Meg Rosoff - Bride's Farewell

I think Meg Rosoff would be one of my favourite authors, I've just recently discovered her - every book so readable, so different from the other, so well-written, so thoughtful...

The latest one I've just finished is the romantic, coming of age novel The Bride's Farewell (Viking, 2009) - published as an adult book but for me a definitely a great YA fiction title.


This book is set in 19th century England, and tells the story of Pell, a young woman who steals away in the night to avoid an inevitable marriage and the children, hard work and limited life that it seems to prescribe. She leaves, with her horse, and, unexpectedly, a younger brother, and the hope of finding a different life, but through the adventures and vicissitudes ahead of her, it is clear the links to her family are far from broken.

Amazon has some good reviews, and here is a youtube link from Penguin with Meg talking about the book.

Here is a link to an interview with Meg Rosoff from The Guardian - with some reading from the book, and talking about the books' inspirations and personal connections.

You can tell Meg loves dogs, and horses, and words... Her prose has a wonderful cadence.

"It was a tangle of a family, for better or worse, a right complexity of children, all knotted up with love and jealousy..."

"Pell's father's family were clergymen of the worst sort: charming, immoral, and unkempt, with livings too small to keep a family and behaviour unbecoming men of God."

"For those poor souls who can only think of the terrible fear and danger of a runaway horse, think of this : a speed like water flowing over a stone, a skimming sensation that hovers and dips while the world spins around and the wind drags your skin taut across your bones..."

Here is Meg's blog http://www.megrosoff.co.uk/blog/

The Good Word Junior - tv programme

This was a great programme, and thanks to TV on demand, if you missed it you can watch it here...
http://tvnz.co.nz/the-good-word/good-word-s3-special-video-4045647

Some highlights :

Barbara Woods, Deputy Principal Viscount Primary School, talking about their Book Club
"We knew we had teachers in classrooms doing wonderful jobs at teaching reading but they weren't actually - a lot of them - readers themselves, and we knew that to be a superb teacher of reading you actually need to be a reader yourself...
We quickly found that we could discuss these books with our very good readers in the school and so we brought students on board into book club and now teachers and students discuss literature together..."
Some students spoke about their "first chapter test" to see if a book was going to be a starter.

Other aspects which caught my attention :

• An interview was with librarian Lois Huston at Hebron Christian College - "We don't force them to read, we want them to read for fun !"
• The power of series fiction - finding not only a great book but a great series to hook into...
• The fun and benefits, challenges and rewards of taking part in Wayne Mills' Kids' Lit Quiz
• "I like reading, and it makes me smarter so that's a positive!"
• The "home run book" effect - wonderfully described by a student who talked about the competition she had with her friends to be the first to read a chapter book, at age 6 - her book was Dahl's Matilda. Another student described a home run book as "the perfect book, their favourite book in the whole world, and they read that and after that they love reading..."
  

The next segment followed a similar theme with Antonia Prebble talking about Jane Eyre - her ultimate, all-time, favourite book, as well as a childhood home run book, George speaks by Dick King-Smith - a title I read to my niece this last January, and we enjoyed it.

Finlay McDonald took one of his childhood favourites - Swallows and Amazons - the first "book that switched on the reading light" in his head, a book which "took you out of your world and into another"... It received mixed reviews from a contemporary audience !

Finlay went on to interview Brian Falkner (his key writing ingredients : adventure, suspense, humour) and Mandy Hager who emphasised the need to be truthful in her writing.
Bernard Beckett was interesting talking about 11 and 12 year olds "reading up" - entering teenage world, a world they aspire to, getting pleasure in discovering things for the first time.
Bernard Beckett, a high school teacher, spoke about the main threat to teen reading for pleasure being the pressures of assessment and homework - more of a threat than electronic distractions. So, in a nutshell - ban homework and make books fun again.

Finlay summed up with these guidelines for creating teen readers :

• make them laugh,
• make them the heroes
• be honest about their lives
• keep grownups out of the action
• don't force them to read

Kate de Goldi spoke about her memory of childhood "story records" - known by heart.

