Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone

Join Tricia this week as she shares a great stimulus for a 2016 Reading Challenge. It is not too late to get on board – How many of the 12 challenges set my Mrs Darcy are you prepared to commit too?

Whilst trawling through social media sites I came across a page encouraging readers to challenge themselves to read more widely and to revisit old favourites.  The 2016 Reading Challenge, from the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog, sets readers a number of tasks, including to read: a book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller; a book you should have read in school; a book that was banned at some point; and, a book you own but have never read. One particular option I found interesting in my intentions to undertake this reading challenge is to ‘read a book chosen for you by a child’. 

I have read quite widely in the area of children’s literature in relation to my school librarianship role and as a CBCA Judge for the Children’s Book of the Year Awards.  Generally the children’s books I have read have been for my own interest, a requirement for judging or to evaluate a title for its suitability for my students.  Only occasionally have I specifically read a title that a student has recommended.  So now one of my reading goals for the year is to enthusiastically grasp at my student’s recommendations especially if they differ from the genres and/or formats that I am most comfortable with. 

Of the tasks set for the 2016 Reading Challenge which one (at least) will you aim to accomplish?

Happy Reading!

Tricia Scott

Teacher Librarian and 2016 Tasmanian Judge for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards

What if…?

Inspired by a session with Justin D'Ath during the Tamar Valley Writer's Festival this 

past weekend, author Johanna Baker-Dowdell brings us some insights shared by Justin.

What if you rode a roller coaster over and over again? What if there were no animals left in the world? What if twins swapped bodies? What if…?

 

Children’s author Justin D’Ath captivated his young audience at the Tamar Valley Writers Festival last weekend (March 18-20) by making them think about all the wild possibilities for stories their imaginations could dream up. I took both my sons to this session and after hearing Justin speak Mr 7 left thinking about a story in which a disastrous tsunami had struck.

  Justin’s audience loved the story behind his surname (his great grandfather made the sensible decision to change it from “Death” to “D’Ath” when it didn’t go so well with his profession as a doctor). And how he left the seminary on a motorbike one dark night with just the clothes he had on and $14, riding through the night and the next day until he ran out of petrol.

With 50 books to his name now, it is obvious Justin is a prolific writer, however he came to his craft almost by accident. Justin travelled around Australia on his motorbike for two years, stopping in a new place every time his money ran out and picking up odd jobs like being a farmhand or working in a sugar mill. He joined the library in every town he stopped at, which meant Justin had access to books and magazines. It was during one of these library visits that Justin started drawing comic strips for a motorbike magazine and soon he was writing articles for the same publication. By the time he was a father reading his children stories before bed, writing has risen to the forefront of his mind.

Fast forward to now and Justin has written several series: Lost World Circus, Extreme Adventures, Mission Fox and Phoebe Nash. Justin has also written many more books for children and adults, including two set in Tasmania: Infamous and Devil Danger.

Freely admitting authors are, “nasty people,” Justin explains his job is to, ”create characters and give them problems”. Some of his characters have to solve 40 problems within one book! What a life he must have in his Queenscliffe home dreaming up problem after problem for his characters while staring out at Port Philip.

What would your ‘what if’ be? Or do you have a series of what ifs?

Johanna Baker-Dowdell

W: www.strawberrycommunications.com.au 

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For the Love of Picture Books

How fitting that our new CBCA Picture Book of the Year Judge, Karen Macpherson, presents a delightful reflection on her love of picture books.

When I was a young girl, if I had been especially good, my mother would bring down from its place on the top shelf, an exquisite picture book copy of Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies. She would tell me how she had received it from her own grandparents and it seemed inconceivably old and precious to my six year old self. The illustrations were stunning, the book itself was not a traditional book shape, and to top it all off, one could look through little holes in the pages and catch glimpses of secrets yet to be revealed. It was the start of a lifelong love of picture books.

