December 21, 2011

Woot!

I’ve had an idea for a story. It’s based around a man and a sweeping brush. I haven’t thought of a name for the man yet but I’m veering towards Siegfried. OK, let’s go for that. Siegfried it is. Now Siegfried’s job is to sweep up old words that nobody wants any more. They gather in a special grille on Obsolete Street.

Here are some recent ones Siegfried collected when Collins Dictionary decided they no longer needed them in their 2011 edition:
younker

deliciate

frigorific

aerodrome

bever

charabanc

cassette tape
As Siegfried sweeps the old words away, a young, fresh-faced  girl called Chelci collects new ones in a jar.

The new ones seem so short and strange compared to the old ones. LOL, TMI, IMHO and Woot. ‘These new words are well weird,’ thinks the young girl.
Meanwhile Siegfried shakes his head at the sight of ‘cassette tape’ stuck in his bristles. ‘Casette tape?  That’s been made redundant? But I still use mine!  What next?’he wonders. Then he stops. He seems to have missed something in the grille. The slip of paper is half in, half out of the metal struts. He bends closer. He can just make out that the end of the word is -ian. ‘Ian? Siegfried ponders. ‘Meridian?’
He tugs, but the word won’t yield. This has happened before. Sometimes a word is on its way out but is rescued at the last minute. He knows he can’t sweep the word away just yet. Next time maybe but not just yet. ‘Ian? Ian?’ he thinks. It annoys him all day. It isn’t until he gets home that evening and reads the news online he realises what the word is. ‘It was confirmed today that Hertfordshire County Council has axed its School Library Service…’ ‘Ah,’ Siegfried thinks with a sigh. ‘Librarian.’

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December 18, 2011

Here Lies Arthur – book review

If you like your history dark and your heroes seriously flawed you’ll adore Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve.

Reeve takes all the great episodes from the Arthurian Legend and gives them a mighty shake. Through the eyes of Gwyna, a young peasant girl with a preternatural ability to swim for long periods underwater, we find out what ‘really’ happened to propel Arthur from being just another English warlord to the charismatic hero whose name lives on today. 

 From the start the reader is  plunged deep into dark, dangerous  times.  Skies are forever leaden and ‘pewter-grey’.  While food is scarce the threat of  death from Saxon raiders is everywhere.  Myrddin (Merlin), wise man and weaver of fabulous, spell-binding stories, thinks Arthur is the right man to step in and save the Britons from these terrible times of uncertainty. But as Gwyna discovers, Arthur is no knight in shining armour.  It is she observes how the key events surrounding Arthur’s life, such as the acquisition of Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the Holy Grail, the love affair between Guinevere and Sir Lancelot ‘really’ came about. Trust me, it’s not like anything you’ll see in a film adaptation.  First, when disguised as a boy and then later as a handmaid to Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), Gwyna exposes us to Arthur’s lack of compassion and his utter cruelty when crossed. Her own life is often in danger and it is only her guile that saves her, and others, on several occasions.  The twists and turns in Reeve’s remarkable plot make for a compelling and fascinating read. All our perceptions about Arthur are challenged; I’ll never be able to drive past Cadbury Castle in Somerset again without shuddering.

In the Author’s Note at the back of the book Philip Reeve writes: ‘Here Lies Arthur is not a historical novel, and in writing it I did not set out to portray the ‘real King Arthur’ only to add my own little thimbleful to the sea of stories which surrounds him.’

Reeve is being modest. Here Lies Arthur is much more than a ‘little thimbleful.’ It is a wide and deep magical lake of a portrayal. It is sublime storytelling. Read it.

The author Philip Reeve as portrayed by artist and illustrator Sarah McIntyre

Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve won the 2008 Carnegie Medal

The version I read was the 2007 edition, published by Scholastic, in hardback, and borrowed from the library.