Fleur Beale spoke about writing, and the relationship between inspiration and more prosaically, "bum glue" - ie, just sit and write ! She also advised "Anybody wanting to be a writer has to read - you can't really be a writer unless you read.. and then you have to write... and people should keep everything they write, and date it, it will be a a resource for later..."

So, lots to check out with Emily Perkins on The Good Word, Junior.

Gary D. Schmidt and Kate De Goldi

Here is a link to a discussion between Kate De Goldi and Kim Hill about the fiction of Gary Schmidt, an American children's writer of nonfiction books and young adult novels.

sat-20100717-1140-Childrens_Books_with_Kate_De_Goldi_Gary_Schmidt-048.mp3

I'd not heard of this author either, but was inspired to get the books from National Library, read them, and I too loved them, especially The Wednesday Wars, which made me laugh and cry...

What is so wonderful is the way Kate talks about these books, and others, making connections and identifying themes and common elements between the various books, as well as with the author's own life or background, with other authors - before, contemporary or since, and with wider trends in literature and social developments... This is the talent of an avid, thoughtful, knowledgeable, articulate, life-long reader!

Trash by Andy Mulligan

A broken arm is certainly slowing down my computer work but has upped my reading time !

I've just finished a proof copy of a brilliant new novel due in September - Trash by Andy Mulligan, published by David Fickling Books, distributed by Random. This was a sit-and-read-in-one-sitting book for me, and I highly recommend it... Intermediate level up.

One hand typing is too tedious so will just post some links here...

From the Random House website (with US cover) http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780385752145.html

In an unnamed Third World country, in the not-so-distant future, three “dumpsite boys” make a living picking through the mountains of garbage on the outskirts of a large city.

One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences, and soon the dumpsite boys must use all of their cunning and courage to stay ahead of their pursuers. It’s up to Raphael, Gardo, and Rat—boys who have no education, no parents, no homes, and no money—to solve the mystery and right a terrible wrong.

Andy Mulligan has written a powerful story about unthinkable poverty—and the kind of hope and determination that can transcend it. With twists and turns, unrelenting action, and deep, raw emotion, Trash is a heart-pounding, breath-holding novel.

and a couple of reviews...
http://mrripleysenchantedbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/andy-mulligan-trash-book-review.html

http://bookreviewsbysarah.blogspot.com/2010/08/arc-review-trash-andy-mulligan.html

This book is being marketed through http://www.facebook.com/trashthebook

Student starred books

Here is a graphic format piece from School Library Journal about a radical idea - getting students to rate books they like with star inside the front cover...

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/885428-312/seeing_stars_how_i_ignored.html.csp

What do you think ?!

The Death Defying Pepper Roux

I've just finished The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean (said Ma-cork-run, according to her website) and LOVED it !

It is published by Oxford University Press, the National Library has it to borrow, and the paperback is due in September.

For the best introduction to the book, listen here to the author talk about it...
http://fds.oup.com/www0.oup.com/pepperroux/media.html

and there is plenty more to explore on her website about it, her "book of the moment", including reviews, activities and downloadable poster http://www.geraldinemccaughrean.co.uk/bkm.htm

Here is a wonderful review of it by Frank Cottrell Boyce in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/27/death-defying-pepper-roux-geraldine-mccaughrean
in which he finishes, "The publisher's blurb compares Pepper Roux to the movie Amélie, largely because they're both set in France. This is like comparing the siege of Stalingrad to the Eurovision song contest because they both involve Russians and Germans. Pepper Roux is much funnier, much more stylish and much more profound. If you want to compare it to something else you could try Borges or Garcia Márquez."

If you don' t know this clever, entertaining, prolific, varied author, check out some of her books - Stop the Train, Pack of Lies, and The Kite Rider are some of my favourites...

The Death Defying Pepper Roux would make a great read-aloud for intermediate / junior secondary level, as would many of Geraldine McCaughrean's other books, thanks to her talent for telling a lively story with imagination and depth.

For people looking for class novels a la Louis Sachar's Holes, this could fit the bill, though I have to say that I have real reservations about whole class sets of novels from my own experience as a school student - and a reader - when I found them excruciating.

