Picture Book Nook: People by Blexbolex

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Last year the wonderful people at Gecko Press brought us Seasons, a stunning book full of illustrations all relating to different seasons by the French illustrator, Blexbolex.  Now Gecko brings us People, another absolutely beautiful book full of all sorts of different people.

Even before you open the book you have to marvel at the production of the book which is like a piece of art itself.  When you remove the dust jacket you discover that it doubles as a poster that would look amazing and eye-catching on a wall.  When I first flicked through the book it seemed like a seemingly random selection of different people from a juggler to a hermit to an eccentric, but when I looked again the people on each double page spread are either connected in some way or are opposites of each other.  For example, one spread has an executioner and a lumberjack.  People would be a great book to share with children, whether one-on-one or with a group, as you could discuss the relationship between each person.  Teachers could use it with their class in creative writing time to help spark story ideas or you could leave it on the coffee table at home to spark discussion.  As I was reading through I couldn’t help but think up stories about these relationships between characters.

People is a book that will be loved by not just children, but parents, teachers and design students.  It’s the perfect Christmas present for the whole family to enjoy.

Celebrating 30 years of Alfie

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I grew up with lots of books.  My parents read to me right from the start and I have no doubt that’s part of the reason I love books so much now.  One of my parents’ favourite authors/illustrators was Shirley Hughes so I grew up with Alfie.  Her Alfie books have stood the test of time and are just as fun and entertaining to read now as they were when I was a kid.  This year sees the 3oth anniversary of the very first Alfie book, so Shirley Hughes has celebrated this milestone by publishing a brand new Alfie book and a mini Alfie collection.

All About Alfie is a brand new collection of Alfie stories, while at the same time, retaining everything that made the original stories so special.  All your favourite characters are here, including Alfie’s little sister Annie Rose, his best friend Bernard, and his toy elephant Flumbo.  You can join Alfie as he hides in his secret den, helps Bernard celebrate his birthday, and goes on a big adventure with his mum.  All About Alfie is a real celebration of Shirley Hughes’ classic character and her stunning artwork.

The My Alfie Collection brings together four of the best Alfie stories in a package of miniature hardback editions.  These miniature editions are a good size for sharing but also perfect for carrying around in your handbag or in the car, for those moments when you need a book. Alfie Gets in First is still my favourite Alfie book and makes me laugh every time.

I hope that, even though the world of books is changing, the Alfie books will still be popular in another 30 years.  I know that I’ll share the joy of Alfie with my own children, as my parents shared them with me.

Sequel to This is Shyness coming in 2012

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One of my favourite books of 2010 was a Young Adult book called This is Shyness by Australian author, Leanne Hall (read my review here).  I’ve known for a while that Leanne has been writing a sequel and was excited to discover on the Text Publishing website yesterday that it’s called Queen of the Night and is being released in February 2012.  If you haven’t read it but love quirky YA books you really should rush out and get hold of a copy.  Leanne was the winner of the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing in 2009.

To whet your appetite, here’s the blurb for Queen of the Night:

“The dark is dangerous. So is the past. So are your dreams.

For six months Nia—Wildgirl—has tried to forget Wolfboy, the mysterious boy she spent one night with in Shyness—the boy who said he’d call but didn’t.

Then Wolfboy calls. The things he tells her pull her back to the suburb of Shyness, where the sun doesn’t rise and dreams and reality are difficult to separate. There, Doctor Gregory has seemingly disappeared, the Darkness is changing and Wolfboy’s friend is in trouble. And Nia decides to become Wildgirl once more.

The sequel to the 2009 Text Prize-winning This Is Shyness is about the difficulty of recreating the past—about how the Darkness no longer sets Wolfboy and Wildgirl free.”

You can pre-order Queen of the Night on the Text Publishing website now.  Text are a Melbourne based publisher and are one of my favourites.  They always publish really interesting and original titles, especially for Young Adults.

Yes by Deborah Burnside

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Every now and again you read a book that you really connect with.  Something about it, whether the characters or the story, strike a chord with you.  You get to the end of the book and you just sit there for a while thinking about it, with a smile on your face but with a sense of loss because it’s over.  Deborah Burnside’s latest book, Yes, is one of those books.

Marty (AKA M & M) has trouble reading people, organizing things and pleasing his father.  His brain isn’t wired the same as other people so it takes him longer to figure things out, but he’s as normal as any other teenager on the outside.  Luke spends his time hanging out with his best mate Luke (AKA Legless) and his ‘chick-mate’ Francesca, who he’s had a crush on for ages.  Luke’s always trying to get Marty into all sorts of crazy ventures, and when he attempts to get him involved in YES (the Young Enterprise Scheme) it’s futile to resist.  Marty doesn’t know what to expect, but the last thing he thought he would be doing was making crochet hats and being mentored by his dad.  Will their business succeed or will it all fall apart?