Further Reading:

Reeve mentions Paul White’s Arthur, Man or Myth? and the film Excalibur

Poet Simon Armitage has recently re-told the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 

For younger readers (I’d put Here Lies Arthur in the 12 + category) the classic Once and Future King by TH White (1958) gives a more traditional telling of the Arthurian legend.

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December 15, 2011

Sticky Ends

Want to buy a book for a younger brother / sister/child this Christmas? Aged about… 6 or 7?  Try this new hardback book of Cautionary Tales by the impossibly prolific Jeanne Willis . I loved her cat tale Silly Cecil and Clever Cubs and Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets is genius but Sticky Ends is funny too.

 

I’ve got a feeling the 26 tales in Sticky Ends might become a rival for Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. Now that’s saying something. Here’s an extract from one of my favourites, Felicity Finch.

Felicity Finch was prone to pinch

Her little friends at nursery,

No matter what the teacher said

She went from bad to worsery.

They forced her into knitted mitts

And hoped that it would foil her

But she bit the mittens off

And thew them in the boiler.

Ha! Love the ‘bad to worsery’ line. The book’s full of them.

Sticky Ends by Jeanne Willis with illustrations by Tony Ross. Published by Andersen Press at £9.99

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December 14, 2011

When in doubt… make a list

OK, I admit it; I’m a list kind of girl. I know, I know. Interesting, busy people don’t have time for lists becuase they’re too busy doing interesting and busy people type things. I don’t care. I list therefore I am.

Lists help me organise my thoughts. If it’s down on paper, it’s out of my head is what I say and that frees up well-needed space for more ‘stuff’.

Here’s today’s list:

 - Write 1000 words

- Find out about trials at Centres of Excellence

- Phone Mum (to wish her a happy birthday)

- Do food shop (requires a whole other list)

- Post presents and cards

- Sign John Dougherty’s petition

OK so it’s 20:21. I have:

- Written 750 words

- Found out some of what I needed to know about C of Es but each time I get an answer I think of another question. This is called The Joy of Research.

- Phoned Mum

- Did food shop. Sainsbury’s was surprisingly quiet. Don’t tell my kids but I bought a huge tin of Quality Street (not on the list).

- I posted the presents and cards

- Have not yet signed John Dougherty’s petition but will do as soon as I’ve finished this. If you want to sign it, too, please do. John’ll be delighted. It’s about saving libraries in Gloucester. You can still sign it even if you don’t live in Gloucester but hurry because it’s being sent in on Saturday.

And that’s all for today, folks.

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December 12, 2011

Christmas Cards

I’ve just posted off my third batch of Christmas cards. Batch 1 went last week – they’re the overseas ones. We have have relatives in Poland, Germany and Spain and friends in America, Mauritius, Jamaica and Norway. Delivery takes a lot longer to these places, obviously, so the earlier they go the better. The second batch were to schools and libraries. Hello schools and libraries. Love you! *Big wave/blows kisses/looks for more bookings for 2012.*  They went last week, too, to make sure they arrive before the end of term. Batch three (today’s) were for family and friends in the UK.  The fourth batch, yet to be written, are ones I can deliver locally by hand. They’ll be posted next week, preferably on a cold but dry day as I walk round the village in my Santa earmuffs, with the winter sun on my back whistling Jingle Bells.

 I wonder if Sir Henry Cole realised what he had started when he sent the first cards in 1843 to save him writing his Christmas Letters?

Replica of the first commercial Christmas greeting card courtesy of eauk.org

 Finally here’s another tip for you if you are sending cards. Don’t make the same mistake that I did and include chocolate Santas as a treat. The chocolate made the cards too wide to go through the  Post Office’s crummy measuring guide and I had to pay an extra 22p per card. D’oh!

image courtesy of blogcandy.com

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December 5, 2011

West End School, Cleckheaton

I had my last school visit of the year today and 2011 ended on a high. The pupils from West End Middle School were ace. They came to the library as part of MAK(Mission Active Kirklees) a joint venture between the council, library services and schools to encourage children to get active and think healthy. My Girls FC books, featuring football as they do, were seen as a perfect tie-in to the project.

