Remember that thing I wrote about how authors have to keep up with their readers?
Wanna meet one of our readers? This kid is 14 years old, and he's got a lot more narrative sense than I ever had at that age. He makes a mean video too.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Monday, 15 January 2007
Monday, 18 December 2006
New Yorker's 'Bah, humbug!' round-up of picture books
...why do we tell stories to our children? In my experience, mostly it is to get them to shut up.
A review so negative it manages sneery when it's trying to be complimentary
Ah, writers and children's book lovers, if you want to get really, really angry, read the New Yorker piece Goodnight Mush: The Year in Picture Books
Written by critic Elizabeth Kolbert, it describes the picture book as an "instrument of control" and then proceeds to demonstrate how some classic picture books — such as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans, Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban — pretend that children have power only to bring them down in the end.
The tension, or, if you prefer, bad faith implicit in this arrangement is itself one of the great themes of bedtime literature, and many of the tales now regarded as classics celebrate children as artists (and artists as children), only, in the end, to sell them both out.
Meanwhile, picture books for today's "post-spanking set"tend to do just the opposite — "that the old order be uprooted and the fool become the king".
After a humourless discussion of scatological PBs — Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murrey, (illustrator Audrey Colman),Gee Whiz! It's All ABout Pee by Susan E. Goodman (illustrator Elwood H. Smith) and The Truth About Poop by Goodman and Smith again — she proceeds to describe unsavory details of the beloved author Margaret Wise Brown, whose bedtime book Goodnight Moon celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
This is a review so negative it manages sneery even when it's trying to be complimentary. As Alice Pope, editor of the Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market, commented in her blog:
Never have I read an article on children's books that sucked the joy out of them. Never have I read an article on children's books that made me want to cry.
Friday, 15 December 2006
Christmas Book Lists
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, the agents and editors are now totally ignoring their slushpiles, so what is left for us slushpilers to do? We must shop.
And as future members of that industry, it is incumbent that our christmas lists be laden with books. So here are two lists to peruse:
The first is a compilation of recommendations from then annual Christmas Books Special on Radio 4’s Open Book programme (don’t you love the BBC?). Britain’s best beloved children’s authors Lauren Child (Clarice Bean), Meg Rosoff (How I Live Now), David McKee (Not Now Bernard) put forward their favourites from this year’s stock.
The second is the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, administered by Booktrust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading.
Enjoy!
THE OPEN BOOK LIST
Beauty and the Beast - Max Eilenberg and Angela Barrett (Walker Books)
A Swift Pure Cry - Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling Books)
David McKee’s choices
here’s where you can look inside the book
Sophie and the Albino Camel - Stephen Davies (Andersen Press)
The Witch's Boy - Michael Gruber (Simon and Schuster
Lauren Child’s choices
Jake Jellicoe and the Dread Pirate Redbeard - Joanna Nadin and David Roberts (Walker Books)
The Thirteen And A Half Lives Of Captain Bluebear - Walter Moers
NESTLE CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE 2006 LIST
And as future members of that industry, it is incumbent that our christmas lists be laden with books. So here are two lists to peruse:
The first is a compilation of recommendations from then annual Christmas Books Special on Radio 4’s Open Book programme (don’t you love the BBC?). Britain’s best beloved children’s authors Lauren Child (Clarice Bean), Meg Rosoff (How I Live Now), David McKee (Not Now Bernard) put forward their favourites from this year’s stock.
The second is the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, administered by Booktrust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading.
Enjoy!
THE OPEN BOOK LIST
Meg Rosoff’s choices
Beauty and the Beast - Max Eilenberg and Angela Barrett (Walker Books)
A Swift Pure Cry - Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling Books)
David McKee’s choices
here’s where you can look inside the book
Sophie and the Albino Camel - Stephen Davies (Andersen Press)
The Witch's Boy - Michael Gruber (Simon and Schuster
Lauren Child’s choices
Jake Jellicoe and the Dread Pirate Redbeard - Joanna Nadin and David Roberts (Walker Books)
The Thirteen And A Half Lives Of Captain Bluebear - Walter Moers
NESTLE CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE 2006 LIST
9 to 11 age category
gold: The Diamond of Drury Lane - Julia Golding (Egmont Press)
silver: The Tide Knot - Helen Dunmore (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
bronze: The Pig Who Saved the World - Paul Shipton (Puffin)
6 to 8 age category
gold: Mouse Noses on Toast -Daren King – illustrated by David Roberts (Faber and Faber)
silver: Hugo Pepper - Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell (Doubleday)
bronze: The Adventures of The Dish and The Spoon - Mini Grey (Jonathan Cape)
5 & under age category
gold: That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown - Cressida Cowell & Neal Layton (Orchard Books)
silver: The Emperor of Absurdia - Chris Riddell (Macmillan Children’s Books)