Deborah Burnside has created a memorable character with an authentic voice.  As Yes is told in the first person, we really get inside Marty’s head and we get the sense of how difficult it is for Marty to read people and make sense of the world.  Even though his brain is wired differently, Marty is still such a typical teenage boy.  He’s got a crush on his ‘chick-mate,’ his dad’s an embarrassment and Marty never seems to live up to his expectations, and he has an obsession with sex.  It’s a sign of a great story when you can picture yourself in the same situations, in places that you know – I kept thinking of myself and my best mate from high school as Marty and Luke.  One of the things I liked most about Yes is that Deborah can have you laughing out loud one moment, then in tears, and leave you with a smile on your face by the end of the story.

I can’t recommend Yes highly enough.  It’s my favourite New Zealand book of 2011 and I’ll be surprised if it’s not a finalist in the 2012 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Picture Book Nook: Poo Bum by Stephanie Blake

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Children of any age love toilet humour, so what better book to appeal to them than Poo Bum by Stephanie Blake. Once there was a little rabbit who could only say one thing – Poo Bum.  Whenever his parents or his sister ask him to do something, this is what he says.  But what happens when he meets a wolf who wants to eat him?

Children are in fits of giggles even before you open the book and you know they’re going to be rolling around on the floor by the end of it.  The story and illustrations are so simple but they make a winning combination.  The danger (and fun) of this book is that children start to join in with you.  However, they don’t see the surprise ending coming, which sends them into fits of giggles.  Poo Bum is sure to be a favourite of children everywhere and the book that parents will have to read again and again.  Another brilliant book from Gecko Press, publisher of curiously good books from around the world.

Death Cure by James Dashner

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James Dashner’s Maze Runner, the first in the Maze Runner trilogy, is one of my all-time favourite books (you can read my review on the Christchurch Kids Blog).  It’s one of those books that is stuck in my head and I just couldn’t put down.  There are only a handful of books that have totally blown me away and The Maze Runner is one of them.  I’ve eagerly awaited the next books in the trilogy, The Scorch Trials, and finally, The Death Cure.  I honestly can’t tell you much about the plot for fear of spoiling the trilogy for those who haven’t read it, but here is the blurb:

“Thomas knows that Wicked can’t be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they’ve collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It’s up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.
What Wicked doesn’t know is that something’s happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can’t believe a word of what Wicked says.
The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.
Will anyone survive the Death Cure? “

All I can say is that The Death Cure is the perfect finale to an amazing series.  Thomas and the Gladers have come through this terrifying ordeal and the group are completely changed by the end.  James Dashner has managed to keep the suspense going throughout each book and keep us hanging out for The Death Cure to discover the truth.  If you’re a fan of dystopian or post-apocalyptic worlds, like those from Hunger Games and Divergent, you need to read The Maze Runner Trilogy.  You won’t regret it.

To get a taster of what to expect, watch this amazing book trailer:

Interview with Charlie Fletcher

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Charlie Fletcher is the author of one of my favourite reads of 2011, Far Rockaway (you can read my review on the blog).  I caught up with Charlie to ask him a few questions about Far Rockaway, classic characters and writing.

  • Cat and her grandfather Victor, plan to go to Far Rockaway at the end of the subway line.  Is Far Rockaway based on an actual place?

Absolutely, Far Rockaway is based on an actual place. If you’re in New York you can jump on the subway, and take the A-line train all the way eastwards, under the river, through Brooklyn and across Queens on to a long sand spit sticking out into the Atlantic and then you’re on The Rockaways (and if you – like me – have a guilty secret and used to love the Ramones, you’ll recognize the name of the sand you’re now running alongside as Rockaway Beach, the title of one of their fine 3 chord musical wonderments). Then you just stay on the train until it literally runs out of track and America too, and that’s Far Rockaway.The very few trainspotters who will read the book will notice that the A-line begins at the northern tip of Manhattan at a station called Inwood, and that Cat’s journey to the ‘other’ Far Rockaway in the parallel story-world of her coma begins when she wakes up in a wood in a chapter called, er, Inwood. Quite a coincidence, eh?