First up were the Y8s. A bonny lot, as you can see:

Y8s from West End Middle…

… and a few more Y8s

What was so great was the group had wanted to come to the library to hear me talk – they were all specially chosen. They obviously had good taste.

I gave a general introduction about where ideas come from and discussed my first book, Vicious Circle, then my teen book Never Ever:

 

The Girls FC book I use to focus on healthy eating has to be Holly’s story Who Ate All The Pies?

 

In Holly’s story I explore how self -conscious about our bodies we all are. From sticky-out ears to the colour of our hair we’ve all got a ‘thing’ about something. Holly’s ‘thing’ is her weight and the book looks at how being over-weight gnaws at Holly’s self-confidence until a talk by Bev Bywater, the stern referee, changes everything.

I use the example of Michael Phelps’ diet to show how counting calories doesn’t mean much.

Image courtesy of bbc.co.uk

The Olympic swimmer consumes 12,000 calories a day during training. According to the Daily Mail his intake includes 3 fried egg sandwiches, porridge, pancakes, omelettes and coffee – and that’s just breakfast!  The point being, of course, that as long as you burn off the calories you can eat whatever you like. Phelps also swims 50 miles a week.

In the afternoon I met West End’s Y6 class.

 Y6 West End Middle School

Like the Y8 they were a sporty and brainy bunch. I lost count of the number of sports they participated in between them but they included walking, swimming, rugby, football, trampolining, netball, dance and athletics. The teachers were just as impressive. Mr Thornton, just out of the shot, was a keen mountain biker and then we had a boxer (left) and zumba (right). Authors they enjoyed were as wide and numerous. The young lad on the far right hand recited every Steve Cole book he’d read just about. Loving those lime green soles on the front row, too!

Thank you to West End School staff and pupils for braving the elements and to Alison Dixon and Dianne Hird from Kirklees Library Service for arranging the event.  It was great.

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December 2, 2011

Research: or why I’m skint

 No matter what type of story I write, I end up doing at least some research and while the internet is great for instantaneous answers I still prefer books. I like the physical act of pulling them off the shelf, of leafing through the pages to double-check something. Most of all I like the ownership. That book is mine; pages on the internet are anybody and everybody’s and not always accurate.  Books aren’t foolproof either but at least I know an editor and a copy-editor has double-checked them.

As you can see, I’ve bought a fair few titles for the Girls FC series. The photograph shows only the non-fiction; I’ve got double that of football fiction. Some you can see are general football books. I find the DK Eyewitness series is particularly good for illustrations and photography. Some -such as Dynamo by Andy Dougan, were bought specifically for one title (What’s Ukrainian for Football?) others such as 101 Youth Football Drills by Malcolm Cook  for general use. A lot of these books are for dipping into.

There’s not as much on the market about the women’s game as there is the men’s. These are the books I’ve found most useful:

 Three Lions on her Shirt by Catherine Etoe and Natalia Sollohub (available from Amazon)

This tells the story of the England Women’s 2007 World Cup campaign

The Dick, Kerr’s Ladies by Barbara Jacobs

The one I’ll be re-reading for Megan is the best YA fiction book on football EVER:

Mal Peet’s Keeper 

Magic-realism has never been as brilliant.

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November 30, 2011

Anglesey Primary School and the ‘Booked’ Project

I had my last writing session with the Y5 pupils at Anglesey Primary School in Burton-on-Trent yesterday. The three days were part of the Booked! Project run by Staffordshire Library Services and linked to Burton Albion FC. The idea was for a writer to work with the school and write a short story that will be published and distributed at the Burton Albion ground next year.

It’s been a fabulous experience. Feedback from the children, the staff and library services has been overwhelmingly positive.

