Misrule

Thus Tweeted one of the participants in what is shaping up to be the literary scandal of the new (OK, I know there's debate on when the new decade actually begins, but I give up) decade: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, along with actor/writer/Play School presenter Rhys Muldoon, has penned a children's picture book!

The book, Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle, is to be illustrated by Carla Zapel, who is unknown to me (Google suggests she's a graphic designer, I'm guessing this is her first children's book—let me know if you know different) and published by the venerable House of Onions. Along the lines of Bo: Commander in Leash, one of many picture books about the Obama's dog (which I gather was written before the dog was even adopted and anyone knew for sure what kind of dog he'd be—you'll remember how Obama famously promised his daughters a puppy when he won the election), Jasper and Abby... will apparently follow the adventures of the Prime Minister's pets around the grounds of The Lodge. Proceeds, as you might expect, will go to charity.

The story was released in today's press—it's all over the web, so just Google "Kevin Rudd children's book" and you'll find it. The quotes are pretty much the same in every story, with Rudd crediting Muldoon as coming to him with the idea for the book and also saying (Rudd that is) some fairly unfortunate things about it not being "the most demanding text" he's ever worked on (tell it to Sendak, Mr Prime Minister!) and putting a human face on his pets...

Comments on the news reports are as you'd expect—largely negative, typically hostile and generally unquotable without a million "sic"s (honestly, I don't know why I read the comments section on 99% of webites, they either enrage or depress me, or both) along the lines of "what is Rudd doing writing a kids book when he should be running the country", yada yada.

This doesn't wash with me, frankly. If Winston Churchill could run Great Britain and win WWII with the (alleged) daily habit of a bottle of champagne before he even got out of bed (well, that's what the tour guide told us in the Cabinet War Rooms), I think our PM can take a breather to look over the drafts of a co-written picture book of a few hundred words. (Come on, no one seriously thinks he did much of the actual writing, or was involved in the editing, do they? Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Rudd!) CORRECTION: I have since been contacted by a very reliable source and assured that Mr Rudd was indeed involved in both the writing and the editing and that it is "not in his nature to just hand it over", which actually rings pretty true. So apologies to Mr Rudd for doubting his involvement. Happy to make the retraction.

Honestly, we've become so boring and utilitarian in our attitude to politicians and public spending and so on. We can't have fire works on New Year's Eve because the trains don't run on time. Yawn. It's as if every last second, and every last cent, has to be accounted for, all work and no play and frankly, I think it makes Jack and Jill a very dull pair altogether.

But as you probably expect, this being a children's book blog which has done its fair share of whinging and complaining about perceived slights against our goodly professional over the years, some of the objections have also come from the children's lit community who, on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere no doubt, have had a quiet little grumble about yet another celebrity children's book deal. I can understand that, I almost had the same initial reaction myself when I opened the paper over my banana and youghurt. But I actually think this is not the same as the most annoying and, yes, cynical of those celebrity publishing deals, where the celebrity trots out some line about having to write the book because (as both Madonna AND our own George Negus have reportedly said) there weren't any decent children's books out there.

I get as hot under the collar as anyone about those situations, knowing how hard it is for even the most genuinely unpublished talented writers to get their manuscript seen, much less signed to a multi-million dollar, multi-book deal—and for something that is in many cases almost certain to have been ghost-written. And of course, there's the deeply frustrating assumption that comes packaged along with these deals that anyone can dash off a kids' book, if only they had time. Margo Lanagan called this "impertinence" on Twitter today, and I couldn't agree more. (Someone else also tweeted that possibly apocryphal story about Margaret Atwood and the neuro-surgeon who thought he'd try his hand at writing novels when he retired... you can guess the rest.)

But is this book/deal that? I don't really think it is. For a start, no-one is making claims that the book had to be written because of the dire state of writing and publishing for children. And with the Prime Minister's name front and centre on the book, it's hard to argue that this one took the better-deserved place of a published or up-and-coming unpublished writer. (Or is our Prime Minister in fact, that most egregious of things—a queue jumper?!) I very much doubt that this book was published in the place of any other book for children that may have made it to Allen and Unwin's schedule for the year—but even if it did, well, none of us have read it yet and maybe, just maybe, it's good and deserving pf publication.

Because—here's a literary scandal in the making—not every celebrity children's book is bad. There are plenty we could, arguably should and certainly do trash with ease, but for every ill-conceived mess like, OK, sticking my neck out here (sorry to my friends at Macmillan) Toni Collette's bizarre foray into picture books, there's the well-regarded ouvre of Jamie Lee Curtis. Sophie Lee's junior novel from last year, Edie Amelia and the Monkey Shoe Mystery, was extremely successful, I thought. (By which I mean a good story, well-told, not copies sold.) The truth is, I've always thought that creative people are often multi-skilled; Dirk Bogarde is as highly regarded a writer as he is an actor, and it's only in fairly recent times that we've become cynical about the actor-singer, when once this was simply the norm. It was expected that performers could sing, dance and juggle while making us laugh and cry in equal measure. So why shouldn't we allow for the possibility that people with creative skills in one area may be have creative skills in another?

