Telegraph | Opinion | Jennings shone a light on the (junior) human condition
Harry Mount writes, in the Telegraph, an appreciation of Anthony Boccjeridge and his Jennings novels:
"Since the death of Anthony Buckeridge on Monday, it's been an uphill struggle convincing non-Jennings fans about the charms of the great schoolboy anti-hero of my 1970s childhood.... ..."
Obit.s & News reports:
Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel
According to the New Zealand Herald, shooting for the movie of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has begun in New Zealand. Shooting started June 28 at the old Hobsonville Air Base in West Auckland.
"The Guri and Gura series, six children's books about two loveable mice with hearts of gold, has entertained generations of Japanese children since its debut in 1963. Today, the success of the series, with its subtle promotion of traditional values, shows no sign of abating..."
The English translators speak about two books in this highly successful Japanese series...
News: Harry Potter book 6 title revealed?
According to Internet reports, a zealous fan has apparently learned the title of JK Rowling's sixth Harry Potter book...
The Observer | Review | Heart of darkness
"The prose is lumpen, the attempts at mystery stifle the narrative and the characters are marionettes working at the whim of higher powers... ..."
The Observer's verdict on Wormwood by G. P. Taylor
pressconnects.com | 06/27/04 | Lifestyle Story
... ...many teens find their way to their own reading lists, which may or may not contain a single book in the "new young adult category." Teens read pretty much the way they do everything else -- they do it their way....
Cool books for cool kids / Young adult fiction for summer reflects teens' world, style
"Summer is so exciting because finally, it's a time when teens come into the library and ask for books they want to read," according to Betsy Levine, the San Francisco Public Library's teen librarian. Awaiting them is the burgeoning world of YA, or young adult literature, where recent innovations, from novels in the form of instant text messages and verse to crossover titles that are attracting as many adults as adolescents, are redefining a genre that once had little appeal for teens.
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Nicolette Jones's summer roundup of children's books...
The Times - How To Outwit A Troll
Amanda Craig reviews Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish ("Told in vigorous, vivid prose, Troll Fell is not just a marvellous, magical adventure but one which recreates the Viking way of life with the kind of imaginative touches that will please teachers...") and Measle And The Wraithmonk by Ian Ogilvy ("a terrific tale in every sense, a fable about overcoming depression and feelings of inadequacy that will thrill children of over 8 long before its spectacularly happy ending").
Weekly book reviews and literary analysis from the Times Literary Supplement
Charles Butler has a letter published on the Letters page of this week's Times Literary Supplement, in which he asks what 'J.C.', author of the TLS N.B. column, has against Mark Haddon. Butler cites a column from February in which J.C. expressed exaperation at the 'phenomenon of adults finding solace in stories intended for kids' on seeing so many adults reading The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time. Butler's letter continues:
"Now (NB, June 11 2004) J.C. complains because Haddon has won the ?4,000 McKitterick Prize, despite having earned (it is implied) quite enough from his book already. It?s a strange criticism: I don?t remember any complaint from J.C. when, for example, the well-heeled Ian McEwan won the W.H. Smith award (worth rather more than the McKitterick) with his bestseller Atonement. Or is this a rule that applies only to those J.C. thinks of as children?s writers?"
Incidentally, the same N.B. column (June 11th) reported the outcome of the Sagittarius Prize, awarded to a novel 'by a debutant over sixty'. Also worth ?4000, and awarded this year to The Two Pound Tram by William Newton, it is sponsored by Terry Pratchett, who is also very generously sponsoring this year's Branford Boase Award, to be announced this coming week. Hats off to the normally behatted Mr Pratchett!
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Nowhere to hide
Jan Mark reviews Looking For JJ by Anne Cassidy
In less assured hands this could have been a well-intentioned failure, but Cassidy is in absolute control of her material. Compassionate, unsensational and unflinching, she interweaves the story of the child who was driven to murder with the story of Alice and her carers...
See the Main Picture Gallery...
Megan Larkin, who previously worked for Orchard Books and has been a consistent fan of the colour pink (remember the UK jacket for Spinelli's Stargirl?) wore pink shoes to launch the new Usborne Fiction List at an event packed full with authors, agents, booksellers and reviewers, despite the clash with the TV broadcast of England's quarter-final.