See also Donalyn Miller's posts on the subject of whole-class novels in the archives of her Book Whisperer blog, along with suggestions for alternative strategies :

One size does not fit all (Parts 1 and 2 - January 2008)
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/2008/01/
"My seventeen year-old-daughter is what we call here in Texas, “a long, tall drink of water." I, on the other hand, have a full-figured glass that has overflowed. When shopping, we laugh when we see clothes sporting tags that claim “one size fits all” remarking, “Not us!”
Stretch this t-shirt over the ubiquitous practice in reading classrooms of teaching whole-class novels, and you can see that it doesn't fit most readers..."

Sharp Shades fiction series

My friend and colleague Dyane keeps me posted about books of interest, now that she is in Christchurch with a collection at her fingertips! Here is a recommendation from her for that challenging area of appealing high-interest / low reading level fiction...

"Have you come across the series Sharp Shades - fiction aimed at lower level readers for year 7- 13? Big font, sprinkled with illustrations, short chapters and aimed at that level of boy in particular. One title I read last night was Doing the double. I would highly recommend it!"

Published by Evans, National Library has these titles :

• Doing the double / Alan Durant'
• Hunter's Moon / by John Townsend ; adapted by David Belbin
• Plague / David Orme ; adapted by David Belbin
• Wrong exit / Mary Chapman
• Blitz / David Orme.

What is a schwa ?

I've just finished reading The Schwa was here by Neal Shusterman and highly recommend it. This book has humour, memorable characters, mystery, friendship and poignancy, and I think it would make a great read-aloud for intermediate / secondary.

On the dust jacket, Neal tells "The idea came in the middle an author visit. I was answering questions in a school library when a teacher pointed out a boy who had had his hand up the whole time, and I hadn't noticed. He was sitting in front of the library's big dictionary, and I made this odd connection : the kid was unnoticeable - like the 'schwa' in the dictionary."

Here is a link to Amazon for reviews http://www.amazon.com/Schwa-was-Here-Neal-Shusterman/dp/0142405779
The School Library Journal review likens the writing to E L Konigsburg (one of my very favourites) and Jerry Spinelli, and that is exactly who came to my mind when reading it too.

Go to Bill Cassellman's Words of the world website to read more about the schwa...

Kate De Goldi recommending 3 novels

Here is Kate De Goldi's conversation with Kim Hill about three new young adult fiction titles :
When you reach me by Rebecca Stead (an absolute favourite, as mentioned previously in this blog)
I've not yet read these two - waiting for them to come to National Library CS collection, but Kate highly recommends them...
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

sat-20100417-1145-Childrens_Books_with_Kate_De_Goldi-048.mp3

Top 10 sci fi / fantasy books for youth 2010

Here is a short list of the best of sci fi / fantasy for youth, 2010
by Ian Chipman at Booklist Online.

"Many of the titles found in this year’s crop of the best science fiction and fantasy books, all reviewed in Booklist in the past 12 months, return to familiar worlds, while a strong number of newcomers help prove that this always-popular set of genres remains one of the most vital in youth literature."

http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=4184118

School assigned reading - great article

Do read this great article by Steven Wolk, about the reading that schools assign - and what they don't assign...
It includes lots of up-to-date suggestions of reading material across the curriculum to engage students with reading...

What Should Students Read? By Steven Wolk
in Phi Delta Kappan, April 2010 (Vol. 91, No7, p. 8-16).
http://www.kappanmagazine.org/content/91/7/local/complete-issue.pdf
Note this article is no longer available online for non-members, but is available through EPIC.

When looking at what students are required to read in school in 2010, it might as well be 1960. We need visionary educators who see bold purposes for school and who understand that what students read in school has profound, lifelong effects, both good and bad.

Try this link :
Is your reading list a little outdated?

