la lecture

I don't know about you, but I believe one of the best things about going to France is THE BOOKS.* And behold my haul.

As you can see I was quite reserved, really. I shopped in Bordeaux at an enormous (absolutely staggeringly big) bookshop (i got lost once) called Mollat, in Les Enfants sur le Toit, a children's bookstore in Montmartre, and at Chantelivre in the 6th arrondissement.
  

• Cupidon Power by Luc Blanvillain, published by l'école des loisirs (MG), in which a young boy has the magical ability to make people fall in love with each other – but he can't benefit from it himself.

• Dysfonctionelle by Axl Cendres, published by Editions Sarbacane (YA). Fidèle has a pretty crappy home life – Dad back and forth from prison, Mum from the psych ward – but she's clever, and so goes to a posh school in a nice suburb. I'll take a torn-between-two-worlds story ANYDAY.

• La pyramide des besions humains by Caroline Solé, published by l'école des loisirs (YA). This one was recommended to me by Coline Ribue, a publicist at l'école des loisirs who was kind enough to meet with me and chat all things book – answering all of my questions about how 'surely france respects books above all else' and hearing back that actually, like here, kids books get pretty overlooked in terms of reviews in mainstream media ...more about this another time – and she walked me around Chantelivre, the indie bookshop right next door to the office. This YA novel is about a reality TV show based on the idea of Marlow's hierarchy of needs. I'm going to have to read it to understand more...

• Quand le diable sortit de la salle de bain by Sophie Divry, published by Notabilia (adult fic) about a young woman, unemployed and bogged down in her novel. I try not to think about this one being too close to home. Sophie, the character, has a personal demon called Lorchus, so we're different that way.

• C'est chic! by Marie Dorléans, published by Seuil Jeunesse (picture book). It's about a merchant who can't shift his wares, until one day he gets a touch of heatstroke and begins pitching very strange goods: coffee shoes and rain carpets?? And the snobbity rich folks, well they think these things are just so unique!

A closer look at all things chic...

Isn't it magnificent?

• Le merveilleux dodu-velu-petit by Beatrice Alemagna, published by Albin Michel Jeunesse (picture book) and which is about a little girl who just wants to get the best present for her mother's birthday – better that anything her sister could get...

 I couldn't not buy the Beatrice Alemagna, even though she's pretty often translated into English – and this title is already, it's called The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy – but I had read an article about this one last year, in which Beatrice was asked (I believe) to redraw a scene in which a butcher brandishes a bloody, dripping knife at our little main character Eddie. American sensibilities etc. I don't know if she had to censor it in the end, but I know I wanted the bloody knife version for myself.

I'm excited, though a little overwhelmed, at all the reading-in-a-second-language I'm about to do. I'm trying to improve my French from basic-conversation-fluent to something a little more nuanced and sophisticated. Books is the answer, I think.

Do you read in foreign languages? How do you source your books? Do you feel, like me, that we would all benefit from an increased amount of works translated from other languages in this country? How can we make this an affordable process?


 *croissants, baguettes and rocamadour cheese obviously a close, tied, second-best.

yes!

c'est le temps de l'amour, le temps des copains et de l'aventure

Wes Anderson's latest film Moonrise Kingdom is just adorable. I've talked before about how the Tenenbaums remind me of Salinger's Glass family and I also think there's something Mitfordish about his films and the families within. There'll be them that just don't like Wes, and that's fine by me, but his films really tickle my fancy.*

Moonrise Kingdom is about Sam and Suzy, a pair of twelve year olds who are in love and run away - Sam from scout camp, Suzy from her home - to be together. It's set in the 1960s, has a brilliant soundtrack and all the trademarks of a Wes film: the obligatory slow motion shot, long tracking shot that shows a bunch of different rooms, Bill Murray, wonderful colours and costumes.

It felt like a really wonderful middle grade novel. The kind that makes your heart swell and pushes your nostalgia buttons, one that's about innocence and creeping towards the end of childhood. The kind of book that would win the Newbery Medal. For in these books it is always the time of love, the time of friends and of adventure!

In the film, Suzy lives in a most spectacular house called Summer's End, which reminded me of a book I read recently...