Which brings me to the other celebrity name on the cover of Jasper and Abby... , Rhys Muldoon. It was Muldoon who tweeted this blog post's title this afternoon, and I assume from it he felt a bit beleaguered by all those badly spelt comments and huffy responses from the children's book community—although none, as far as I can tell, have been directed at him. I don't know Muldoon (although we are friendly on Twitter), and I have no way of knowing if he can write a decent children's book (and also no reason to think he can't), but I do know that he's a well-regarded actor and broadcaster, as well as a well-loved presenter of Play School. And having worked as an editor on the Play School books back in the late 90s when I worked at ABC Books, I can say from experience that Play School presenters are, by and large, far better placed to understand how children's books work than, say, your average football star. 

I do also appreciate that the topic of the book—the PM's pets playing in the grounds of The Lodge—may not on the face of it be the most promising premise for a children's book. (Although I would have thought the same about a photographic picture book about a dog travelling around Australia too, and it turned out to be one of my favourite books of 2009.) But hear me out, because I think there's another reason to be reasonably positive about this book—at least until we've read it.

I keep pretty well up to date with as much international children's publishing as I can, particularly from the US and UK, and I have long admired how well the US does children's books about their great historical figures and their political and cultural institutions. We do very little by the way of such books—where are the Australian children's books about, say the 1960s Freedom Bus rides through country NSW in the wake of the civil rights movement in the US? Or the Green Bans of the 70s? Where are the biographies for children of great Australians outside of the education market? I know we have a smaller book-buying market here and it's hard to make the numbers work on non-fiction, but here comes a book that might, if we're lucky, give kids a small insight into government through the (this still makes me chuckle) "human faces" of a black cat called Jasper and a golden retriever called Abby.

So let's wait until we've actually read it to completely dismiss it. Let's not turn the Kerfuffle into a full-blown brouhaha just yet!

The villains of the piece... (Photo pinched from an online newspaper. Sorry about that.)

ADDENDUM: Please note I am not suggesting that Jasper and Abby was ghost-written, just that I assume that Mr Rudd was less directly involved in the writing and editing than Mr Muldoon. And I could even be wrong about that! 

I made a decision when I woke up on New Years' Day that this is going to be a good year. I'm not one for resolutions, I just decided that I've had too many years when I've got to the end and thought, wow, glad that's over. So I am fully intending to have a Good Year with no losses (except hopefully some weight!), no unnecessary misunderstandings, and no self-imposed stress. And I want to read vastly more books* (and blog more and generally speaking write more), see/hear lots of theatre, movies and music, spend more time with friends and consciously get out and enjoy life more.

And so far so good. New Year's Day I went to see Sherlock Holmes with one old friend and a new one I met on Twitter, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. The critics have not been kind to this movie, but I have generally found that people really enjoy it, and another good friend who saw it on New Year's Eve with her hubby says that she disagrees that the story is anachronistic to the stories, but that on the contrary, that everything in it is seeded in the Conan Doyle stories. Too long since I've read them to be able to comment**, but Pamela has a phenomenal memory and if she says it's true I believe her! And even if it's not, I still thought it was a very entertaining movie and anyway, Robert Downey Junior.

Today, with the same old friend and two others, I went to see an amazing production at Sydney Theatre Company. It's a play called Tot Mom, and the script is made up entirely of actual documentary material from an on-going murder case in the USA. Most of the production is a reproduction of the Nancy Grace Show, with the amazing Essie Davis playing Grace not live on stage, but broadcast on screens hanging over the stage, where a large cast of actors played media figures, lawyers, callers into the Nancy Grace show and others involved in the case performed. It's a technically extraordinary production, but the performances are what really make it.

Davis is astounding as Grace, and the cast of about a dozen other actors are completely convincing as they slip in and out of the multiple characters they play. I guess it's probably the first non-fiction play I've seen and I'm so pleased I did. I've let too many plays and things go unseen over the years that I've later regretted missing, and this may remain one of the most original and powerful productions I ever do see. And apparently Steven Soderbergh, who devised and directed it, has said this will be the only production of it anywhere ever. It is a subtle and intelligent examination of trial-by-media that doesn't go for cheap shots but lets the material—and the personalities as depicted by the actors—speak for themselves. If you are, or can be, in Sydney, go and see it.

There will be lots more theatre coming up for me this year, as Pamela and another friend, Jenny and I have subscribed to Belvoir Street, so that's a good 11 or so plays coming up in the next 12 months. I also plan to see some stuff at Sydney Festival and set myself up for a really good, busy, stimulating and HAPPY 2010!

But here, dear readers, are the two main reasons why I think 2010 is going to be a lovely year:

Meet Louis (l) and Cooper (r). Adopted from the RSPCA on Sunday 27 December 2009. They have a blog dedicated to them here, so if you're a cat fan you can follow my adventures with them there and if you're not, I won't clog up Misrule with too many kitteh posts. Just suffice to say I am thrilled to have them in my life and flat, even if, as my friend Marie-Louise says in the first comment on the new blog, it took two cats to fill the Bridie-shaped space.