Champagne flowed freely in the courtyard at Dartmouth House, home to the English Speaking Union, where a bouyant Peter Usborne gave an upbeat assessment of his company's current turnover. "We're on a roll," he said. Which is good news for the authors signed up for this autumn and next year.
Larkin has come up with an interesting mix of UK and US books. Notably missing at this stage, however, is new young talent.
Linda Newbery, initiator of the group protest to my stand on peer reviewing in The Guardian, tells me that all three Historical House titles are now being published at the same time, in November.
Also exceptionally bouyant on the evening, and deservedly so, was Justin Somper, obviously well-pleased with another successful launch. Somper is handling publicity and key promotion for the list, and will be setting in motion an ACHUKA interview with Rodman Philbrick, whose Freak The Mighty gets its first UK release on the Usborne list.
See the Main Picture Gallery...
I'm heading off to Dartmouth House, Mayfair, for the launch party of Usborne's new fiction list this evening, and had expected to find the first six titles, which begin publishing next month, featured on the Usborne website, but I can locate no information about them at all, which is strange. Just as well I have the handsome 'Fabulous New Fiction' box of distinctive pink proofs, which include Polly's March by Linda Newbery (the opening book in The Historical House sequence, with titles by Ann Turnbull and Adele Geras to follow) and a first UK edition of Rodman Philbrick's Freak The Mighty. First to publish, though, are Princess Ellie to the Rescue by Diana Kimpton and A Turn In The Grave by Bowvayne [jacket images as yet unavailable on Amazon].
New content added to this superb Argentine site...
Atlantic Unbound | Interviews | 2004.06.22
Interview with Edwidge Danticat, in which she talks about her writing for both adults and young adults...
Behind The Mountains, First Person Fiction (YA)
The Dew Breaker - her latest adult title
"Tim Robbins will star in Columbia Pictures' Zathura, directed by Jon Favreau (Elf), says Variety. The adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's children's book starts shooting in August..."
One author's outrage - Books - www.smh.com.au
"With the release of his new novel, Girl Underground, the best-selling children's author of titles like Toad Rage, Bumface and Two Weeks with the Queen is out to tackle the 'nameless, faceless' fog of fear and ignorance surrounding the issue of children in detention.... ..."
Judith Ridge has written the Teachers' Notes for this novel, which can be found on Puffin's Australian website.
With the sky turned prematurely dark, cars shooshing by in the wet street, and shrieking pedestrians dashing for cover from the downpour, I snatched a few rare minutes under the reading lamp for some cosily discursive reading, and happened upon this passage in an essay by Cynthia Ozick:
Suspense occurs when the reader is about to learn something, not simply about the relationship of fictional characters, but about the writer's relationship to a set of ideas, or to the universe. Suspense is the product of teaching, and teaching is the product of mastery, and mastery is the product of seriousness, and seriousness springs not from ego or ambition or the workings of the subjective self, but from the amazing permutations of the objective world.
Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character and Other Essays on Writing by Cynthia Ozick
This mini-meditation on the properties of suspense had been prompted by a bout of flu and a sickbed reading of Thomas Hardy, which helped Ozick the novelist and critic see more clearly the limitations of the modern novel. The observations may seem, at first, to have little to do with childhood reading and with children's books (albeit that she makes several references to children's literature in her essay). Certainly, it doesn't apply to the bulk of children's publishing's current output and that is because the bulk of children's fiction, at any one time, is always going to be lacking in mastery, and positively allergic to seriousness. But apply Ozick's comments to the best that children's literature has to offer - Philip Pullman, Paul Jennings (and I cite this disparate pairing intentionally) - and it will be found that her definition fits both the work and the author.
USATODAY.com - There's too much Madonna in preachy 'Seven Thieves'
USA Today gives Madonna's new book the bird:
"Madonna's Yakov and the Seven Thieves is the most visually magnificent of her three children's books, but the dreary and inappropriate story is lackluster and verbose... ..."
TEEN hive's QUEEN bee - JUNE 21, 2004
A profile of Lindsay Lohan, star of Mean Girls, currently on UK general release:
"The movie is based on Rosalind Wiseman's bestselling book, Queen Bees And Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, And Other Realities Of Adolescence."
"Lohan's home-schooled Cady Heron character has to learn to navigate the treacherous waters of teen-girl politics when she attends high school for the first time..."
