. The road back – the hero leaves the special world to ensure the treasure is safe
11. The resurrection – the point where the hero is tested once more (and the climax of the story) through sacrifice and facing death again, with their success ensuring resolution of the conflicting factors within the store
12. Return with the elixir – the hero has been transformed by the experience and returns home with the treasure that has the power to transform the world.

The Hero’s Journey also features prominently in superhero comics, with the characters concurrently battling against a nemesis and struggling with the secrets of their alter egos. This battle is highlighted in LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya’s The Art of the Brick: DCComics exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. This exhibition was a huge hit with my two sons, as well as the big kids in my family (my husband and father), during our recent visit to Sydney. After all, who doesn’t love a good hero story?

Sawaya used thousands of LEGO bricks to recreate his favourite superheroes and supervillains to explore the themes of strength and weakness, transformation, reinvention and good versus evil. The characters Sawaya created were incredible, but my favourite part of the exhibition was when he drew on Campbell’s words to inspire the hero within us all. The quote, “The godly powers sought, and dangerously won, are revealed to have been within the heart of the hero all the time,” resonated with me because we can always see bits of ourselves in the characters we love in books.

The final LEGO character was a boy wearing a cape and standing in a power pose opposite a LEGO-framed mirror in which exhibition visitors could view themselves. I asked my boys to look into the mirror and tell me which hero they saw, to which they both replied “me”.

There’s a hero in us all.

Johanna Baker-Dowdell is a freelance journalist and author of the book Business & Baby on Board.

Blog: http://johannabd.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohannaBD

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johanna.BakerDowdell
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JohannaBakerDowdell

A Christmas Journey

Many of us are fascinated by trains and travelling by train, especially those of us in Tasmania where we no longer have passenger trains. Adults dream of the iconic rail journeys of the world. Children are no exception though their wishes tend to be less exotic and there are many who just want to be a train driver.

So, after spending quite a lot of time over this past year using regular train services in England it seems a good idea to reflect on some wonderful picture books. I have limited myself to this genre though I could venture into titles for more advanced readers: think of the Harry Potter series and the Hogwarts Express, the Adventures of Paddington Bear which start from the iconic station after his arrival from darkest Peru, Murder on the Orient Express or On the Blue Comet by Rosemary Wells. And so many others.

Many of these titles will now be out of print, but fortunately not all. Here are some of my favourites and there’s no priority in this listing.

Whistle Up the Chimney by Craig Smith and Nan Hunt. Mrs Mack throws some pieces of wood from an old railway carriage onto her fire and she suddenly has an express train in her chimney. A great piece of fantasy.

Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg. Beautiful illustrations and simple storyline. A young boy joins the Polar Express on Christmas Eve on his way to the North Pole. There, as recipient of the first gift from Santa, he chooses one of the bells from the reindeer. This is the bell which rings “for all who truly believe”.

Tea and Sugar Christmas by Jane Jolly and Robert Ingpen. This is the story of the train that travelled for more than 80 years taking supplies to the people along the line from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie. At Christmas, Father Christmas was on board and everyone along the line anticipated the arrival of that special service.

The Little Engine that Could. Various editions. This has not lost any of its delight since its first publication one hundred years ago. The engine doesn’t think it can get up the hill but those around convince him that he can. The repeated phrase “I think I can” is great to encourage child-reader participation as well as teaching children the power of perseverance.

Oi! Get Off our Train by John Burningham. A young boy drives the train which various animals try to board, citing all the reasons that they are becoming endangered, while others try to reason why they should not be allowed. It’s a good introduction to animal conservation, aided by Burningham’s mixed media illustrations.

Peggy by Anna Walker. Peggy gets lost when she goes exploring in the city. When she suddenly becomes homesick she follows some bright sunflowers which lead her onto a train and after they disappear she turns to the pigeons to help find home. This book relies on illustrations rather than many words to tell the story.

Bob the Railway Dog by Corinne Fenton and Andrew McLean. Based on the true story of a dog who travelled the trains in South Australia in the 1880s. Although he was adopted by one guard, he did enjoy train hopping, so that the whole railway system looked out for him. McLean’s illustrations capture the locations and especially Bob’s character.

And to finish: The only information book I am going to mention. The Train Book by Dorling Kindersley traces the history of trains from the earliest beginnings to the most modern bullet trains. Lots of pictures with as much information as the most avid enthusiast could want.

Please let us all know which books you would include in this list.

Maureen Mann
Retired teacher librarian and avid reader

CBCA Tasmania Executive send all our readers our very best wishes for a happy and peaceful Christmas and for a prosperous and productive 2016. We hope that you find some wonderful summertime reading under your tree.

The Lunar Chronicles – Marissa Meyer

Patsy shares her newly found reading interest in The Lunar Chronicles series of YA scifi/fantasy. 

The topic of this blog today is partly the result of a comment from a friend, and partly the result of my September jaunt to Western Australia. Why?