In Monica Dickens' The House at World's End, Tom, Carrie, Em and Michael have to stay with their rather unwelcoming uncle and aunt, because their mother is in hospital after a beam from their house (as it burned down in the middle of one night) fell on her and broke her back, and their father is sailing round the world in a boat he made himself. However, they soon con their uncle into allowing them to strike out on their own in a tumbledown house in the countryside (at World's End), a house that becomes the most wonderful lawless refuge for the children - and a menagerie of stray animals.

Michael, who was the youngest, came in like a bishop in a long towel bathrobe meant for a man. They had lost everything when their house caught fire, and although their aunt and uncle had bought clothes for them, Valentina's patience had run out before she finished outfitting Michael.
  'Excuse me.' He stirred the dog Charlie with a towelled toe. 'She says you must go down to the cellar.' Charlie thumped his tail without opening his eyes. He was a part poodle, part golden retriever, part hearthrug, who liked people better than dogs. 'It is your duty,' Michael told him. That was one of Valentina's favourite sayings.
  'It's worst for him,' Carrie said. 'She kicks him under the table.'
  'I kick her back,' said Michael. 'That my duty.'
  'When we're at school,' Carrie said. 'I think She ties him up, and the cats laugh at him.'
  'I don't blame them.' Em always sided with the cats. 'They think he bit through that old electric wire and burned down our house.'
  'After the fire...' Carrie said, looking through the wall at nothing. 'Do you remember? There was just the spine of the chimney and bits of burned framework, like ribs, and our rubbish heap. I did a picture at school of the black broken ribs and the tin cans. Miss Peake called it morbid. I called it "After the Fire".

The slightly anarchic family dynamics, the rueful independence, the gloriousness of these childrens' lives - I love it. The same way I love Glenda Millard's perfect and quietly heartwrenching Kingdom of Silk books, Hilary McKay's mad Cassel family (see Michelle Cooper's recent post). Or the Conroy sisters from McKay's The Exiles (I LOVE!), who just love books, but when they're forced to spend a summer at Big Grandma's house they discover the joys of gardening, badger spotting and fishing in a bucket:

All by herself Phoebe had acquired a new hobby. It was her own invention, nobody had helped her, nobody but Phoebe would even have thought of it. You filled a bucket with water, tied a bit of string on the end of a stick, held the stick over the water, and there you were. Fishing in a bucket...The fisher in a bucket can take liberties that conventional fishermen can only dream of. He can stir the water vigorously with his rod and produce no ill effects. He can carry the water to any more convenient site...It is a good hobby, and cheap, and if more people did it more often...

(I've been on a bit of a middle grade kick of late.)

Watch the Moonrise Kingdom trailer:



*The evil sister and I have been trying to list them in order of our favourites, and we have boiled it down to The Darjeeling Limited right up the top, as well as The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, then Fantastic Mr Fox and The Life Aquatic a little bit below. My sister didn't love Moonrise Kingdom, and she felt that because the film revolved around children that she wasn't able to invest emotionally enough in the story. I think she has an interesting point, though I think she is also wrong.

Moon Over Manifest

The conductor came into the car. "Manifest, next stop."
  The seven-forty-five evening train was going to be right on time. Conductors only gave a few minutes' notice, so I had to hurry. I shoved the compass into a side pocket of the satchel, then made my way to the back of the last car. Being a paying customer this time, with a full-fledged ticket, I didn't have to jump off, and I knew that the preacher would be waiting for me. But as anyone worth his salt knows, it's best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you. I'd worn my overalls just for the occasion. Besides, it wouldn't be dark for another hour, so I'd have time to find my way around.
  At the last car, I waited, listening the way I'd been taught - wait till the clack of the train wheels slows to the rhythm of your heartbeat. The trouble is my heart speeds up when I'm looking at the ground rushing by. Finally I saw a grassy spot and jumped. The ground came quick and hard, but I landed and rolled as the train lumbered on without a thank-you or goodbye.

- Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Abilene Tucker's spending the summer in Manifest while her father, Gideon, works his railroad job. The Preacher Howard, called Shady, has taken her in - as he has taken in many a soul who needs shelter. Shady may live in an old broken-down Baptist church, but he's also an old bootlegger from way back. It isn't long before Abilene is working for the gypsy diviner Miss Sadie and even less time before she uncovers a mystery that goes right back to 1918, a spy, a swindle, a murder and two young boys called Ned and Jinx.