With her freckled arms and small teeth, Lindsay Lohan is not your typical American Queen Bee. I went to see Mean Girls yesterday, having previously seen Lohan in Freaky Friday. She was good in that, and she's just as good in this new film.
Portland just right for Thai boy's story
In the newly released illustrated children's book, Bread Song, 8-year-old Chamnan, a recent Thai immigrant, takes his grandfather's hand and together they count the 25 cobblestone steps they take to cross from their home above their Thai restaurant to Alison's Bakery.
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
Dotty Inventions by Roger McGough ill. Holly Swain
Swain's illustrations are lively, stylish and full of fun and, like the words, reward repeated scrutiny. The facts are presented no less entertainingly than the fiction and the whole book is a delightful blend of information and whimsy. NICOLETTE JONES
projo.com | Providence, R.I. | Books
This fine first novel by Kimberly Newton Fusco, an award-winning reporter and editor for 15 years at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette who lives in Foster, is billed as a young adult novel, but I read it without knowing that, and enjoyed it immensely....
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Top tales for sunny days
Julia Eccleshare does a roundup of some accessible reads for all ages. I haven't yet read Eva Ibbotson's new book, inhibited by a worry that it may disappoint after the truly excellent, indeed classic, Journey To The River Sea. But on the basis of Eccleshare's assessment, it seems I should have no further concerns on that score...
Eva Ibbotson creates a marvellous world of rich and poor, kind and unkind, young and old against a background of Viennese convention. The Star of Kazan is a heartwarming, old-fashioned adventure, every bit as absorbing as Ibbotson's prize-winning Journey to the River Sea.
Author and radio commentator Daniel Pinkwater didn't grow up in Hoboken, but has spent many afternoons in his own idiosyncratic imagination pretending that he did. His latest children's book, Looking for Bobowicz (HarperCollins, ages 8-12), follows the adventures of young Nick Itch, who moves to Hoboken from suburbs during the hottest heat wave in 120 years.
Debi Gliori's latest novel about the Strega-Borgia family, Deep Trouble, was given a distinctive launch at the Italian Cultural Institute last night, with three actors playing roles based on the novels.
Devised by Random House's Senior Publicity Manager for Children's Books. Melissa Ormiston, who herself has a background in the theatre as well as spending many years in Italy, the launch event ended with guests receiving a small goodie pouch containing the following hand-written verse:
Here's a little bag to get you
out of DEEP TROUBLE
There's a candle for light
And a useless bit of rubble
The Stregaschloss sweet will
make your heart beat faster
And if things get bloody
Try the cheap plaster...
View the full event Picture Gallery....
ic Liverpool - Honour for police chief, actress and media guru
"HONORARY fellowships will be presented to Merseyside's finest, Liverpool John Moores university has announced.
Among the fellows are ... ... Screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce will have his contribution to film recognised ... ... Wirral-born children's author Shirley Hughes, daughter of stores magnate T J Hughes...."
The winner of the CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) Poetry Award for 2004 is:
All the Best - Selected Poems
by Roger McGough (Puffin)
The presentation was made yeaterday at the Royal Festival Hall by Estelle Morris, MP, Minister for the Arts.
The runner-up was
Overheard on a Saltmarsh edited by Carol Ann Duffy
(Macmillan Young Picador)
The CLPE Poetry Award was set up in 2002 and was awarded for the first time in 2003. The award aims to honour excellence in poetry written for children. It is presented annually in June for a book of poetry published in the previous year. This year's judges were Morag Styles and Michael Rosen, with Margaret Meek Spencer as chair.
Morris Gleitzman and Girl Underground ? ABC Perth
"Children's author Morris Gleitzman was a guest in the Chat Room with Jo McManus and Peter Holland. On the table for discussion his views on why boys won't read and political statements in children's literature... ..."
There is a link to a 21 minute audiofile of the chat which I haven't had a chance to listen to yet, but certainly will do.
The Dick Staub Interview: G.P. Taylor, Dracula's Former Vicar - Christianity Today Magazine
The Dick Staub Interview: G.P. Taylor, Dracula's Former Vicar
Quite a substantial interview, with further online references. Useful G. P. Taylor resource.
