The wonderful Kate Atkinson

Bliss = being snug and warm inside (hoping the power doesn't go off) while a wild southerly rages outside, up to pg 375 of Life after life and still another 154 pages to go. The sort of book you can't wait to finish but want to last forever. The only thing that could make it any better is for Jackson Brodie to make a cameo appearance, but I doubt that's going to happen.



Kate Atkinson appeared recently at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival - the best possible reason for going - and I didn't. But never mind, because her interview session is now online - over an hour of wonderfulness. Her conversation is as delicious as her prose. How many people can casually drop a word like "bifurcating" into the middle of a sentence?

She had firm opinions about the process of becoming a writer, and the place in that process of creative writing classes - "creative" delivered with imaginary speech marks, because she doesn't like the word. "Learning to be a writer is really, really hard and you have to do it on your own... it's a very isolated, individual thing." She said that what a writer needs is "an enormous cushion of knowing what good writing is", and that you have to "read everything that's ever been written - it doesn't matter if you forget it", because that's how you learn to find your "inner critic", which is the most important part of learning to write.

When the interviewer, Ramona Koval, opened the session up for questions, Kate Atkinson warned the audience that they probably wouldn't be able to match the best question she'd ever been asked. It came from a 13-year-old boy who wanted to know, "if you were stranded on a desert island, which member of your family would you eat first?" She had answered that with tact, ingenuity and humour, which was how she also responded to some other tricky questions in this session. Like predestination vs free will - "that's an extraordinarily large question to be asking me!"

Another good one was "how do you know when it's time to start a new book?" "When I start worrying about money." But the biggest cheer came when someone asked: "can we look forward to more Jackson Brodie?" (He even has his own page on her website.) "He's on a cruise," Kate said. "A long cruise." But she didn't say no.



Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie

Kate also said how much she liked the Canadian cover of the book, with a fox on the front.

Power still on, phew. Unlike 30,000 other homes around Wellington. Back to the book. Wonderful.

Wellington Writers Walk

Since its opening in 2002, the Wellington Writers Walk has become one of the showpieces of the city, honouring local writers and proving a fascinating addition to the urban landscape.



On Thursday 21 March, the harbour was sparkling, the waterfront was crowded with people enjoying the balmy sunshine - it was a perfect evening for the unveiling of Stage IV of the walk. Four new benchmark sculptures have now been added to the existing 19 works, making a total of 23 authors whose work is celebrated in this way.

Speeches in Circa Theatre included one from Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae who is joint patron of the Writers Walk with his wife, Lady Janine.


L to R: Sir James McNeish, Elizabeth Knox, Joy Cowley, Jack Lasenby

Invited guests and members of the public then walked to each new plaque in turn for its unveiling. First was Sir James McNeish, whose benchmark is situated on the bridge behind Te Papa leading to Waitangi Park and Chaffers Marina. Elizabeth Knox’s benchmark was unveiled at a temporary spot before being installed near the Meridian Energy Building, Customhouse Quay, in front of Michael Tuffery’s kina sculpture. (Breakfast TV did a live cross to cover this on Monday 25 March.)

Joy Cowley’s benchmark is on the lower walkway, quite close to the Katherine Mansfield plaque (you might need to lean over the fence to see it.) Reading out her quotation, Joy commented how people complain about the Wellington southerly, but forget to praise the gorgeous day that often follows it.


Joy Cowley with Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae and his wife, Lady Janine

Jack Lasenby’s quotation is placed sideways on a pole near the Wharewaka. Jack declared that he was sure the local seagulls – one of which obligingly came and perched on top of the pole - would now be flying around with cricked necks as a result.




Jack Lasenby in front of his vertical quotation that will prove a trap for literary seagulls

Sponsors of the new quotations are The Todd Corporation for James McNeish, The Deane Foundation for Elizabeth Knox, Mark and Wendy McGuinness for Jack Lasenby and Jenny Morel, Allan Bollard and Penguin Books for Joy Cowley.

This was a great event, bringing together many writers and members of the literary community to celebrate and enjoy what is a very special part of our city. It has been an exciting couple of years for the Writers Walk, which also featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair and launched a wonderful new website and Facebook page.

Thanks to Rosemary Wildblood (Chair of the Wellington Writers Walk Committee)  for the lovely photos.

New Zealand Book Month in Taihape

Thanks to New Zealand Book Month for sponsoring my trip to Taihape, and a BIG thanks to Kate in the library who organised my visit and put together some great displays and posters. Thanks also to the people of Taihape who came along to my talk on Sunday afternoon, to Katherine in the local Paper Plus for stocking plenty of copies of my new Anzac Day book and to the Year 7 and 8 children from St Anthony's and Taihape Area School who proved such attentive listeners on Monday morning.Kate had also borrowed a selection of war mementos from the  Taihape Museum. Most of these were put in a display case for people to look at, but the children were fascinated by the World War One One lemon-squeezer hat and World War Two metal hat, which we let them (carefully) pass around.

So what did I learn about Taihape:

• It feels like quite a different place when it's not crammed full of holiday drivers taking up every parking space and every seat in the cafes
   
• It's the sort of place where people say hello as you walk past
   
• The Taihape Motel is a lovely place to stay and super-friendly - thanks very much to the Vasil family who are excellent hosts
   
• When they are-sealing the road through the middle of town and have taken away all the pedestrian crossing markings, it can be an alarming experience to try and cross the road unless you are with a local who will just stride ahead, knowing the traffic will stop.
   