It's Kansas in 1936. I like to think that Abilene is what might have happened if John Steinbeck and Harper Lee made a baby, or rather, Moon Over Manifest is what might have happened if they made a book together. Like the Tillermans, Abilene wonders about where home is and where she belongs. As she listens to Miss Sadie's story about Ned and Jinx, she weaves a thread between the past and present, between the people of Manifest ... while just possibly tying herself into the tale as well.

Moon Over Manifest won the Newbery Medal in 2011

Visit Clare's website

The Tillermans

Maybe life was like the sea, and all the people were like boats ... Or maybe each boat was a kind of family. Then, what kind of boat would the Tillermans be? A little one, bobbling about, with the mast fallen off? A grubby, worn-down workboat, with Dicey hanging on to the rudder for dear life.
  Everybody who was born was coast on to the sea. Winds would blow them in all directions. Tides would rise and turn, in their own rhythm. And the boats - they just went along as best they could, trying to find a harbour.

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt, first published in 1981, is one of those quintessential classic American children's books. Or at least one of those thick-paged, yellowing novels from the 1970s and 80s that have the same feel, the same smell, the same dorky, now-dated cover illustrations. The characters and the worlds they inhabit are small, but the stories are so rich. I don't feel like the authors are trying to impress me with how cool the characters are, but the focus is on creating relationships that ring true, that tell stories of sadness without being shocking or depressing, that capture a little bit of a life so fully.

Dicey and her brothers and sister (James, Sammy and Maybeth) are abandoned by their mother and find themselves alone in a car park in a strange city. When she doesn't come back Dicey decides they will walk to Bridgeport, where they had been headed before their mother left them, to go and stay with a relative there. Within a few pages you know these children so well and your heart fairly breaks for them as they hope to find their Momma waiting for them in Bridgeport.

There's a lot of walking involved, a lot of trudging, lots of stale donuts eaten and every penny they can get their hands on can go five ways. As the children walk, they talk about their Momma - who clearly became a very sad woman unable to care for her family - they sing together and they form an unbreakable unit. When Bridgeport doesn't turn out the way they expected, the Tillermans head off again, in search of an estranged, eccentric grandmother.

This review made me so sad. Of course we're not all going to like the same stories etc etc, and the books have more supporters than critics on Goodreads so I shouldn't complain, but at least try to tell me what made you stop reading.

Homecoming definitely has a wholesome whiff about it, for sure, but in a way that acknowledges and appreciates the dark side of the world and doesn't dismiss it or run away from it. All the children (and most of the grown-ups) learn about right and wrong, about what's important in life - and learn that all these things are difficult and changeable and confusing. The people that the Tillermans encounter on their travels, and the kindness (and cruelty) of strangers, the sea motif and the ideas of home and family all make for the best kind of book, in my opinion.

Homecoming's sequel, Dicey's Song, won the Newbery Medal in 1983.

The Tillerman Cycle: Dicey's Song, A Solitary Blue, The Runner, Sons from Afar, Come a Stranger, Seventeen Against the Dealer.

the dying leaves are dancing off the trees

If you couldn't tell by the radio silence, the old blog is going through an existential crisis. But I want it TO BE, so I'm thinking of this more like a Whovian regeneration. You never know, we could end up with David Tennant around here.*

As far as Comedy Festy goes, Background Check were okay and The Musical of Musicals: The Musical was H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S.

Day to day I make barcodes and read all kinds of manuscripts and check that the ebooks aren't wonky onscreen and drink coffee. It is very fun. The other day I got to read some frenchy picture books and do some translation. I was shocked to realise how bad my French has become.

Night to night I scribble. The mad folk over at The Rag and Bone Man Press published a Very Silly Story of mine, over on their website.  They're looking for stories, if you have any to give. 

And I read. Recently I reread Karen Cushman's 1996 Newbery Medal winning The Midwife's Apprentice, a gorgeous little story (just 116 pages) about a poor orphan girl in England in the middle ages whose life changes forever when she is hauled from the dung heap by a cranky village midwife.

The comb was hers. Beetle stood breathless for fear someone would snatch it back. Never had she owned anything except for her raggedy clothes and occasional turnips, and now the comb with the cat was hers. The wink and the comment about her curls, though Beetle didn't know it, were also gifts from the generous merchant, and they nestled into Beetle's heart and stayed there.

And as for the title of this post?