Zap2it.com MOVIES | MOVIE NEWS | STORY
"A French actress has won the part of Fleur Delacour, dispelling rumors that Kate Winslet will play the role in the fourth installment of the "Harry Potter" films... ..."
Chasing Vermeer Novel to Become Feature Film
Scholastic US, the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books, have announced that Warner Bros. has acquired the movie rights of best-selling mystery novel Chasing Vermeer written by debut novelist Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist.
Entertainment News - Children's classic may be filmed in Canterbury
"Up to 1000 people are expected to converge on Flock Hill Station near Arthurs Pass this spring to film the climactic battle scene from C S Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe...."
Michael Morpurgo, interviewed by The Times after his Children's Book Award win, criticises teachers for their ignorance of and lack of interest in contemporary children's books:
?Time and time again, there are instances of a writer going into a school and the teacher even doesn?t come, leaving it instead to a teaching assistant. This shouldn?t happen even once. There are far too many teachers teaching our young children who don?t love books.?
This is his Top Ten books to turn children on to reading:
Montmorency
Eleanor Updale
Crime and adventure in Victorian era
(For readers aged 10 plus)
Goodnight, Mr Tom
Michelle Magorian
Wartime evacuee meets bitter old man
(10 plus)
George?s Marvellous Medicine
Roald Dahl
The classic jovial romp
(6 plus)
Journey to the River Sea
Eva Ibbotson
Funny and true South American adventure
(8 to 12)
The Gruffalo
Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson
Fable of imaginary and real fears
(3 plus)
Northern Lights
Philip Pullman
Heroine fights evil in fantasy adventure
(10 plus)
Kit?s Wilderness
David Almond
Boy in mining community with dying grandfather
(11 plus)
The Rattle Bag
400 poems and rhymes selected by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
(0 to 100)
The Sheep-Pig
Dick King-Smith
Wonderful fable where pig and sheep swap roles
(6 plus)
Tom?s Midnight Garden
Philippa Pearce
Ghost and time-travel story
(10 plus)
The star-studded cast of Puffin guests enjoyed a glorious summer evening, as can be seen in the full Picture Gallery.
Any suggestions for captions to these three?
Good coverage in The Independent for Michael Morpurgo's success at the Red House Children's Book Awards.
Utusan Malaysia Online - Entertainment
"In a rare victory for French books, which sometimes have a hard time making it on the international market, the British publishers of the Harry Potter books have bought up the rights for a French-language children's tale for over 100,000 euros... ..."
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
"Carle is the gentlest of teachers, but his books always add to a young reader's knowledge...."
CBBC Newsround | UK | Private Peaceful wins top award
Newsround's online report from yesterday's Red House Children's Book Awards...
The section winners of this year's Red House Children's Book Awards (wholly voted for by children) were:
Billy's Bucket by Kes Gray & Garry Parsons
The Mum Hunt by Gwyneth Rees
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
with 'Children's Laureate' Michael Morpurgo voted the outright winner.
See the ACHUKA Picture Gallery...
Michael Morpurgo was unable to attend the presentation. Two of his grand-daughters accepted the award, the older one speaking briefly on 'Michael's behalf with remarkably relaxed self-assurance.
The children's laureate was one of several absent nominees who spoke via pre-recorded video clip.
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Tia and sympathy
Nicola Morgan reviews Paradise End by Elizabeth Laird:
On occasion, the narrative shifts into the present tense, without seeming to add value - there is already an immediacy to the storytelling, and these particular moments do not seem to be those of heightened drama. But this detail is overshadowed by the sizzling pace, richly drawn char acters and a resoundingly moral and important story.
plus,
Julia Eccleshare on Half A Pig by Allan and Jessica Ahlberg
Abandoning an attemot to drop in on the TES Summer party at the Serpentine Gallery when I got to the end of the South Kensington museum subway, looked at my watch and calculated the time needed for the remaining walk + time needed for return into West End, I turned heel and headed back to the Embankment and arrived at the Wellington St cafe soon after seven, to be immediately introduced to Katherine Langrish, author of Troll Fell.
Collins MD, Sally Gritten, delayed in traffic, eventually made an entrance worthy of Edina Monsoon, standing on the stairs leading down to the moodily-lit basement wearing her shades and shouting out her apologies. Katherine Langrish thanked those who had helped