So happy new year to you, and here's to a fantastic 2010. If you feel so moved, please use the comments to post your own hopes and plans for the new year.

_____________________

*By the way, have to say I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of comments on my Best Of 2009 post! It's not too late—what were your best books of the year?

** I read a lot of crime fiction as a kid, especially Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. I don't imagine anyone reads Ellery Queen any more, do they?

I'm about to go and get ready for a Christmas Eve party at my friend Ursula Dubosarsky's house. Ursula also happens to be the creator of one of my absolute favourite picture books of 2009: The Terrible Plop. (Actually, she's one of the creators: the book is illustrated by the wonderful Andrew Joyner and a better marriage of text and illustration you could not ask for.) So this little fact prompted me, before I go and slough off the effects of a very steamy post-Christmas day in Sydney in preparation for the party, what were your favourite books of 2009?  

There are "best of" lists all over the interwebs. I'm not going to link to them here: let's make our own in the comments section. I'm going to kick off with a few I can think of off the top of my head, and I'll come back and add to the list later. Hell, I may even add in some comments as to WHY they made my personal "best of" list for the year! So, in no particular order (and I'll do a spearate list for grown ups' books):

Fire by Kristin Cashore

Dust by Chris Bongers

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Red Ted and the Lost Things by Michael Rosen and Joel Stewart

The Museum of Mary Child (disclosure: close personal friend/read it in manuscript alert!)

Raw Blue by Kirsty Eager

Tiny: A Little Dog on a Big Adventure by Steve Otton and Jennifer Castles

The Devil You Know by Leonie Norrington

Anonymity Jones by James Roy

The Magician's Elephant by Kate diCamillo

Grace by Morris Gleitzman (this one my Mum also loved, so a double guernsey from the Ridges)

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne La Fleur

Baby Wombat's Week by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley

Cicada Summer by Kate Constable

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Brown Skin Blue by Belinda Jeffrey

Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood (Disclosure: Libby is a friend and close colleague. This is just a lovely story with the most exquisite illustrations by Freya Blackwood) 

Personal discovery of the year: E. Lockhart

Series of the year: Girlfriend Fiction

And then there's the ones I haven't even got to yet! (So if it's not here, it might be on the To Be Read pile.)

I'll come back later and finish off the links, but I'll put this up now and see if anyone comments while I'm out at the annual Dubosarsky revels. And while I'm here, if you happen to celebrate it, have a fantastic Christmas. Cheers!

If you are in Australia and can access the new digital ABC channel, ABC3, make sure to tune in tomorrow evening to watch the debut episode of "My Place". The series is based on the classic Australian picture book written by Nadia Wheatley and illustrated by Donna Rawlins.

The following comes from an interview by Ramona Koval from Radio National's The Book Show with Dame Margaret Drabble about Drabble's new book The Pattern in the Carpet. It's a book about jigsaw puzzles (of which, as it happens, I am quite the fan). In what follows, Koval is referring to Drabble's Aunt Phyl, whom Drabble spent holidays with as a child:

Ramona Koval: You went there for summer holidays, and, as you say, she was a teacher, and she had a whole collection of children's novels too. You can get the idea from this book that, like a jigsaw puzzle, one thing leads to another, and we keep coming back to jigsaw puzzles and we will...but everything makes you think, my goodness me...there's some fantastic things in here about the kind of people who write children's stories and about how evil they really are.

Yes, that's my emphasis, but if you listen to the whole interview, you'll discover that this quote about children's authors being evil is entirely a non-sequitur on Koval's part—at least with regards to this particular interview.* But it's one that Drabble (like her sister AS Byatt from whom she is, apparently, estranged, but with whom she nevertheless shares a disdain for writers of children's books) nevertheless picks up with some enthusiasm, as she goes on to accuse Alison Uttley of driving both her son and husband to suicide, as if understanding of depression and mental illness had not progressed a step beyond "blame the harpy wife/shrewish mother" theories of early 20th century psychology. (Note also that Uttley's son killed himself a full two years after her death, and she died when she was 92. Some mean feat of geriatric post-mortem encouragement, that...)

*By my count, this is the third time this year that The Book Show has progressed this notion of the toxic children's author. I'm so far beyond outraged into nauseated resignation that I have no words for actual commentary. You may wish to make up for this in the comments section.

Here's another new blog by a young reader/reviewer: Books I Love by Eddie Nedlands. His mum keeps a fantastic blog too: Life or Books? They breed good readers in Canberra!

And many congratulations to another impressive young blogger, Steph Bowe of Hey! Teenager of the Year, who has had her first novel picked up by Text Publishing. Look out for it in September 2010. Steph is only 15, the same age, as was noted on Twitter today, as Sonya Hartnett when her first novel was published. (You can follow Steph on Twitter.)

