Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Back to the beginning
Julia Eccleshare salutes Philip Reeve, winner of the Guardian children's fiction prize with A Darkling Plain, and the creator of an irresistible universe.
ACHUKA: September 2006 Archives
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Boy wonder
And Geraldine McCaughrean also writes about her Peter Pan sequel in The Guardian:
What I attempted was a literary counterpart - the matching bookend - same world, but somewhat reversed. I do not entirely share Barrie's outlook on life. I do not swallow his assertion that we are born happy and dwindle to inevitable unhappiness. Nor do I share his mistrust of parents and grown-ups. If they are so dreadful, why are there Wendy houses and pirate swingboats in so many gardens?
Shadowing Peter Pan - Books - Times Online
Geraldine McCaughrean won Great Ormond Street’s competition to write the sequel to J. M. Barrie’s much-loved story. She writes about the experience in The Times:
Contrary to rumour, however much the dark knots in the human soul fascinate me, I am an entertainer first and foremost: a book as important as this one is no place for gloomy speculation. When your children read the sequel, I sincerely hope their shadows will have shrunk to nothing by the time they reach the end. Mine had.
first posted 2006-09-24 12:46:15
Last week Alyssa Brugman, an Australian author, reported ACHUKA to the Australian Society of Authors and to Faber for listing one of her proof copies on eBay.
An ultimatum from Faber has prompted the following, which I hope will in turn prompt responses from authors and publishers and other second-hand booktraders.
I shall look forward to getting feedback, both public and private. For public feedback leave a comment here or on ACHUKACHAT.
Thank you in advance for helping me do the right thing.
N.B. If the Comments link does not automatically open the Cmments window, right-click your mosue and select 'Open in new window'.
Continue reading Not For Resale.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Pressures making teenage life a misery, warns charity
The archbishop's remarks were criticised by children's author and retired Anglican cleric GP Taylor, who accused him of scaremongering. "Williams is out of touch. It's as if he gets his ideas from a script of EastEnders. In reality he is only talking about a small group in society, not a generation. I am seeing young people every day: they are in the majority caring, loving, well-balanced and imaginative."
First Time Is the Charm - washingtonpost.com
Matthew Skelton interviewed (briefly) by the Washington Post.
icWales - 'Horrible' writer turns his attention to Wales
A short feature article / interview with Terry Deary to herald:
Terry Deary's Tales From The Mabinogi is at the Sherman Theatre [Cardiff] at 6.30pm from Monday, September 25 to Wednesday, 27. The show will be recorded by BBC Radio Wales and Terry will sign books afterwards. Tickets are free and can be reserved in advance.
Scotsman.com Living - The trouble with childhood
MORE than 100 academics, teachers, psychologists, children's authors and other experts [on Tuesday] called for a major public debate on child-rearing in the 21st century. The escalating incidence of childhood depression is caused, they suggested, by a lack of understanding, by both politicians and public, of the realities and subtleties of child development.
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Lost childhood? Nostalgic claptrap
Children are losing their imaginative powers, claims a group of child experts. Rubbish, says best-selling children's author, GP Taylor, they're just as creative as ever... "It's nostalgic claptrap, it's tosh, this idea that we should go back to the 1950s. Because even in the 1950s, people were saying 'the radio is terrible, it's leading young people astray'," says Mr Taylor, who worked as a Church of England vicar before becoming a children's author... And he is unimpressed by the suggestion that the current crop of children are being stifled by the way they live. Times change, cultures change, but it doesn't mean that childhood comes to a grinding halt, he says. "It seems so knee-jerky, it's the old guard, trotting it out, saying 'oh woe is the world'. And it's not, I'm out there every day and the world is a fine place. The kids are as creative now as they ever have been."
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harry Potter runs airline gauntlet
JK Rowling, returning from a charity book reading in New York just days after the security clampdown, was confronted with a demand that she consign the unfinished manuscript to the hold. She pleaded with security staff in New York to allow her to keep the manuscript with her. They relented finally, and allowed her take it into the cabin, unwrapped and bound together with elastic bands. In a revelation which will have left her publishers shuddering, she disclosed that the manuscript was largely handwritten and with no back-up copy.
Dahl gets a Scots rewrite - The Herald
The Twits have metamorphosed into modern Scots to become The Eejits. On Roald Dahl Day tomorrow, the date that would have been the author's 90th birthday, the world's most revolting couple will be revealed in all their "manky glory" after being translated into Scots by Matthew Fitt, the children's author... ...
Michael Winner: Me and my money | This is Money
Michael Winner - collecter of children's illustrations:
WHAT WAS YOUR MOST INDULGENT PURCHASE? MY BEATRIX Potter watercolour of Benjamin Bunny. It is two-and-a-half inches by three inches and cost ?32,000 recently at auction. I started collecting original illustrations from children's books 40 years ago. Everyone sniffed at me at first, but juvenalia has risen most in price in 30 years of any artwork.
The blank page is still terror, 50 years on - Books - Times Online
Alan Garner, writing in The Times and recalling starting work on his first novel, The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen, 50 years ago:
Much has changed in those 50-years-to-now; but one thing has not. The more critically successful a writer becomes, the more need there is for a strong editor. To think otherwise risks artistic suicide. A trusted editor, dedicated to the text and sensitive to its author, is the making of a writer and is the great teacher. On the high trapeze, the Flyer may be the one who draws the applause from the crowd, but it’s the editorial Catcher who times the flight. I have been fortunate in my editors. The readers’ reports for the three novels that followed my second all recommended rejection on the same grounds each time: that the new book was different from the previous one. And each time the editor had faith, and published.
Very Highly Recommended
The September issue of Shanville, Darren Shan's monthy newsletter - news & feature packed as ever, including a link to some amateur footage of the author on YouTube. Do catch up with Shan's blog, if you haven't read it recently. The link is on this page, in the right-hand panel.
The Sun Online - News: JK has lost the plot
JK ROWLING has been forced to correct a plot blunder in a Harry Potter book....