Well, my friend and I like to talk about new books – for any audience – and she mentioned The Lunar Chronicles. And what has a trip to Perth to do with it? I was booked to return to Sydney on the Indian-Pacific train and really needed to take something to read which would fit into my tiny on-board case; this spurred me to familiarise myself with my mini-tablet and its capacity to download books. So I have the Chronicles on my tablet and have managed to read most of them in the last weeks.

 

There are actually five Chronicles so far: Cinder (published 2012), Scarlet, Cress. Fairest, and Winter. I have to admit I have yet to read Fairest – it didn’t seem right to read that before Winter was published, as it appears to be outside the main narrative of Cinder’s adventures.

The series is loosely based on some well-known fairy tales; Cinder of course is Cinderella, complete with Ugly Sisters; and Scarlet is Little Red Riding Hood (you’ll have to work out the others for yourselves). But its timeframe is futuristic, with six political entities on Earth (the Eastern Commonwealth, the African Union, the European Federation, the American Republic, the United Kingdom, and Australia together make up the Earthen Union) and one on Luna; with spaceships, cyborgs, shells, and androids (one of whom, Iko, is my favourite character in the Chronicles….).

 

Those of your secondary school students who enjoy a rollicking, adventure-studded romance would enjoy these stories; all the loose ends are tidied up by the end of the series in a very satisfying manner. I have just one question though – how do cyborgs actually go about their daily life processes?

The stories have been published in audiobooks, book, and e-book format, and are available from LINC Tasmania in various formats.

Patsy Jones

CBCA(Tas) treasurer, retired librarian, retired teacher

Editor's note: Fairest provides an entertaining prequel to the highly engaging Lunar Chronicles series. Marissa Meyer also maintains a great website for fans.

Book Trailers – A great way to add to your ‘to read’ list

This year I seem to have spent more time than usual exploring book trailers. Previously sought to promote books to students to whet their reading appetites, my focus in 2015 has been to source these for educators to support Book Week activities and to provide professional learning to educators on using book trailers in the classroom and skilling students to create their own as a personal response to their literature readings.

Just like movie trailers, a book trailer’s major aim is promotion – to provide a tease, inspire curiosity and introduce a new release so that the viewer wants to know more – to view the movie, or to read the book. Authors and publishers are employing trailers with increasing regularity to promote new books. See Random House’s latest promo for the Ranger’s Apprentice series for a taste. 

  

Trailers more often target the young adult market, as witnessed with the spread of book trailers created for the CBCA shortlisted titles this year. Author Darren Goth created a trailer for his wonderful book Are You Seeing Me?

Although promotions are also created for younger readers, there tends to be more retellings than book trailers on offer for this age group; such as this clever modern take off of the timeless Goodnight Moon.

The Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Awards take book trailers a step further by combining a series of trailers into one long preview and celebration and present it as if you are at the movies. Wouldn’t this be a fantastic challenge to see taken up in Australia. Check out the 2015-215 SSYRABooks.

Some books raise questions in the reader’s mind that can be turned into provocations through the book trailer medium. Earlier this year, as I read The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew, my mind could visualise the different elements that I could harness to create my own book trailer. This riveting speculative fiction story begged me to express my response visually. Have a look and see if it teases your interest. Do you want to read it?

If this post has inspired you to dabble your toes in the creative pond, there are many tools available to support you in the process. Educational Technology & Mobile Learning is a good place to start with suggestions for excellent tools, apps, and tips to create educational book trailers. For some commentary on three different tools that I have used, seek out my early explorations into book trailers on JB on not Just Books. 

Jennie Bales
Adjunct lecturer for Charles Sturt University, and your editor, having fun writing a post instead of publishing someone else’s.

George - a review

For You, 
For When You Felt Different  

In Reading Time, May 2013, Alyssa Brugman, referring to Alex as well, (2013), wrote: “Why aren’t there more YA books about transgendered, cross-dressing or intersex teens?  I don’t know the answer so I wrote one.”  Since then, there have been many books, some so completely dominated by the theme that the story is left behind. And now there is George by Alex Gino (Scholastic), a wonderful, sensitive, and honest story for younger readers.   

George is a girl who - biologically - was born as a boy.  When the school is looking for players to take part in a dramatisation of Charlotte’s Web, George wants to be Charlotte.  Her best friend Kelly and Scott, George’s gross, funny and accepting brother, help George be the person she wants to be. The novel deals with bullying and the school system and how individual teachers and the system respond to challenging situations. This may be confronting for some schools.  

Why is the story so powerful? The third person narration introduces George in female pronouns; this is critical to the way we read the book. George is not a boy wanting to be a girl, but a girl in a world where no one else can see it. It's an essential distinction. The story transcends theme informing our understanding of how isolated the Georges of the world must feel while simultaneously telling other Georges that they are not alone and that there is support. 

This is a heart-warming and engaging book should be in every library and school – for children to see themselves and for readers (young and old) to understand what it is like to feel different. 

Nella Pickup

CBCA Tasmania committee member and avid reader.

Editor’s note: Read and watch an interview with Alex in theguardian.