As for me, with the year starting to wind up, I have been working on the beginnings of what I am calling the Western Sydney Readers' Circle, although this name may change. This is part of my work, the Western Sydney Young People's Literature Project (I won't link to the blog I set up for the project because I haven't updated it in more than 6 months, tsk tsk). Anyway, the Circle works thusly: I get lots and lots of review copies. This is important for me to keep up with what is being published for young people, and I read as many as I can, but I simply can't read them all. So once I have more or less "processed" them, I am now sending them out to young people in western Sydney to read and review. So far I have a bunch of primary schools, a handful of individual kids, and a few high schools participating. I'm pretty excited about it, and hope the publishers see the value of getting the books read and reviewed by their target audience. And from next year, I hope to set up some special Readers Circle only events. Once the reviews start coming in, and I start publishing them somewhere on line, I'll let you know.

And what I am reading now: Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce (my train book while I've been carless and training it to work), Stravaganza: City of Masks by my Twitter and Facebook friend Mary Hoffman (my bedtime book), Legacy by Larissa Behrendt (my grown-up book) and Anonymity Jones, the forthcoming (March 2010, I believe, although the book trailer says September 09) novel by James Roy (my I-couldn't-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-this novel—and it's wonderful. The voice is fabulous: crisp and smart and yet not overly-knowing. And it's 3rd person—nice!).

In other news: I came this close to adopting a kitten a few weeks ago, but someone got to her before me. That's OK—as long as she has a home. (She was 3 months old and very pretty.) I have, however, put in some modest supplies of cat food and litter, as once you start thinking it's time to have a new cat come into your life, a new cat tends to come into your life. (This is the feline version of Field of Dreams.)

I had a bingle. (Thus the afore-mentioned train book.) If anyone needs an ethical and helpful smash repairer (and for that matter a mechanic) in the inner west, let me know. It's good to have good, trustworthy tradies in your life!

I've been listening to some great new music: Mumford and Sons (thanks to blogger, tweeter, reviewer, librarian and poet Anna Ryan-Punch), the delicious Rufus Wainwright, the sumptuous Matt Alber, the literary Augie March, the Finnish 7 Worlds Collide and the soundtrack to a film I have yet to see, An Education. And thanks to the Persnickety Ms Snark, I have a new TV series to get addicted to: Friday Night Lights. I've only watched the pilot so far as I have a new TV that is not set up properly (thanks to my own ineptitude) and I can't watch DVDs on the TV but only on the laptop, far from optimum... But anyway, the pilot was great, so I look forward to the rest. Me and my obsession with shows and movies set in American high schools!

Hoo-roo for now.

 

OK, a quick round-up!

My great friend and colleague Pamela Freeman's fantasy trilogy, The Castings Trilogy, was reviewed on Radio National's Book Show yesterday by somebody who apparently is a constitutional law expert. So THAT'S who you have to be to get a gig on The Book Show! (Actually, not having yet had the chance to listen to the review, but knowing the books, it may well be that the fact that George Williams is a constitutional law expert is probably extremely pertinent, dealing as they do with with power and colonialism and dispossession of peoples, so I'll stop being sarky now. It's just not the usual credentials one expects to see for a reviewer of fantasy fiction. And maybe that's the point, after all.)

This coming Friday, young whippersnapper William Kostakis, author of Loathing Lola, will be at Gertrude and Alice Café and Bookstore in Bondi. Join William (who was the Herald Young Writer if the Year in 200 and is still only 20 years old) for afternoon tea and a chat about his book. From 4.15 and Loathing Lola will be available for sale and signing. Bookings essential, tics $8, call 9130 5155 Details also on Facebook and you can follow William on Twitter.

Readers of a more academic bent might be interested, as I was, to learn about a new online journal. Write4Kids is the International Journal for the Practice and Theories of Writing for Children and Children's Literature. One of the editors is Andrew Melrose, whose writing guide Write for Children I draw on quite a bit in the course I teach on writing children's books. I'll look forward to checking out the journal.

Blogs! I follow a LOT of blogs, most of them book blogs. And from my NYC friend Monica Edinger's blog Educating Alice, I discovered that Misrule is on a list of 100 Best Book Blogs for Kids, Tweens and Teens. Cool! (I'm number 44 if you're looking.) I don't really know what the Online School blog is all about, but it's nice of them to recognise an Aussie blog.

Speaking of Monica, she and another favourite blogger of mine, Elizabeth Burns (A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cosy—yes, Liz is a Buffy fan too!) have been featured in an article on book bloggers in the School Library Journal. There's a gorgeous pic pf Monica, Liz, Cheryl Klein (Brooklyn Arden) and Jennifer Hubert Swan (Reading Rants) and the author of the article and SLJ blogger Betsy Bird (Fuse #8). Betsy's article canvasses the rise of the book blog and some of the issues that press on all of us who write about books in this media, and elsewhere. (Or they should!) Make sure you check out the top ten book blogs listed on the article, although do note they are all US-based. (Check out Monica, Liz, Jennifer, Cheryl and Betsy on... Twitter!)