Of course the other Far Rockaway in the book is an imaginary place, but it’s based on two very real landscapes, Solas Beach on the island of North Uist, and the uninhabited island of Mingulay, both in the Outer Hebrides where we go every summer to recharge the batteries. They’re among my favorite places in the world, and I think even people used to the natural wonders of NZ might find them quite beautiful too.

  • Cat meets some of the best characters from classic adventure stories in Far Rockaway.  Was it difficult to make those characters sound authentic?

If I did get the voices of say, Long John Silver or Alan Breck right, it’s entirely because I’m a writer, and thus a thief, and I stole from the best, for example,  Robert Louis Stevenson. He’s such a tremendously good story-teller and  he created magnificent heroes and anti-heroes in such a well-crafted and distinctive way that their voices just can’t help but live on in your head. And if their voices live in your head, you can then imagine how they might say things the original author never made them say, which makes reviving them such a pleasure.Of course the other thing about writing fiction in general is that you have to be quite a good mimic anyway, remembering both what people say and how they talk: very sadly I can often be found striding up and down my office having imaginary conversations with myself in the guise of my characters, and doing the voices at the same time. It’s a lot less dangerous than the other times when I’m acting out sword fights or bits of action in order to be able to describe them accurately, but it’s MUCH more embarrassing if any of my family walk in and catch me at it. That said, I now do a very good Ray Winstone impression that I perfected while doing the gruff voice of The Gunner in my Stoneheart books , and in Far Rockaway Alan Breck shometimes shounded shtrangely like the younger Sean Connery, though I did try to shtop myshelf before it got sherioushly out of hand…

  • The main character in Far Rockaway, Cat, is a strong, independent girl who doesn’t need anyone to save her.  Is Cat based on someone in particular?

My daughter thinks I was inspired to write the book FOR her, which is generally true, because I write books for both my kids first. And it’s specifically true in this case because when she was about 12 she fell for a certain series of vampire related books but then suddenly un-fell for them a year later (admittedly on a second reading, itself a testament to their great power).  When I asked her why, she said well, she’d kinda liked the girly romance thing and everything first time round, but on a re-read realized that the heroine was always hanging about moping and waiting for the glamorous guys to rescue her. She  – at the ripe old age of 13 – thought that on reflection this was ‘a bit wimpy and old-fashioned’, and that she wanted books with stronger heroines…I could have stood up and cheered.

I didn’t.

I wrote Far Rockaway for her instead.

I did also remember to thank my wife for reading her a great and funny book called The Paper Bag Princess many years before, which put the right foundations in. In my humble opinion, every parent should read The PBP to their daughters (AND sons) if they can find a copy….

What she doesn’t know, and probably shouldn’t, is that Cat’s also inspired BY her, and all the other Real Girls I’m lucky enough to have known, especially that one who married me. I’m not going to drop a Spoiler Bomb on my own book here, but if you want to know how a Real Girl defines herself, there’s a big clue in the last four words on p.403.

  • If you could meet one book character in real life who would you choose?

If it was a female character, it’d be Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. Or Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Or any or all of Terry Pratchett’s witches – Granny Weatherwax, Magrat or Nanny Ogg.  Or Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. Or Sara Paretsky’s great female detective, V.I. Warshawski.If it was a male character, then it’s Long John Silver from Treasure Island or Alan Breck Stuart from Kidnapped. Or  Mahbub Ali from Kim. I was going to say Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, but then I thought that Merlin from The Sword in the Stone might be more fun, since he’s not only a wizard, but is also living backwards in time. It’d be interesting to see what he had to tell us about the future. And in the same way, but the opposite direction, I’d choose Puck from Puck of Pook’s Hill and Rewards and Fairies, because he took his friends into the past and showed them things that happened a long time ago.

Ok. Not what you asked but you have to admit that’s at least  one interesting dinner-party full. If you cruelly limit me to just one, I’m going with Puck, but only because Elizabeth Bennet’s already in love with someone else and I’m no match for a Darcy…