*a girl can dream...

chapter by chapter

The Mask of Destiny, Richard Newsome (Text) - The Billionaire's Curse Trilogy winds up in this third installment that hurls Gerald (and trusty sidekicks Sam and Ruby) from London to France, to Italy and Greece. Gerald's on the lam because that nefarious Sir Mason Greene DIES during his court case and our man Gerald is BLAMED. Ye gads! He can't access his billions! There's danger and action galore - including an excellent bike chase through Paris - and a lot of mayhem and mysteries and myths. The final showdown is set in the most remarkable place and I wish I could give it away to you all. Feast for the imagination. I loved this whole series to bits.

Darius Bell and the Crystal Bees, Odo Hirsch (A&U) - the sequel to the CBCA-Book-of-the-Year-winning Darius Bell and the Glitter Pool is a ripper. Are you as worried as I am about all the bees dying? I actually think about it a lot. Oh my, oh my. But in Darius' world the bees dying brings problems closer to home - if the plants in the kitchen garden are not pollinated then the gardener, Mr Fisher, and his family won't have any plants to garden and will have to leave. Also, there will be no honey! The Mayor doesn't give two hoots, but Darius just may be able to concoct a plan - so long as there's a great swarm of helper-outers at the ready. This is beautiful and fun and community minded. Top stuff for 9+.

i will read you where i go

oof.

my fingers are vair tired from using the shift key to Make Capital Letters So People Would Take Me Seriously at the #abaconf11. (but i do hear that not using capitals annoys people like a bee up the nose...i might decide to use them, maybe, at some point. on occasion.) there'll be a couple more ABA-themed posts over the next little while. but for now...

i've been reading like a reading machine. i can't tell you a lot about them just yet because i have to tell magpies first. you should subscribe. here.

two recent reads:

the accidental princess is the first cab off the rank.* the new book from jen storer and published by viking.

a gorgeous fairy story for girls (and boys) - good, adventurous feisty girls (and boys) - about matilda and her sister iris and the curious magical folk who live in the lilac hedge and the forest by their house.

this is no rainbow fairies.



only ever always, penni russon (a&u)

the real world meets a dystopian future. or does it? who is dreaming? are they dreaming? clara and claire come from very different places and extremely different paths but through this rather beautiful story their lives become intertwined. this is only a short novel and i owe it a second, more serious read this week.


but now: holiday. maybe here:



*this is an expression my dad uses. he was a taxi driver in sydney a long time ago. he still refers to any peak hour traffic as "busy as pitt street out here" and we - his very victorian children - look at him, blinking and wide-eyed.

history, herstory, mystory

Nanberry: Black Brother White, Jackie French (Harper Collins)

Shan't say much just yet. Handed in my review to B+P recently and I believe it has to be one of the best books I've read this year and is a top-notch example of excellent historical fiction.

from the HarperCollins website: It′s 1789, and as the new colony in Sydney Cove is established, Surgeon John White defies convention and adopts Nanberry, an Aboriginal boy, to raise as his son. Nanberry is clever and uses his unique gifts as an interpreter to bridge the two worlds he lives in. With his white brother, Andrew, he witnesses the struggles of the colonists to keep their precarious grip on a hostile wilderness. And yet he is haunted by the memories of the Cadigal warriors who will one day come to claim him as one of their own. This true story follows the brothers as they make their way in the world - one as a sailor, serving in the Royal Navy, the other a hero of the Battle of Waterloo. No less incredible is the enduring love between the gentleman surgeon and the convict girl, saved from the death penalty, to become a great lady in her own right.

The Ivory Rose, Belinda Murrell (Random House)

Conversely, I was disappointed with The Ivory Rose. It has a great premise and plot but lacks sophistication in its delivery.

Jemma has just landed her first job, babysitting Sammy. It's in Rosethorne, one of the famous witches' houses near where she lives. Sammy says the house is haunted by a sad little girl, but Jemma doesn't know what to believe.

One day when the two girls are playing hide and seek, Jemma discovers a rose charm made of ivory. As she touches the charm she sees a terrifying flashback. Is it the moment the ghost was murdered? Jemma runs for her life, falling down the stairs and tumbling into unconsciousness.

She wakes up in 1895, unable to get home. Jemma becomes an apprentice maidservant at Rosethorne - but all is not well in the grand house. Young heiress Georgiana is constantly sick. Jemma begins to suspect Georgiana is being poisoned, but who would poison her, and why? Jemma must find the proof in order to rescue her friend - before time runs out.

