What’s in it (CBCA) for you? : why every parent, teacher, librarian and library aide should be a member of CBCA

Have you ever noticed how patchy our familiarity with trends becomes as we grow older?  Of course we are sentimentally attached to our own era of music, books and film; that is our own generational culture.  We remember that era in detail,  probably claiming that the current trends are rubbish and nowhere near as good as ‘when we were kids’!

If we have offspring we become quite well versed in that particular generation’s culture too, at least until the children become independent readers, thinkers and socialisers, then our knowledge goes into a black hole again.  This appalling sense of being out of touch is very apparent when you attend the Trivia evenings which seem so popular with fund raisers now and the vital question is to identify a song or a book you have never even heard of.

If you eventually become a grandparent the cycle begins again with a different set of trendy stories, songs, films and TV programs.  I was well versed in Noddy and Big Ears, Enid Blyton and ‘Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men’ from my own childhood. I learned to appreciate the Brambly Hedge series, Hairy MacClary, Bananas in Pyjamas and Narnia with my daughter and now have become an authority on Fireman Sam, all the Nick Bland books and the characters in Lightning McQueen and Despicable Me.

The point is, we all have these huge black holes in our cultural retinues because for most of us, unless we are full time students of youth culture, our busy lives don’t allow for more in depth or continuous knowledge.

As I repeatedly tried to emphasise to the trainee teachers in my lecture groups; one has to know and understand the ‘culture’ of the group of students with whom you are working if you truly want to relate to, bond with and therefore teach and inspire them. Now we all know that teachers are asked to do more and more within the curriculum every year, not to mention all the time taken up with testing and reporting against a million new criteria.  So unless a teacher is super human or can exist on very few hours sleep a day, when does the dedicated teacher keep up with what quality reading material is available for her/his pupils? Once upon a time, and I use the fairy tale cliché deliberately, a classroom teacher could rely on the good old school librarian whose job it was to survey, sample and stock the school library shelves with the best and most appropriate current literature.  The reality is that very few schools have the services of a full time school librarian now.  Library aides are doing a fantastic job of filling that huge gap in professional knowledge and expertise but very often those stalwarts are only employed part time so once again time to keep up with the trends is difficult.

Even more so if you are a parent and want to share and guide your child’s development. Parents need to keep up with the latest and best quality trends in their child’s world. However, the reality is that probably very few modern parents have the luxury of time to browse the library or bookshop shelves researching the latest and best literature.  How many of us abdicate the responsibility of guiding what our children read to their teachers, we hope, and as for viewing.... let’s hope the TV police keep things appropriate during peak kid’s viewing times!!

Well what does this have to do with being a member of CBCA?

If you are a teacher struggling to fit everything in and still have a personal life, or a school librarian/aide or a responsible parent wanting to give your children the best possible guidance and opportunity to develop, then this is where CBCA can assist.

It is CBCA’s objective to review, evaluate, advise and publicise information about quality children’s literature.  CBCA doesn’t just organise the annual Book of the Year Awards which showcase the very best of Australian children’s literature.

In Tasmania CBCA publishes a newsletter full of current information on publications, literary events, authors and illustrators and associated literary topics.

 For example if you live in Hobart:-

What are you doing for dinner on the Thursday 19^th of September?   Would you or your  children like to dine with Michael Gerard Bauer, author of Don’t call me Ishmael, The Running Man, Dinosaur Knights and many other books for young people, and hear him speak about his work? CBCA Tas is hosting a dinner for Michael Gerard Bauer at Rydges Hotel (Corner Lewis and Argyle Street in North Hobart) with room for 25. The dinner will be 6.30 for 7 PM. 

 RSVP to Jessie Mahjouri jessiemahjouri@gmail.com asap.

Besides publishing the free ‘Books to Keep Kids Reading’ booklet, CBCA Tas. has recently published a series of new pamphlets giving parents invaluable advice about the what and how of using books with children from babies to teenagers with IT and e books included.

CBCA National publishes ‘Reading Time’ which is full of reviews of current publications for children and young adults.  If you don’t have the time to read and evaluate the books, let CBCA do it for you. CBCA is neither a publishing house nor a book-seller therefore parents, librarians and teachers can rely on the integrity of the information being given. 