I think I'm right in saying that dedicated Australian children's and YA book blogs are still reasonably few and far between. This was meant to just be a quick and dirty post, and it's already taken me close to two hours, so I'm going to wrap it up now, but I think I should come back soon and mention some of the Aussie blogs I read. Before I go, I will mention that Misrule is also busy going up and down on a list of the top 50 Aussie blogs for writers at Jonathan Crossfield's Copyright blog. (As of tonight it's 29, down 8 points, rats!) I'm going to try and add the badge of honour Jonathan has created for his Top 50, we'll see how clever I am... Jonathan's also on Twitter. Everyone's on Twitter!

I recently reposted on Facebook and retweeted on Twitter my last blog post, in which I asked for people's thoughts on my ethical dilemma about blogging about books. Comments have started to come in again (there were only a small handful straight after the post went up), plus I chatted about the issue with three writer friends over dinner last night, and consensus seems to be I should feel free to talk about books however I like and not worry about offending or appearing to play favourites... unless I was in fact offensive (which I hope I never have been, about books and writers at least) or playing favourites (which is trickier, because I DO have favourites but I do try to spread the love around...)

Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments, here or there. I want to continue it myself because the whole nature of book blogging continues to intrigue (and at times concern) me, particularly the explosion in the past couple of years of review-focused blogs and how that is impacting on reviewing broadly, and marketing of books particularly. And all that's related to me and my "can I give writers work through my day job and still in all clear conscience write about, or not write about, their books" dilemma.

So while the wheels continue to cogitate on that (yes, I know, mixed metaphor, too bad), I want to just share with you a most wonderful passage from the book I am reading at the moment. It's a US title (I would argue children's, although it seems to be also considered YA, whole other discussion...) that is garnering a lot of attention at the moment. It's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. It's Kelly's first novel (she was born in New Zealand and raised in Canada, which pleases me for some Antipodean-Colonial over-identification reason) and is about a nearly 12 year old girl living in Texas in 1899 and her fascination for the natural world and Darwin's On the Origin of Species. It's also a wonderful portrait of a grandfather-granddaughter relationship.The following comes from the beginning of Chapter 3, "The Possum Wars" and it's just such a wonderful piece of writing I had to share it with someone!

     The possum wars had started up once again and were raging around the back porch. That is, as much as a war of passiveness and inaction could be said to rage. This presented me with an excellent field of study, since every night the battle always played out exactly like this: A portly, dusty possum emerged from under the house to forage for his nocturnal breakfast of kitchen scraps and whatnot. He w3as inevitably surprised by one of the outside cats that patrolled the back porch as part of her domain. The cat and the possum stared at each other with big, round eyes of mutual shock, and then the possum groaned and slumped to the ground. He lay there on his side, motionless and stiff, his grimacing mouth exhibiting tiny needle teeth. His eyes were fixed, his whiskers frozen. He presented the very picture of Possum Death.

     The cat, always freshly amazed by this display, looked on in wonder. She approached the corpse with caution and tentatively sniffed the ground around him. She then folded herself up into that loaf shape peculiar to cats and regarded her vanquished foe with enormous feline satisfaction, her duty done. After a while, she got bored and wandered off to the kitchen door, hoping to cadge a handout from Viola. The corpse lay in state for another five minutes and then, without warning or ceremony, lurched to his feet and strolled off casually in search of his own meal.

     This scene played night after night, all summer long. Neither I nor the adversaries ever fatigued of it. How satisfying to have a bloodless war in which each side was equally convinced of his own triumph.

Isn't that marvellous! Thanks to my pal Diane for sending me a reader's copy from the US, because I don't know if or when we'll get an Aussie edition of this wonderful novel.

I generally use Facebook and Twitter to post children's book links (and cat videos) these days. It's so quick and easy to do so compared to the blog, you can throw on a comment and Bob's yer social media maven. You should friend me or follow me if you're on either platform. This blog I am still using for longer posts and observations, when I have something to chat about at length, which I know is not every day/week by any means.

(Or else I'm just lazy.)

However, I do want to share a few lovely links I've come across lately:

I recently read Kate DiCamillo's sad, atmospheric but utterly gorgeous new book The Magician's Elephant. You can hear an interview with Kate on NPR here.

Another favourite writer of mine is our own Leonie Norrington. I have some lovely outtakes of an interview I did with Leonie which didn't end up in an article on Indigenous children's books for The Horn Book. She was interviewed recently on The Book Show about her new YA novel The Devil You Know. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm such a fan of Leonie's writing—she's a remarkable stylist, influenced, I believe (and we've talked about it) by her experience growing up in an Aboriginal community (although she's not Aboriginal herself). I use an extract from Leonie's first novel, The Barrumbi Kids, with my writing children's books students as an example of an uber-third person omniscient voice (third person on speed, I call it!).