  • What were the books that got you hooked when you were a kid?
Everyone’s reading journey is different, but they all begin with similar primary colours. So here’s an unedited memory dump: Going from my earliest recollections, in order: being read to: Dr Seuss and Winnie the Pooh.  And then reading for myself, pre-teen? Tintin. Paddington. Asterix. Any comic I could find, especially The Eagle, Victor, Hotspur or The Trigan Empire strip off the back end of a mag called Look and Learn.  A book called Mary Plain, also about a bear. Biggles. Enid Blyton. The Borrowers.  The Rescuers. Alan Garner. Geoffrey Treece. Rosemary Sutcliffe. Ian Fleming.  Wildly age-inappropriate Sven Hassel books about an SS Panzer battalion (in mitigation, I was locked in a pretty unreconstructed boy’s boarding school at the time).
Then everything I could lay my hands on, usually passed on from my dad – westerns, especially Louis L’Amour and JT Edson, pulp American crime like Rex Stout and Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, CS Forester’s Hornblower series, lot’s of WW2 and Prisoner of War memoirs (this was the 70’s and there were a lot of them about. I loved the Colditz Story especially since it seemed full of useful tips that might be helpful in escaping the prep school I was stuck in  at the time) Neville Shute, Nicholas Montserrat, Alastair Maclean (I still love his first, HMS Ulysses) and then a teenage double-life reading the classics by day for school and then pleasure, and SF by night – Heinlein, Dick, Asimov, Bester, Niven etc etc. And then it just keeps on getting worse and I always need new bookshelves or a trip to the charity shop with a bag full o’ books. Thank god for the Kindle…
  • If you could give one piece of advice to young writers, what would it be?

As you might think from the above answer; read everything and anything you can lay your hands on. If you want to write: do it. Don’t let anyone discourage you about writing – LEAST OF ALL YOURSELF. Keep at it. Pay attention to everything, because everything matters. So does everyone. Keep writing, even when it’s hard. Don’t be discouraged because what you write sounds like something else you’ve read. That’s not a bad thing. Every writer began like that, and the ones that didn’t are lying. The stuff you read, the stuff you love, the stuff that made you want to write in the first place, that stuff supports you as you set out on your own journey, just like training wheels on a bike when you learn how to ride. You’ll get your balance soon enough and the training wheels will just fall away, and you won’t even notice it until one day you’ll re-read something you just wrote and realize that the voice you’re hearing is your own, shaped by the ones you used to hear, but belonging to no-one but you. It’s a good moment, and if you keep writing, you’ll get there. Good luck and enjoy the ride…..

Liesl and Po book trailer

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Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver is one of the fantastic books I’m reading at the moment.  It’s a really magical book and one of those stories that you can get lost in.  If you like books like The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo, I highly recommend it.  Reserve it at your library now.

Picture Book Nook: Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

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I love Oliver Jeffers’ books because they’re always so quirky and different.  His illustration style is quite simple and sparse but he uses different textures and materials within them.  His latest picture book, Stuck, is classic Oliver Jeffers and is weird and wacky, with a surprise ending.

It all began when Floyd got his kite stuck in a tree.  As any kid would do, Floyd tries throwing other things up into the tree to knock the kite down, including a ladder, a bucket of paint, a cat, the kitchen sink, and a rhinoceros.  Each thing he throws up there just ends up getting caught with the kite.  It’s not long before things really start to get out of control and Floyd starts to run out of ideas.  Will he get his kite, and everything else, out of the tree?

Stuck will have kids (and grown-ups) laughing out loud at all the crazy things Floyd throws into the tree.  You’re never quite sure what you’re going to find he’s thrown in the tree each time you turn the page, so you can have a guessing game about what it might be.  I didn’t see the ending coming so it had me cracking up, and left me thinking what might happen next.  I love the simplicity of Oliver’s illustrations and the text, which seem quite child-like.  Oliver has really channeled his inner child in this book and kids will love the craziness of it.  Stuck will beg to be read again and again.

Picture Book Nook: A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham

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Bob Graham is one of Australia’s most prolific illustrators and his books always make you laugh and tug at your heartstrings.  Bob’s latest book, A Bus Called Heaven is another classic Bob Graham story.

An abandoned bus turns up one day in Stella’s street and everybody stops and stares. There’s no explanation for it, it’s just there. They all follow Stella on board to have a look around and Stella suggests that it could belong to everyone in their street.  Together, they push the bus into Stella’s front garden and clean it, paint it and add their own touch.  Life returns to the bus where ‘babies crawled, people laughed, kids fought, grandads scratched dogs, meetings were planned, couples met and the Fingles showed their holiday pictures.’  Then the tow truck arrives and takes the bus away.  Will Stella and her neighbours be able to save their bus?

A Bus Called Heaven is a uplifting story about a community coming together and fighting for what they believe is right. Bob Graham makes you want to be a part of their community and you’re hoping and wishing that they’ll be able to keep their bus.  Bob’s vibrant, panel-style illustrations tell their own story, meaning that you could take away the text and you could still understand what’s going on.  There are so many characters that anyone can find someone in the story that they can relate to, whether it’s the children playing, the parents sharing a cup of tea, or the grandads scratching the dog’s tummy.   A Bus Called Heaven is a story that can be enjoyed again and again and a great book to teach children about community and working together.