Through membership of CBCA, teachers and librarians have access to special publications of classroom materials, posters and promotional materials associated with the very best of the Book of the Year winners and notables.  CBCA not only reads, reviews and recommends quality literature but also constructs lesson materials, saving educators valuable time and effort.

Need I say more about how valuable CBCA membership can be to parents, teachers, librarians and library aides.  For more information go to the website www.cbcatas.org.au  and see that for a very small annual subscription you can fill in some of those black holes in your familiarity with youth culture, at least the literary part.

Carol Fuller

PS.  Teachers, encourage your Principal to sign up your school as an institutional member. 

Developing my learn-to-read eBooks

I was recently invited to write a blog about the creative process of making my ereaders for children learning to read. It all started when my now-adult daughter was four years old and learning to read. We found it really hard to find entry level learn-to-read books that had exciting stories. Some of the books had difficult words like ‘refrigerator’ (a word that might be remembered in the context of a particular book but not in another context). What also bothered me about this was that it conveyed the idea that reading was going to get harder and harder. I also understood that even though some people learn phonetically, many children learn visually, and learning words phonetically is not only hard for Visual Spatial Learners but it can be confusing too.  

At first I wrote a collection of fairy tales that were very easy to read. I soon realised that every time a child wanted to read a new story they had to learn a new set of words - not easy or fun!

Then I had the idea of making ‘picture words’ as words are complex, abstract looking things. I made a set of picture words and sent them off to one or two education publishers but I didn’t receive a reply. So they sat on my shelf for a few years.

Next I tried making books which used the same set of words to tell very different stories. I sent a couple of these books off to an education publisher but when I didn’t receive a reply I realised they were only going to publish books that fitted in with their existing reading systems - my books certainly didn’t fit in. The trouble with trying to be innovative is that every innovation is different and it hasn’t been tested in the market before. 

I kept thinking about how to make books that would convince children that the learning process was going to feel safe and easy. I wanted them to comprehend the story from the very first book as well as trust that learning to read wasn’t suddenly going to get hard. I spent many, many hours figuring out which were the best words to create the ‘stage one’ books. I eventually chose 10 words which I could tell at least 5 stories with. I also had my list of words for the other stages and I adapted these as I was writing and illustrating the stories. 

One interesting and surprising thing I noticed was that even though I have made these books for visual spatial learners, almost every word I have used can be sounded out phonetically!

A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that best option was to self-publish these books as ebooks because I wanted children to be able to buy them with their pocket money. After realising this, I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours searching for the best method. I wanted to use an accessible file type that could be viewed on most computers and most reading devices. Epubs are the most accessible (across a range of reading devices) but unfortunately they are currently picture book unfriendly and they can’t easily be viewed on computers. 

I discovered that PDF ebooks are great, as with one click one of these can be viewed in ‘full screen’ mode which is a much nicer look than the normal PDF view. So PDF became a good option but anybody can copy a PDF document and consequently book distributors don’t sell PDFs. The other problem was distribution. The fine print of many of the distributors’ contracts was worrying, so I decided I was going to have to find a way to sell them from my website - but how? Then something wonderful happened. I discovered the website provider I had been using for six months already had the facility for this to work and I already knew they give amazing phone support and their systems are trustworthy.

I decided that even though people can copy PDF ebooks, this was still the best option, as my priority was helping as many children as possible to learn to read and PDF files are the most accessible for people on low incomes. I decided to trust people to pay for the books. 

Now, many years after beginning my quest to make a good reading system that suits visual spatial learners, I am very excited to say that I have now made lots of learn to read ebooks and the picture words too. I also have about 20 more learn-to-read books in the process of development. 

I think the hardest part of this whole process was to keep working on the project for years while not knowing if I was ever going to have these books published. I had to keep having faith and even though ‘Faith’ is my middle name, it was still very hard to do. 

A few weeks ago the most magical thing happened. I was working with a boy who couldn’t read and within half an hour he had read all the books in stage one. He was so excited and proud of himself. We both knew he could read because he was reading the 3rd and 4th books which he had never read before. What I loved about this experience was how he now saw himself as somebody that could read and how he was keen to read more stories. Then, the other prep children saw us and wanted to join in. We had a lovely time with them reading the books to me. This was a wonderful reward for all the many, many hours of work and I very much hope that the books I have created can help more children learn to read.

 Andrea Faith Potter

Artist, Illustrator and Author 

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