See? Great, exciting premise. But too much exposition in sometimes-stilted dialogue causes the story to drag. It's also a little bit prescriptive. There are slabs of text that describe the ways of life in 1885 that read as lessons, rather than woven in to enrich the world subtly. When Jemma runs into Henry Parkes at the apothecary shop she fortuitously is able to recollect her school history class and dictate the lesson to the reader and the father of federation himself.

The characters suffer from being cookie-cutter shapes and tending towards the one-dimensional. Particularly, I wasn't convinced by the mother in this tale and object to her being portrayed as a pushy, overbearing, workaholic mother who then when has to turn to baking and wearing 'softer' clothes to show her character reconnecting and starting to understand her child.

I would still recommend The Ivory Rose because a historical fiction timeslip novel is always interesting and it is still great to enter another world and learn more about our history.

review : surface tension

Surface Tension, Meg McKinlay (Walker)

The day that I was born, they drowned my town.

The town of Old Lower Grange was flooded to become a catchment on the day that Cassie was born (like the old township of Glenmaggie in Gippsland). The town's Mayor pulled a lever, let the water in, and now all their houses are at the bottom of a lake and they all live in New Lower Grange in new houses that look just like the old ones.

Cassie is twelve now and she has to swim laps of the pool every day to help her lungs, which didn't develop properly on account of being born too early. One day, sick of swimming in the town pool (after a particularly disgusting "seven-bandaid swim") she goes down to the lake, to a spot that no one goes to - so she can swim in peace.

Liam, about the same age as Cassie and with a past that also distances him a little from people in their town, joins her at the lake and the two of them form a fast friendship and act as sounding boards for one another's theories when strange truths start to appear from the murky depths.

For the water level is dropping - revealing dead trees, forgotten objects and one humdinger of a mystery. Cassie is smart, she questions things, she has insight and listens to what isn't said - more so than any adult within these pages.


This is an eerie tale, a real page-turner and a wonderful read for anyone about ten and up. Dialogue, excellent. Story, brilliant. Pacing, perfect. The cover is gorgey. Admission? This book scared me a little bit more than I would have expected and I had très troubled sleep the night I tried to read it in bed. That fear of what lies beneath...I was a little bit like Anne that evening she had to run through the woods to Diana's and back.

Photograph of the Cowwarr Weir - there is no town underneath here, as far as I know.

p.s. Very exciting that Meg McKinlay is shortlisted for her book Duck for a Day in the CBCA awards. Visit her website here. And her blog here.

review : first light

First Light, Rebecca Stead (Text)

What was actually Rebecca Stead's first book, First Light has arrived to our Australian shores as the follow-up to her Newbery Medal-winning stunner When You Reach Me.

First Light is a dual-narrative novel for readers around 10 and up that explores environmentalism and politics through a cracking adventure - and slightly sci-fi/fantasy-ish - set in Greenland.

Peter has gone to Greenland with his parents, who are studying climate change. He begins to spend time with the sled dogs, exploring his new icy home. Having suffered from headaches in the past year or so, Peter also begins to have strange visions...

Thea lives at Gracehope, an underground city her ancestors built after they fled England, a people persecuted for 'gifts' and 'talents' they possessed. Gracehope is a model of sustainability, but its ruler is less than receptive to any questions or suggestions that young Thea puts forward.

Of course, these two curious, intelligent characters are destined to meet and it's when Thea and her cousin find a passage to the surface that the plot changes gear and pitches forward at an exciting pace. The themes are accessible and the language perfect. Highly recommended.

Political and cultural superbrain The Cultured Animal has written an excellent critique, which you can read here.

review : a beautiful lie

A Beautiful Lie, Ifran Master (Bloomsbury*)

In the last week or so leading up to the 1947 partition of India (our good friend Wikipedia actually has a good entry about it), thirteen-year-old Bilal is not only facing the end of his country as he knows it but his father, his Babuji, is dying. His father loves India, his mother country, and Bilal devises a plan to hide the truth from him so he can die believing that India is at peace.**

It's a very lovely story and it's great to see such important historical moments written about. Bilal's friends - all of whom come from different backgrounds - are great, lively characters. The riot scenes, between the Muslims and Hindus are probably the strongest in the novel. On the whole, though, the book meanders along at the one pace and it was difficult to maintain interest. The language was unremarkable, and at times tipped into the cringy side of sentimental.