Anglesey ‘Booked! Writers in school yesterday. Mrs Bradley, the amazing Teaching Assistant who co-ordinated all the writing between sessions, is standing at the back with Paul Tovell from Staffs Library Services

The final writing session was hectic…

Coming up with the right words is key …

… especially when filling in the feedback forms…

Using old Burton Albion match day programmes was useful for research…

Nearly all the children who took part said they’d been to visit the library with their parents because of the project

Enthusiasm for reading and writing has increased…

… and there’s no shortage of creative ideas if this clever way of saying ‘thank you’ is anything to go by. Paul and I were awarded with a signed football each and I was given this amazing card with personalised thanks from the group. I was, as they say, over the moon.

All we have to do now is finish the story. We ran out of time yesterday in the middle of an exciting bit about honey-filled sandwiches and a water sprinkler.  Watch this space…

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November 28, 2011

And so the end is near… Girls FC 12

I began the final book in the Girls FC series today. It seems a long time ago that I sat down and planned my stories about an U11s girls’ football team but finally, here I am, on book 12.

Book 12 returns full circle with Megan Fawcett as the main character. Megan was only in Y3 when I began but is about to start Y6 now so she’s grown up with the series as my readers have. That means the likes and dislikes in her Star Profile will have changed. I will have to have a think about her favourite film, book and TV programme.

Book 1 in the series: Do Goalkeepers Wear Tiaras?

Here’s what Megan put last time:

Favourite TV Programme: The Simpsons & Match of the Day

Favourite Book: Michael Owen’s Soccer Skills

Favourite Film:  Shrek

Favourite Band: Sugababes

I think her favourite TV programmes would still be the same but all the others will have to be changed. I don’t think the Sugababes are still together, are they?  Shrek’s a bit outdated now too. I’ll get my thinking cap on.

Some things you might not know about Megan:

  • I chose her last name of Fawcett in honour of Millicent Fawcett, (1847-1929) a pioneer for women’s rights. Megan is as feisty as her name-sake.
  • Megan was originally going to be a wheelchair-user because she had spina bifida.She was going to be a spectator, reporting on all the games and storylines. When I showed the idea to an agent she said that, sadly, she couldn’t see a disabled main character being ‘marketable’ and would I consider changing her?  Reluctantly I agreed. I think it was the right decision as I can’t imagine Megan as anything other than the Parrs’ goalkeeper now but I still feel bad for not working a wheelchair-user into the books somehow.
  • Megan’s lucky red skull-and-crossbones bandana is like one my daughter used to wear when she played football.

If I can think of any more trivia I’ll let you know. Right, I’d better get cracking. I’m meant to finish the book by Christmas. So likely!

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November 25, 2011

England v Serbia

I went to watch England Women take on Serbia at football on Wednesday. It was a qualifier for Euro 2013. I must admit that as the day wore on and it grew dark and cold I was having second thoughts about whether to go or not but in the end I told myself not to be such a baby. I doubled up on socks and jumpers and set off for the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster along with 4,111 others.

England (ranked 5th in the world) were all over Serbia from the start. They won 2 -0 (Arsenal’s Ellen White and Lincoln’s Jess Clark)  but the score should have been a lot higher; they squandered several chances in front of goal. The full match report is here from the BBC Sports website.

England (in white) defending their 2-0 win at the Keepmoat

Some of the squad from the North Yorkshire Centre of Excellence queue up at half-time for refreshments. They were a lovely bunch of girls; so full of enthusiasm about football. International matches are a great opportunity for young players to see top flight matches.

Two fans at the match. Sally and Tyla

This is how the Group 6 table stands:

Team P W D L F A Pts
Holland 4 3 1 0 11 0 10
England  4 2 2 0 8 8 8
Serbia  5 2 1 2 8 13 7
Slovenia 4 0 1 3 4 11 1
Croatia 3 0 1 2 5 10 1

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