2008 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

From the US Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) here is the list of 2008 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, arranged in 4 thematic lists : Sex Is . . . | What Makes a Family? | Magic in the Real World | Anyone Can Play

“Teens love to read thematic lists. This year’s lists will be popular with a wide range of teen readers,” said J. Marin Younker, committee chair. “There is everything from the hot topic of sex to an update of the well-read PPYA sports list from 1999. Also added to the mix are titles about the many forms of family and books for the obsessed fantasy fan. Enjoy!”

http://ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/popularpaperback/08ppya.cfm

Stereotypes associated with reading

In 2007 the UK Literacy Trust undertook a piece of research, reported in a study called "Young people's self-perceptions as readers" http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/reader_selfperception.html


From the opening of the Executive Summary :

What does a typical teen reader look like ?

What do they think reading says about them ?

Recent developments in literacy teaching and research have tended to focus on the technical aspects of reading. However, studies continue to highlight the importance of the affective aspects of reading, such as motivation and attitudes, and the reader self-concept.

This study of over 1,600 Key Stage 2 (KS2) and Key Stage 3 (KS3) pupils explored young people’s perceptions of themselves as readers and aimed to challenge assumptions of what it means to be a reader. Some of the key questions explored in this survey included

• the extent to which young people see themselves as readers
• what it means to them to be a reader
• what characteristics they typically assign to readers
• what materials a reader enjoys and the extent to which these perceptions are shaped by their family, friends and school.
  

A 2008 School Library Journal article, An extreme makeover : Let's reverse the negative stereotypes associated with reading http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6582315.html Michelle Gorman refers to the study and goes on to make four good suggestions to contribute to a reading revolution makeover :

1. Redefine reading so that it is more than an activity with a book.
2. Encourage teachers to incorporate newer, more modern YA fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels into their existing curriculum.
   
3. Take a cue from Stephen Krashen and encourage free voluntary reading.
4. Develop an extensive collection of alternative reading materials...

USA Alex awards - teen reading

You might be interested in the latest Alex awards, at this link. Although many of the books are American, we'll have some of them in the National Library collection (although not this year's yet - too soon !)
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/alexawards.cfm

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002. Link to this page using its short URL, www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/alex.

The award is sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust. Edwards pioneered young adult library services and worked for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to manylibrarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.

Publishing, reading and teens

So when people say that teenagers don't read books any more...

In an industry without a lot of good news to report, the one consistent bright spot has been publishing for teens. While adult trade sales are expected to fall 4% this year, juvenile and young adult sales are expected to increase 5.1%.

Although it's impossible to completely break out juvenile from young adult (YA), it is possible to look at expected growth rates for different categories. In the fiction/fantasy/sci-fi segment, where most sales in the YA category fall, we expect nearly 13% growth in 2009, reaching $744 million.

By 2013, sales in this segment are anticipated to hit $861 million, a 30.6% increase over 2008. Sure, lots of the growth in the teen category can be attributed to some phenomenally successful, blood-sucking bestsellers. And there is no doubt that there is a great deal of crossover readership from adult buyers. Nevertheless, this buying bubble is being fuelled by a teen demographic about which we know very little.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6703770.html
SOURCE: Publishers Weekly, 26 October 2009

Teen Read Week USA

Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association. It is aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers, and other concerned adults. The 2009 theme, Read Beyond Reality @ your library, encourages teens to read something out of this world, just for the fun of it, including sci-fi, fantasy, virtual realities, and much more.

For more information on Teen Read Week, please visit www.ala.org/teenread

There are suggestions for activities, top teen reading picks, and a "sample proclamation" !

• Whereas, the ability to read and process information is a basic survival skill in our global information society; and
• Whereas, the reading proficiency of teens has remained stagnant over the last thirty years; and
• Whereas, the number of students who can read but choose not to do so is increasing; and
• Whereas, the most effective way to improve reading skills is to read regularly and often; and
• Whereas, too few teens think reading is a valuable tool for enjoyment and relaxation as well as for schoolwork; and
• Whereas, regular daily reading for the fun of it creates the reading habit for life; and
• Whereas, parents, teachers, librarians, and all concerned adults can serve as role models by reading for fun themselves;
• Therefore, be it resolved that I (name, title of official) proclaim October 18-24, 2009, Teen Read Week(TM) in (name of city, state) and encourage teens to read for the fun of it.