Nice to see a children's/YA book the feature interview on The Book Show, but I can't help but note it was when the usual presenter was on leave. Anyway, it's a good interview, although I do think the best come-back to the question about whether or not the teacher character represented Leonie's attitude towards public education should have been "she's a fictional construct, dummy!" But I suppose it was fair enough in that Leonie was frank in saying that she thinks the system (and not just the education system, but the legal and welfare systems) are failing a lot of kids—including the kids she was writing about.

Also of interest to me was the collaborative approach she took to writing the book, with young people this time, just as she worked with the Aboriginal community she grew up in and wrote about in the Barrumbi books. It seems the lessons learned from the Indigenous approach to story, learning and community are life-long ones.

Anyway, listen and enjoy. I'm hoping to bring Leonie to NSW next year for an author tour as part of the western Sydney project.

What else? This 9 year old lad blogs about books with a maturity and articulation beyond his more than tender years.

My dear friend Nicola, who I met when she was running the Aloud children's book project, back in the early 90s, got married on the weekend, but you'll need to be my friend on Facebook to see the pics. Oh hang on—here's one:

I made the banner!

What else? Oh, I had coffee last week with Michelle Cooper, author of the amazing A Brief History of Montmaray last week, the day Montmaray (winner of this year's NSW Premier's Literary Award) was published in the US. This is a truly wonderful book: if you love books like I Capture the Castle I can guarantee you'll like Michelle's novel. Anyway, I talked at about a million miles and hour and wondered aloud with Michelle about this blog and my ambivalence about talking specifically about books here. As in reviewing, I guess.

I don't really want to make this a book review blog: there are heaps of them out there dedicated to reviewing and frankly, the small amount of time I can give to reviews these days I'd rather reserve for mainstream review publications. But I do actually shy away from talking about individual books because, given my current job (in which  provide some employment to a smallish number of writers and illustrators), I worry about looking like I am favouring certain people by virtue of mentioning their books, or that I'll annoy people by omission if I don't mention their book. So then I think, well, I can write about non-Australian books, but then I think, but I started this blog in part because I wanted a venue to write about and promote Aussie kids and YA books (I think it's fair to say I was one of the first Australian children's/YA book bloggers). Not that I want to be nationalistically limited in any way, but it would feel odd to only mention OS books and no Aussie books.

So subsequently, I don't talk about individual books much at all. And I'd like to. But I have the Dilemma!

So, in the spirit of this wonderful, classic episode ("Doppelgangland") of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which happens to be on my beloved Foxtel, let me quote Vamp Willow:

Questions? Comments?

Or in lolspeak, Halp!

Last week I mentioned that cover the artwork by Shaun Tan for Kids' Night In 3 would be up for sale by auction, but I didn't know when or how. I have since been advised by the good folk at Penguin (thanks, Kristin!) that the auction will go live at 9 am on October 21. That's a week from today, if my pathetic mathematics is correct. The auction will run for ten days and the details will be on the Kids' Night In site. What I forgot to ask is whether or not you can bid if you're not in Australia, but as it's an ebay auction, I guess it might be possible. Depends on the shipping, I guess. Anyway, it's a great cause and if you're flush and make the winning bid, you'll have an original Shaun Tan to hang in your home! (Like me. I have an original Shaun Tan in my bedroom. Jealous?)

Book launch tonight for Kids Night In 3: a collection of poems, short prose and illustrations gathered together into one hefty volume by the good folk at Penguin Books Australia. Cover by Shaun Tan. Contributions by our finest children's writers and illustrators, some welcome ring-ins from the world of grown-up books, and the occasional rock star. Proceeds to War Child. Go buy it! 

Here is the book:

You can apparently bid in an auction for Shaun's cover art, but I can't find the link. Anyone know where it is?

And here are the contributors who were at tonight's launch (sans Ursula Dubosarsky, who had to leave before the photo was taken), wearing their snazzy PJs for the Kids Night In!

L-R: Anna Fienberg (in white), Dave Hackett, Jessica Adams, Stephen Axelsen (in fez!), Cassandra Golds (in barely visible, but trust me, gorgeous floral jimjams) and Rob Hirst. In front: Laura Harris from Penguin and in the middle Clare from War Child with her daughter.

Did I say—go buy it!

(Oh, and—I met the drummer from Midnight Oil. That was pretty cool. Come on, grant me a fangirl moment!)

Or 8 days to be precise.

It started Thursday 17 September with a performance of Monkey Baa Theatre's production of Susanne Gervay's junior novel I Am Jack at the Parramatta Riverside Theatres. Amazingly good. The production is a one-man show, with actor Tim McGarry taking on all the characters from the novel, mostly that of Jack, a young boy bullied into an almost constant state of fear and anxiety. And yet what a warm, light, humorous touch McGarry brings to his performance(s). The kids attending were totally enthralled. At one point Jack directly addresses the audience about how he plays soccer, which is OK, but he'd really rather be playing rugby league, but Mum won't let him. "You know how it is," Jack says to the audience, or at least something to that effect, and the young fellow sitting in front of me, totally engaged with the performance breathed out the word—Yes! It was pretty fantastic.