A Beautiful Lie would have been a stronger story if it gave more explanation about what the date signified. Without prior knowledge of the partition of India, the reader could be a bit lost and Bilal himself didn't seem to explain, or even truly understand, the events that were taking place.

Nevertheless - I love a little bit of historical fiction to open people's eyes just a little to the things that have come before. A nice read.

*Copy received for review from Bloomsbury
**If it sounds like you've heard this story before, you might be thinking of that gorgeous German film Goodbye Lenin starring the hunkahunka Daniel Brühl, in which a young man recreates the GDR in his apartment so his mother, who has been in a coma and could die if put under stress or shock, doesn't know that the Berlin wall has come down and the East Germany she knew and loved has crumbled.

our australian girl

in honour of international women's day today:

our australian girl is a new series (published by penguin books) about four girls from different points in australian history. each story is accompanied by little illustrations by lucia masciullo.

meet grace (written by sofie laguna) takes place in 1808 and like many children in crowded and poor london, grace is a mudlarker - she spends her days searching for things to sell in the foetid water and mud of the thames. until one day she steals some apples to feed a horse she loves and finds herself thrown into old bailey - destined for hanging or transportation to sydney cove. grace is a lovely character, sweet and caring, and i await her sea voyage (for this, spoiler alert, is what happens) eagerly in the next three books to follow.

alison lloyd's meet letty tells the tale of a young girl who accidentally accompanies her sister's trunk onto a ship bound for the colonies, her sister travelling there as a free settler. i was a bit frustrated with letty not recognising who she could trust on the ship, but she was so willing to help people that i couldn't not like her.

meet poppy (by gabrielle wang) is the story of a chinese-aboriginal girl who runs away from her mission school, disguised as a boy, to meet up with her brother on the gold fields. i think this one was my favourite of the three so far - poppy is such a great character and she gets to eat dinner with a bushranger, for crying out loud!

the last girl in the series, meet rose (sherryl clark), is set just before federation and as women are campaigning for the vote. (a topic close to my heart) rose's mother wants her to be a proper young lady, but rose has other ideas...and a very modern henrietta dugdale-esque aunty ready and willing to indulge them! i believe that the australian women actually called themselves suffragists, though, to distinguish themselves from the british suffragettes. but that's ok.

review : angel creek

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin (Text Publishing)

On Christmas Eve, Jelly and her cousins Gino and little Pik find a baby angel with an injured wing in a storm water drain down at the Merri Creek*. Not a cute cherubic angel in a gown that you might see in religious paintings, but a feral scrap of a thing – a tiny ferocious angel-child in a tattered dress, with wings something like a pelican. They decide to hide the angel in the toolshed at the local primary school (closed for the summer) and help fix its wing – keeping it a secret from their parents, as well as the aggressive high school boys on bikes that threaten Jelly.

Like a freshly hatched duckling who thinks the first thing it sees is its mama, the angel attaches itself quite viciously to Jelly and will only respond to her – which makes Gino jealous. Pik doesn’t quite understand the secret and tells people about the angel, but they just say “isn’t that lovely” and tell the angry Jelly and Gino that if Pik wants to believe in angels then he is allowed to.

Jelly doesn’t seem to notice her (sometimes offhand and selfish) wishes coming true, in ways she would have never consciously intended – such as when she wishes something would happen to keep Gino and Pik from leaving – The angel stirred and a shiver passed through it like the faintest breeze – and Nonna gets sick and is taken to hospital.

Angel Creek is a really beautiful exploration of a time of change for a young person – Jelly has had to move house and is facing her first year at high school when the summer is over. There's the story of the boy who drowned down the creek, the understanding that Nonnas won't live forever and those butterflies when maybe, just maybe, you've got your first crush on a boy. All these extra flourishes give Jelly's story that little extra oomph. Exquisitely written, and exploring the loss of innocence, kindness, kinship and a certain kind of faith, this book is fantastical (but not fantasy, it’s firmly rooted in reality), effortlessly metaphorical and a little bit magic.

*The kids were not supposed to be down at the creek, but it was a too fascinating and exciting place not to explore. This is true. I live near there. It's scary and smelly and awesome.

she said 'do me a favour if you wanna be my saviour then you're gonna have to learn how to sing'

It's been one of those weeks where there's many many things to do, places to go, people to see, coffees to drink and books to read.