I think there was something more going on than just my admiration of the book though. Picture books represent snuggling up with a much loved grown up, silly voices, a door to extraordinary new places, people and dilemmas. Still taking pride of place on my bookshelves today are some of my childhood favourites, now looking much loved following my own daughter’s enjoyment of them. Jane Pilgrim’s Mother Hen and Mary probably had a lot to do with my subsequent love of owls and also my becoming a teacher. Tales of the Countryside arrived on my eighth birthday and immediately became a favourite escape with its amazing world of animals, gnomes and fairies. It prompted the budding author in me to write similar adventures, some of which went on to win junior writing prizes.

My daughter had her first picture book read to her in hospital at just a few hours old. Maybe all she saw was a flash of bright colour, the movement of the pages. Maybe she could smell that wonderful book scent that she still claims will mean books will never be replaced by e-books. Or maybe she just associated my voice, the way I held her, with warmth and love. Now at the age of sixteen, we still on occasion curl up in bed and have a picture book marathon. Favourites are the wonderfully rhythmical The Strange Things by Ann Martin, Time for Bed by Mem Fox (which we read without fail every night for years and was the first book she “read” for herself). There is Billywise by Judith Nicholls about the little owl who doubted he would be able to fly. Floss by Kim Lewis came along when we lived in an inner city unit with no pets allowed and represented everything she would have hoped for in a pet at the time. And of course, the incomparable Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.

As a teacher, picture books often were the vehicle I would use to broach difficult topics like loss, bullying and sadness. Others would be the catalyst to get students thinking about a unit of work. The amazing thing was that it didn’t matter what year level I taught, picture books were still appropriate because they often dealt with incredibly complex issues in a deceptively simple and safe way. Even as an adult reader, it is hard not to be touched by books like Wolf Erlbruch’s Duck, Death and the Tulip.

There are some who question the longevity of the picture book. Children today have access to moving pictures on any number of devices and there seems to be a push from many parents to move children on to chapter books as soon as possible. What a shame that would be! Can you imagine childhoods without a story on Grandma’s lap, daddy’s silly character voices or pouring over illustrations for minute details with a sibling? How many artists were inspired by the often stunning illustrations in the picture books they read as children? As long as there are children, and children at heart, there will always be a place for the picture book.

Karen Macpherson

CBCA Picture Book of the Year Judge

Children’s and Young Adult Books Rule

Nella celebrates the recognition that authors of children's and young adult literature are receiving - standing tall with writers of other genres and adult literature.

As someone who has to defend my reading preferences constantly, I have been rather chuffed to see some recent announcements. 

Booktopia top ten list of Australia's Favourite Authors (voted)
 - four of the top ten are writers for young people and three others have written YA books.

Coralie Bickford-Smith’s The Fox and the Star (Penguin), an illustrated fable about a fox and his friend, is the 2015 Waterstones Book of the Year. 

In January, Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree won the Costa Book of the Year. Watch a snapshot of the ceremony.

Just last week Tamsin Janu ‘s Figgy in the World (Scholastic) was announced as the winner of the 2016 Adelaide FestivalAwards for Literature.  (breakingnews the sequel is out in May).

As CS Lewis said, 'A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest”.  So instead of rolling your eyes at me (and those like me) ask us what we’re reading – you can bet it’ll be profound/innovative and enjoyable.

Nella Pickup
Tamar ValleyWriters Festival schools coordinator, Reader

Editor's note: Having just spent a summer reading children's and YA literature I couldn't agree more. I am on the final pages of Ink and Bone by Rachel and Caine - one of the most original, engaging and enthralling possible future scenarios I have had the pleasure to encounter. It's Book 1 in The Great Library series, and I have to wait until July for the release of Paper and Fire!A series centred around the great library of Alexandria (that survived!) has to appeal to the library lover hidden within. :-)

Fetcher's Song

Tasmanian children's author, Lian Tanner reflects on how a series is born and the sparks that can spur a story into life.

One of the questions I am often asked in schools is where the idea for a book came from. It’s not always an easy question to answer, and Fetcher’s Song (#3 in the Hidden series) is one of the hardest to explain – mainly because it grew out of an odd sentence that was floating in my head when I woke up one morning.

