Like buses you wait for a great children's book illuminating a period of history you know little or nothing about and blow me 2 come along at once- or within the same purblishing year at any rate. In 2009 I had just finished with great admiration and no small amount of tears Laurie Halse Anderson's award Chains than I picked up the buzz around the also prize winning epic two-parter from the multi talented and versatile MT Anderson. Both authors have brilliantly and differently chronicled the complexities of the American Revolution through the eyes of 2 child slaves. The great injustice they tackle is that the new found ideals of freedom and fraternity did not extend to those born into bondage. Both Revolutionaries and Royalists slither around the question of slavery with their eye on profit, power and the big prize. Although I loved the Pox Party, maybe because it is also somewhat harrowing subject matter that the second volume of ON, The Kingdom of the Waves, has been groaning on my to be read bookshelf for a while now. Now that I've dived in though, there's no turning back, with a story this compelling there's no other choice but total immersion. However a deep breath is needed (especially in light of one of my earliar posts) for as if the title alone wasn't long enough volumes 1 & 2 come in just under a whopping 1000 pages. Funny how when the writer is this gifted the chapters just seem to fly by. Kudos to Walker for bringing out a UK edition of the very best YA from across the pond.
It seems hard to believe that we are only a couple of weeks in to January - the weather seems to have thrown all the UK out of kilter with reality!
As well as this years snow, the new year also sees the Queen's honours, and it's always pleasing to see which children's literature personalities are featured. This year has had an interesting range of authors, illustrators, translators and more. By no means an inclusive list, I'm sure all of us in YLG would like to send congratulations to Honor Wilson-Fletcher (key note speaker at our conference, National Year Of Reading Co-ordinator), Lauren Child (who I'm sure everyone knows - especially parents of under 5s everywhere - as the author/illustrator of Charlie and Lola), Ronald Gordon King-Smith (better known to us as ***, and a personal favourite of mine from childhood), Anthea Bell (for services to translation, she won the Marsh Prize for her work on The Flowing Queen by Kai Meyer in 2007), and Lemm Sissay (performance poet).
I'm sure I've missed some, so do add any in the comments... and keep your eyes open this year to see who make make it with next year's knighthoods, OBEs and MBEs.
I hope all is well with everyone, as we freeze in this - shock! horror! - actually cold January.
2009 maybe wasn't the greatest of years for many people, but we'll hope for the best for 2010. And as ever, there are some intriguing new titles due to come out...
Looking at the last post, 2010 seems to promise a bit of a revival in big screen adaptions of children's books - I can think of Hiccup the Viking and Percy Jackson making their debut, for starters.
I'm looking forward to two picture books I've seen on the previous month's selection lists particularly - Oliver Jeffers The heart and the Bottle, and also Jeanne Willis and Gwen Millward's The King of Tiny Things. Also I gather there'll be a new Where's Wally for the first time in ages - maybe that will generate a bit of book-related excitement? And, of course (if anyone remembers my first post), naturally I can't wait to get my hands on the new Diana Wynne Jones - Enchanted Glass.
How about you?
I've been in two minds about the "Where the Wild Things Are" movie ever since I heard it was in production, even with (or maybe because of ) the hipper than thou director/writer team of Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers at the helm. Really, was there ever a book so bookish in its completeness and execution that nothing needed to be added to the experience rather than absorb it on its own terms?Maybe we always feel this protectiveness about things we love. Apparently the best way to enjoy this film is not as a realisation of Sendak's masterpiece but as a film version of Egger's novel "Wild Things". Hmmm...I'll let you know after I've seen it with my colleagues at the local multiplex tonight.
Last year it was a Book in Every Stocking, this year Booktrust's campaign for books as Christmas presents is 'A Book For LIfe'.
And, of course, while we want everyone to keep borrowing books from their local library (real bookworms can never get enough to feed the habit!), don't forget in your Christmas shopping rush that books are the perfect present for a child - and they're a lot less likely to be gone, one way or another by Boxing Day. They still don't need batteries (unless you have a snazzy new e-reader).
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