Coming up on bean there, read that there are lots of reviews of very exciting and wonderful books. Here is a taster:

How to say goodbye in robot, Natalie Standiford

One of the best and most beautiful books I have read in a while. It's an intelligent and heart-rending story about Bea aka Robot Girl and what happens when she tried to befriend the prickly and odd Jonah, also known as Ghost Boy. Kind of Paper Towns meets Stargirl.

The Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters, Natalie Standiford

After Robot I had to go and read anything, anything else by Natalie. This one was quite different, but extremely hilarious and equally well written. Someone has offended Lou Almighty and must confess or else the entire Sullivan family will be cut from her substantial will.

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin

Jelly, languishing in that summer between year six and year seven, is hanging out with her cousins Pik and Gino down the Merri Creek when they find a baby angel with a broken wing. It's absolutely marvellous - for those middling readers and for grown-ups too. I kept expecting Cedar B to pop around the corner...

The Our Australian Girl series

The historian in me (lying essentially dormant since honours ended in 2007) gets a sense of glee when fab historical fiction comes out for young Australian readers. These four books were all brilliant. More on them later.

Yellowcake, Margo Lanagan

Still reading...don't interrupt. Margo's stories blow me away, no exceptions. But my lovely pal Clare describes this collection even better than I think I will be able to when she said (in her Bookseller and Publisher review, latest edition Junior term 1): "Each one is truly elegant, possessing a haunting, often unnerving quality that leaves the innards of the story lingering long after the last page is turned."

Other Very Exciting Things emerging in the next little while...

• I reviewed A Pocketful of Eyes (Lili Wilkinson) and The Dead I Know (Scot Gardner) for the next Junior edition of B+P and cannot wait to share my thoughts on those when I can.
• The Reading Matters conference is coming up in May. Get tickets, ok?
• Literary anthology Visible Ink will be launched at the John Curtin on March 2nd from 6.30pm. I've worked really hard on this. Come see.
• How to say goodbye in robot is available at the Younger Sun Bookshop in Yarraville. Go there and buy it.

And with no more to-do, here is the latest Darren Hanlon film clip, directed by Natalie van den Dungen, for the song Butterfly Bones*:

*if you don't like it i will be forced to believe you have no heart. truly.

that merry old creek

have been down the merri creek looking for angels*...



i hope they can swim.


*inspired by my sneaky preview copy of sally rippin's angel creek which is an impeccably beautiful novel.UPDATE: i have a written review of this darling book here.

review : mr tripp smells a rat

mr tripp smells a rat, sandy mckay and ruth paul (walker)

it's lovely to receive books to review, especially when you don't know what you're getting and it could be anything.

mr tripp (and two other stories) and the walker stories are kind of like new zealand's answer to the aussie nibble.

this one was fast-paced and fanciful and funny. top read for the first reader set.

head over to the fancy goods blog to read my review.

woah! book time machine!

the literary delorean has hit 88 and i've travelled back in time to 1987.

space demons, gillian rubenstein (omnibus)

i was in primary school when i first read space demons. i remember being totally enthralled, completely engrossed and i believed in this story 100%. it was with unbridled glee that i reread this series just last month.

i rejoined the spoiled and selfish andrew as he receives this cutting-edge japanese prototype computer game from his father and as he bullies his friend ben into playing - even after the game sucks ben into the computer the first time he plays.

but as the friends continue to play space demons, and as two other kids from school get involved - the new girl in town elaine and the bad boy mario - the game gets dark and frightening as it feeds on anger and fear. shadows start to appear to the children in their real lives and threaten to overtake them and their own behaviour changes with the game.

the book encourages kindness and positivity, working together. it also explores parental fighting and divorce, sibling rivalry, bullying and single parents. i was surprised that the descriptions didn't seem to be as vivid as i remember - and wonder (sadly) whether my imagination has taken a beating in the intervening years. the language is straightforward, the pace is quick, at times the dialogue is kind of stilted and the issues are dealt with in a relatively heavy-handed way. also, it's written in the omniscient voice, but also at times an alternating 3rd person, which came across now as kind of clunky. however, i think it's important to note that i didn't notice these things when i was a child - only now going back to it.

this book was published in the 80s and is actually pretty hilarious to read now, what with all its talk of joysticks and dial-up modems and other outdated computer terms. the kids talk about how amazing and revolutionary the graphics are and i'm just amazed at what a mind gillian rubenstein had - and how the characters from space demons would freak out if they saw the games available now. i'd actually really like to see that. maybe there should be another sequel?

space demons is followed by the equally fantastic skymaze and shinkei. and now they come in one nifty book.

it was pretty popular...
Winner Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award 1987
Winner Children’s Literature Peace Prize, 1987
Winner S.A. Festival National Children’s Book Award 1987
Winner YABBA Awards Fiction for Older Readers, 1990

gillian rubenstein lives here

waiting...waiting...

Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel (David Fickling)

Ben Tomlin has been an only child for thirteen years. So when his research-scientist parents bring home a baby chimp to raise as a human child, Ben's life is turned upside-down. Teaching a baby chimp how to understand language is not his idea of fun, especially when he's trying to settle in at his new school. But it isn't long before Zan's infectious personality endears him to everyone and he becomes a real member of the family. But just what will happen when he grows up and the experiment comes to an end? Ben must take dramatic steps, and the repercussions ricochet through home and community with devastating results. This phenomenal novel is a thought-provoking story of relationships and family, first love and growing up, ethics and dilemmas.
4th January 2011

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin (Text)

In her new falling-down home, in her new street, in her new suburb, Jelly waits for high school to begin. She can only feel happy up in the branches of the old apricot tree and by the creek at the back of the house. One night, Jelly and her cousins spot something in the creek’s dark waters. At first they think it’s a bird, but it isn’t…it’s a baby angel with a broken wing. And they decide to keep it. But soon things start to go wrong, and Jelly discovers that you can’t just take something from where it belongs and expect that it won’t be missed. Sally Rippin’s Angel Creek is a book about growing up: being brave and selfish and tough and scared. It’s a book about an angel. But not the sweet variety. It’s a book about the things that change and the things that always stay the same.
28th February 2011

More than you can say, Paul Torday (W & N Fiction/Hachette)

The bestselling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen returns with a Buchan-esque thriller. A late-night gambling session ends in a bet for Richard Gaunt: can he walk to Oxford by lunchtime the next day? Gaunt sets off and as morning breaks and the dreaming spires near, his evening's winnings look set to double. But when men in a Jeep reverse into him, scooping him off the roadside, Gaunt's life takes a very strange turn. Taken to a country house, he is kept hostage by a man with impeccable manners, Mr Khan who makes him an unusual offer - ten thousand pounds in return for a 'green card' marriage to a woman called Adeena.Traumatised by a tour of duty in Iraq, Gaunt has a cavalier attitude to life and feels he has nothing to lose. His childhood sweetheart won't speak to him, he has lost every job he ever had and he needs cash urgently. He therefore decides to accept Khan's strange proposal - never imagining where this decision will take him. For with his new bride comes a whole lot of trouble...
1st February 2011

review : trash

trash, by andy mulligan (david fickling books)

"my name is raphael fernandez and i am a dumpsite boy."

and thus part one of trash begins. eleven-year-old raphael is frank and unrestrained as he describes his daily work in the dumpite of behala, sifting through the city's rubbish to find something they can sell (tyres are good, so's plastic) and you're with him completely by the time he finds a bag among all the stupp (shit) and inside the bag: money, a map, a key, an ID card and two photos of a little girl. we already know, raphael has already told us, that this is an 'unlucky-lucky day, the day the world turned upside down.'

the story is told in the enigmatic voices of raphael, his friend-brother gardo, the smart and solitary rat (real name jun-jun, renamed 'because he lived with the rats and had come to look like one'), the kind father julliard and the naive, well-meaning olivia. they take it in turns to spin the tale, speaking from some point in the future when the story is over. they recount just how they all became involved in this tale of money, corruption, police brutality, real poverty and real hope. there are similarities to the film slumdog millionaire here, as other reviews have noted, and certainly those who enjoyed that film will also appreciate trash.

the characters come alive in these pages and remain with the reader long after they finish the book. the writing is wonderful and very evocative and the codes and puzzles in the story work nicely. although this book is quite confronting, when i think about the scenes in the prisons and the two chase scenes towards the end and not to mention the terrible conditions these kids live in, this would be an excellent read for children 10+ and particularly excellent for families to read together. and grown-ups should read it too, even if they don't have kids. and just look at that cover - beautiful.

and oh! the ending! it's wonderful!

trash goes onto my top ten list of favourite books of the year. easily.

andy mulligan's website is here.