‘It was New Year’s Eve, and the last of the fortune-telling ducks was dead.’

Was it the tail end of a dream? A suppressed longing for waterfowl? Or just a fragment of nonsense from my unconscious mind? I have no idea, but I wrote it down, just in case, in the notebook I keep beside my bed.

In the last six years I’ve written two complete fantasy trilogies, and one of the most important things I’ve learned is that each series comes with its own problems. The greatest problem I faced with The Hidden series was that it wasn’t originally meant to be a series. When I wrote the first book, Ice Breaker, I had in mind a stand-alone novel, and it wasn’t until some time after I’d completed the manuscript and handed it in that I realised I wanted to write more about twelve-year-old Petrel and her world.

That’s when it became a series – with the built-in challenge that I didn’t yet have an overarching idea for the three books. However I realised fairly quickly that I wanted to follow the fortunes of three different children, all of them hiding from the fanatical Anti-Machinists who had taken over the world; all of them bent on protecting a particular type of knowledge.

It seemed to me that most people, if they saw a new Dark Age approaching, would want to save scientific and medical knowledge. That covered the first two books, Ice Breaker and Sunker’s Deep, and the first two children, Petrel and Sharkey. But what about the third child? Who was she, and what on earth was she trying to save?

That’s where the odd sentence came in.

‘Fortune-telling ducks’ sounded to me like a small travelling circus, or a group of entertainers. Once I started developing the idea, the ducks didn’t last long, but the entertainers remained – mainly because one of the things that real-life fanatics like the Taliban and Pol Pot seem to loathe is any sort of frivolity or enjoyment.

So, in my imaginary world, the Anti-Machinists had outlawed songs and stories. And Gwin Fetcher and her family, a small group of travelling players, were trying to keep those things alive.

As Professor Serran Coe says, at the very beginning of Fetcher’s Song, ‘There is history – true history, not the curdled sort the Anti-Machinists want us to teach – and there is science and medicine and the making of machines. But there is another sort of knowledge too, just as valuable. Lin Lin and I are trying to save the mind of the world. You will save its heart.’

Like the first two books in the series, Fetcher’s Song is about friendship, the messiness of life, and those difficult moments when you have to step out of the shadows and stand up for what you believe.

But more than any of those things, it’s about songs and stories, and how important they are to us. Particularly in hard times.

Lian Tanner
Children's author
Website: http://liantanner.com

Facebeook: https://www.facebook.com/LianTannerAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liantanner/

Tove Jansson

Patsy Jones recalls the place of the Moomins in children's literature and their return to the book shelves for a new generation of readers to enjoy.

Recently, as I was browsing in one of Hobart’s bookshops, my eye was caught by a name I remembered – Tove Jansson. I remembered her as the author of a series of children’s books about the Moomins, of which my daughter had been a great fan. Somehow or other I had never been captivated by these books as my daughter had, but it seemed as if it was time to consider their impact on a grandmother……

Tove, born in Finland in 1914, lived through two European wars and great changes in her homeland. At the time of her birth the Grand Duchy of Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, but through the twentieth century became an independent nation-state. Tove’s family belonged to the part of the Finnish population that were Swedish-speaking, so her books were first published in Swedish (the Finnish language is linked with the Hungarian language rather than Scandinavian languages).

Tove was highly regarded as a writer, not just in Finland and Scandinavia, but by the world. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award gold medal for writing in 1966, and in 2004 she featured on the Finnish Children’s Culture commemorative coin.

The first Moomin book was The Moomins and the great flood, published in Swedish in 1945 but only recently published in English. It appears to have the characteristics of many initial books in a series, not enjoying the great popularity of later books about Moomins, most of which were published in English by Puffin, soon after their initial publication in Swedish, and which my daughter read with enthusiasm.