This is Tim in full flight as Jack—photo pinched from the Monkey Baa website:

Also, the kids had the most wonderful questions at the end of the show. Catch it if you can: it's at the Seymour Centre until October 2.

Friday 18 was the annual birthday dinner for the Sydney Writers Centre, where I teach two courses. In fact, I am now the longest-standing presenter at the Centre—yay me! Our beloved leader, Valerie Khoo, who owns the Centre, takes her presenters out for a flash meal every year. This year we went to Pendolino in the Strand Arcade (people who follow me on Twitter will have already seen my meal!).

This year Valerie had a special treat for us: she had made up a wall hanging of a word cloud of feedback from students for each of the presenters. it's one of the specciest things I've ever been given and here it is for you to admire!

Now I'm thinking I should Wordle my thesis or something... wow. How would it go with 25,000 words?! I'll let you know if I try it—don't want to break the interweb...

Anyway, then there was the First Official Author Tour for the Western Sydney Young People's Literature Project, featuring the fabulous Lili Wilkinson. I need to write the tour up properly, so suffice here to say for now that it was funded by the Literature Board at the Australia Council. Lili and I visited 9 schools, where Lili lead creative writing workshops and delivered a variety of talks, plus she did a gig at the Narellan Branch of the Camden Library. It was a full week, and Lili was a total trouper, and I hope that right now she is tucked up in bed with a Lemsip! (I need one myself, and I didn't do all that much talking!)

Here is a picture of Lili and me taken this afternoon in the library at Glenmore Park High School, our last visit of the week, and I think we look remarkably fresh, given the busy week we had!

And now, just before I make it to bed before midnight, here is my obligatory blogger's photo of the now legendary dust storm that hit Sydney on Wednesday. This is the view from my flat at 7.15 am:

More about the week with Lili anon. Good night!

 
I love a book launch, but they are as rare as, well, hen's teeth these days, so how lovely to have been along to celebrate the launch of Wendy by Gus Gordon.

Wendy's been a long time in the making, and in the meantime, Gus has illustrated lots of other people's books, so the publication of Wendy is quite the milestone. It's a terrific picture book—a classic story of a small creature who wants more than life is supposed to offer her and who strikes out to find out what else might be out there for a hen of small stature, but great courage and imagination.

The design and illustrations are gorgeous, from the stunning endpapers (Lord how I love endpapers!) to the great use of fonts and the different elements of the illustrations (newspaper clippings, faux photos etc). Gus's illustrations are full of warmth and humour and the story has a perfectly satisfying arc. It reminds me of some of my favourite picture books, like Garrison Keillor's Cat You Better Come Home (for the story), and of the great animations from the Aardman Studios.

Here are some photos from last Thursday's launch at the Australian Hotel in The Rocks. Penguin Australia children's books' Publishing Director Laura Harris launched the book; that's Gus in the boa, and the other photo is of Gus, Jeni Mawter (Gus illustrated Jeni's "So..." books) and Gus's wife Ali.

[First of all, I am so sorry about the formatting on this post. This is apparently what happens when you cut and paste into your blog. Hope you can follow it all the same, and don't get RSI from the scrolling...][EDITED 04/09: Look! I fixed the formatting after all!]

Back in May, I got all outraged and self-righteous on my Facebook page (what's that? me? outraged and self-righteous? Nevah!) about an interview I had listened to that morning on my iPod from Radio National's The Book Show. I meant to post that Facebook note here and never got around to it, but I heard something today—again on Radio National's The Book Show on my iPod—that got me thinking about about the expectations that ride on the shoulders of the humble children's author.

Here's what I wrote in May about a program originally broadcast in late April:

I listen to Radio National's The Book Show on podcast on my drive to work, and subsequently I am always a few weeks behind. This morning I listened to the program from the 24th of April, an interview between Ramona Koval, the presenter, and AS Byatt, about Byatt's new novel "The Children's Book".

I'm one of those people who adored Possession--I even read the poetry--and so I was looking forward to reading The Children's Book. I'm not so sure after listening to the podcast. Perhaps I am being unnecessarily sensitive, but the following exchange had me gasping with outrage as I drove down the M4 this morning.

Antonia S Byatt: Yes, because I noticed that there's a high rate of suicide among the children of children's book writers. One of the things that really distressed me was Kenneth Grahame who wrote one of the most beautiful children's books ever, The Wind in the Willows, which we all lived in, we lived with Moley and Ratty and messing about in boats and going into the Wild Wood. I loved the Wild Wood as a little girl. And he had this child called Mouse who had something wrong with his eyes and was purblind, but Grahame and his extremely silly wife refused to acknowledge that he was purblind, they refused to acknowledge that he was disturbed, they sent him to various schools where he was very violent.