The publisher of this first book, Sort of Books, has also published Sculptor’s daughter: A childhood memoir. This, published in Swedish in 1968, contains several short stories and was written ‘specifically for adults rather than children’ according to the introduction by Ali Smith, and initiated Tove’s move to adult fiction.

Patsy Jones

CBCA(Tas) Treasurer, retired librarian, retired teacher

Editor's note: Tove Jansson is also recognised for her pioneer work as a female comic book artist and a new animation series is on the storyboard.

How do we really know what children want to read?

During my career as a teacher, I have often bought books for my students to read. Yes, the library at school can purchase the books but I have bought them in response to conversations we have had about their book interests and the books stay in our classroom for them to access all the time. I have also bought books knowing that they will only appeal to one or two students and therefore would not be purchased by our library because the material had such a limited audience. So, having bought many books for my students over the years, I would like to think that I have a fairly good idea of children’s reading preferences.

This brings me to the wider question that when a book is being commissioned or published, who decides what children want to read? Is it the publishers in response to the talent of the writers they promote with their preferences for genre and content or the requirement to fulfil a contract with another story? Is it the authors who have children and/or work with children and think they know what will engage a reader or just write about topics that interest them but pitch it at a younger audience? Perhaps it is current events, such as the focus on the Gallipoli centenary last year that led to saturation levels of children’s books on World War 1 being printed? Do teachers and parents make these decisions based on their childhood favourites ensuring ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie’ remains in print? Are the interests and needs of readers being directed by everyone except the children themselves?

Last year I had my Year 5 students write a fairy tale for an audience and they chose the Kindergarten students. Despite my suggestions and encouragement to speak to their audience, they wrote away merrily without ever having spoken to a student from their target audience nor did they spend time reading books the Kindergarten students borrowed from the library, so they could develop a picture of their preferences, i.e., get to know their audience.

When they gave me their stories to read I said that before I marked them they needed to do a final edit after reading their story to a Kindergarten student. They did this and the results were illuminating. Rather than the younger students just saying the story the older student read to them was good, they were quite eloquent in what really mattered to them. In fact, one student became so loquacious that the older student had to get a pencil and pad to make notes.

The feedback the Kindergarten students gave to the older authors ranged from: “The story is okay but the sentences are not very interesting.” and “The trees don’t look the same as the story sounds. They need more leaves.” to “I really liked the story but you have too much white on the page around the pictures.” Needless to say, there was much rewriting (and colouring-in) at a frantic pace.

I wonder if my classroom experience mirrors the big, wide world.

Helen Rothwell is a primary school teacher.

Lessons from New Scientist

Recent readings of New Scientist have inspired, and perhaps excused, this week’s blogger Nella, from some reading habits that she connects too.

Lesson One:  The power of stories
“The irresistible lure of the con artist” by Maria Konnikova New Scientist 23 Jan 16 pp28-41

In our social media driven world where personal stories are shared globally, Konnikova considers what drives fraudsters to like at the expense of others. To quote:
“Nothing compels us so receptivity quite like an emotional, relatable narrative.”
“A good story consistently blurs our judgement.”
The article explains how a strong relationship between trust, intelligence, health and happiness is more likely to see someone fall victim to a fraud (e.g. disgraced blogger Belle Gibson). It also explains that the more someone is absorbed in a story, the fewer false notes are noticed. 

Recently I’ve been involved in discussions about specific books. I noticed that I identified more with characters with Greek/Lebanese/Chinese backgrounds than my colleagues. I could admit that reflected my own NESB, but I couldn’t really discern how much that “bias” made me miss any flaws in the writing. A win to “relatable narrative”.

Lesson Two: Willpower “The force of habit” by Teal Burrell New Scientist 16 Jan 16 pp30-34

Burrell argues that you can make a habit of anything if  you leave your brain on autopilot.
“Willpower comes in limited supply, and gets used up during the day.” 

That’s the best excuse I’ve had for purchasing books – willpower quotient for the day had been used up!
Some examples of “depleted willpower” purchasing follow.

Nella Pickup
Reader and book buyer.