He came back, they got him into Oxford, he had dinner in his college one night and drank two glasses of port, which he didn't normally do, and walked out and laid himself neatly on the railway line and let the train go over him. And Grahame and his wife managed to believe that this was an accident. But that poor kid had had no life at all, and a lot of the stories that were written for him were actually sent to him in letters while his parents were away somewhere else on a grownup holiday.

Ramona Koval: So are we trying to work out why children's writers may not necessarily make the best parents? Is it because part of them or a lot of them are children themselves, or they have to sort of inhabit that level of infantilism that generates the kinds of stories they want to tell?

Antonia S Byatt: That's what I think. I think that most of the children's writers live in the world that they've created, and their children are kind of phantoms that wander around the edge of it in the world, but actually the children's writers are the children. I got myself into a bit of a mess because I made my children's writer highly sexed, and I think most of them are not. E Nesbit was. On the other hand, her children didn't kill themselves, though there was a huge muddle in her house because a lot of the children in it were the children of her husband by her best friend who lived there as a kind of housekeeper.

Now, to be fair, I do think they are talking about Edwardian children's writers--the period in which the book is set, and which Byatt goes on to say that she despises because it was "silly"--but this is never actually qualified. And even if it were, what the %#@$? Children's writers are infantilised and their children suicide at the rate of knots? They're asexual? (Apart from E Nesbit, apparently, but then look at what brings you--a household full of your husband's illegitimate offspring.) If they're asexual--apart from Edith--where did all those suicidal children come from? What an extraordinary set of assertions.

Byatt also goes on to say that "you can see that certain children's writing is dangerous to certain children", which is not expanded upon, and some comment about adults reading children's books, the point of which is unclear to me, but I assume she's agin it.

I wonder if the next children's author who goes on The Book Show will pick Ramona up on this discussion. There doesn't appear to be any forum for feedback or discussion on The Book Show's website, and I don't recall Ramona ever reading comments about previous stories out on air. I'd love to know if anyone else from the children's writing picked up on this.

Anyway, you can read the entire transcript here.

Now, with a cooler head prevailing, I do think that Koval and even Byatt were referring to children's authors of a different era, and were not intending to make some kind of generic statement that should equally apply to the current crop of children's writers out there, but it was quite an assault on the ears to hear a suggestion that children's authors are by and large terrible parents and lost in some kind of childish fantasy world of their own making. Despite some of my children's writer friends swearing to never read a word by Byatt again, I have in fact bought a copy of The Children's Book and I look forward to reading it, Byatt's antipathy for children's authors notwithstanding.

But the tenor of the conversation between Koval and Byatt seems to have lingered in the hallowed halls of the ABC, if today's podcast is any indication. Walking to the mechanic to collect my car this fine spring afternoon, I listened to the podcast of The Book Show from 25 August, which was a discussion with PL Travers' biographer Valerie Lawson. In the course of the conversation—and this doesn't come out of anything Lawson says, it's offered up by The Book Show presenter Ramona Koval—comes this clanger:

Koval: She writes for children but I've just read Margaret Drabbles' memoir ... and Margaret Drabble mentions that (Travers) was a really grumpy sort of woman, and like a lot of children's writers was very ungenerous to people around her. 

Ack! Ramona!!!

OK, once again I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say that I think that Ramona Koval here is also/still referring to British children's writers of the early-mid part of the 20th Century, although if that is the case I do wish she'd be specific about it, but I still this this comment—and the exchange between Koval and Byatt back in April—reveals something terribly interesting about people's assumptions about the kind of person who writes for children (noting also that Lawson makes the point strongly that Travers refused utterly to consider herself a writer for children). Because if there wasn't an assumption about what children's authors ought to be like, then there wouldn't be any need for (somewhat shocked) comment on the reality of who they in fact turn out to be.

So what are the assumptions behind Koval and Byatt's comments? That somehow children's authors ought to be exemplary parents, psychologically stable, even-tempered and kind to small children and puppies? As a matter of fact, many of the children's writers I know are indeed some or all of those things, but some of them are absolutely not (no names, no pack drills!). And why should they be? What bearing does any of this have on the quality of their work, or even on their impulse to write for this audience? (Although I admit the latter is a far more interesting question and worth unpacking in the case of those well-documented curmudgeons of the genre—see for example Diana Wynne Jones's memories of a cranky Beatrix Potter and unwelcoming Arthur Ransom...) But what does it say about our idealising of children and childhood if this idealising of the "right" kind of person to write for children is so deeply held—even or perhaps especially by people whose whole lives and work are about writing and writers?

It puts me in mind of a common comment I've heard over the years when people find out my work is all about children's literature: Oh, they say, You must love children. Well, what an inane thing to say. I like some children, don't like others, much as I like some adults and not others. Children are not some generic mass of innocent goodness any more than children's authors are, or should be, anything more than as richly complex as a person needs to be a halfway decent writer, much less a great one.

We don't expect our writers for adults to be all sweetness and light—in fact, we prefer it when they're anything but. Why then should children's authors be expected to be some kind of human embodiment of The Giving Tree?