• It's true about the drought. SO hot, SO dry. Wishing you some more rain very soon.

And what about the children from St Anthony's and Taihape Area School - what did you learn? Well, I hope you found out a bit about what it's like being a writer - and if you've got any more questions, please email me through my website and I'll promise to answer them!

Support New Zealand Book Month!

The New Zealand Book Month site is here, full of news of activities all around the country.

Do your bit to support New Zealand Book Month - look up an event near you and go along to it; even better, use your $5 voucher to buy a book by a New Zealand author!

Takahe Book Club

A big thank you to the Takahe Book Club at Brooklyn School who invited me to talk to them last week. These are Year 5 and 6 students who have been meeting regularly through the year to read and talk about books. It's great to see kids who are such keen readers. They could all tell me what they'd read and a couple of them arrived late, still reading as they walked in.

They had also prepared some questions and halfway round the circle I had to stop and grab paper and pen to write some of them down. Being given a question that you've never been asked before is a real gift because it always makes you think more about your own writing. So here are some of the great questions they asked:

• What does it feel like to have a book published?


• If you weren't an author, what do you think your life would be like?


• Do you prefer writing books where you make everything up or where you do research?


• Is writing a book ever boring?


• How easy is it to make up your characters?


• What would you like a reader to think about your books?


• How important is it to have the right name for your characters?

- Not to forget the random question about fish!

I thought these were especially interesting questions because they showed a real grasp of the nature of writing and what it's like to be a writer (and a reader).

So Adam, Hunter, Emma, Michael, Olivia, Shaam, Chloe, Joseph, Jonny, Jessica, Shea, Yusi, Amit, Emma, Xanthe, James, Anna and maybe a few more who couldn't be there today - thank you again (and for your card and gift); it was a treat to come and talk to you all, and I hope you get lots of good reading down over the summer holidays!

 

 

 

Summer reading

Thanks to the wonderful Children's Bookshop for this beautiful image:



 

The curious incident of the dog in the night time at the NationalTheatre

Our favourite cinema is the wonderful Penthouse cinema in Brooklyn and lately it's been possible to see not just movies there, but filmed versions of live performances - the Met Opera in New York, and from London the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Shakespeare at the Globe and various National Theatre performances.

The National Theatre ones and the Proms are apparently shown live at sites all around the UK. Here on the other side of the world we have to wait a bit longer, but you still get something of the sense of a live performance - you can see and hear the audience and the venue and sometimes the backdrop: the dome of St Paul's in the background and the London Eye all lit up, revolving above the Thames.

The show we've just seen was The curious incident of the dog in the night time, and it was fascinating to see how a book that is told so much from inside someone's head (and that 'someone" an autistic boy) could be translated to the stage. But it worked, and the sound and lighting and special effects all combined to give the effect of the overload on Christopher's mind when things got too much for him.

The set was also fascinating: hardly any props apart from numbered boxes and a trainset, but the floor was marked by a grid of small lights that could be turned on and off in patterns, and some of the best scenes involved intricate choreography of rest of the cast, all swirling around him at the train station or the Underground. The shots were sometimes filmed from directly above so I don't know if the audience would have got the same view, but the scenes of Christopher going down the escalator, or the train passengers looking out the window - which were both filmed with the cast lying down - were very clever.

It made me think about how acting - and playwriting - is such a collaborative process, and so different from sitting in a room on your own and writing a book. And how watching a play is equally a social event, as opposed to sitting reading a book by yourself. And how interesting it is when something like this is transformed from one medium to the other.

The (wonderful) Children's Bookshop, Kilbirnie

Birthday parties are always special, but how often do you get invited to a birthday party for a bookshop?

Twenty years ago, two people with little or no knowledge of bookselling opened up a small shop on a back alleyway in the Kilbirnie shopping centre and at the end of that day were part relieved, part exhilarated to realise they had made $250 worth of sales. Last night, a big and convivial crowd gathered in the shop (a bigger one, but still in the same alleyway)  to help John and Ruth McIntyre celebrate the 20th birthday of the wonderful Children's Bookshop. 

 

The bookshop was looking as fabulous as ever, with posters around the walls - reaching almost to the ceiling - and enticing book displays, set off by big bunches of congratulatory flowers on the counter. And the crowd inside reflected the wide range of people who value this bookshop so highly, including many local authors, illustrators and storytellers, other booksellers, school librarians and teachers, publishers' reps and staff, both past and present.

Annette King, who is a "neighbour" as well as local MP (her electorate office is right next door) began the speeches with a heartfelt tribute to all John and Ruth's hard work and their many awards and achievements over the last 20 years. She quoted from the article in the Dominion Post, describing them as "unsung heroes of Wellington", and said how true that was, but that we were there today to sing their praises. She also commented that whenever people weren't sure how to find her office, she simply had to say it was "next to The Children's Bookshop" and they would immediately be able to locate it.

Heidi talked on behalf of the staff, telling Ruth and John how wonderful they were to work for, and read out warm messages from others who couldn't be there, including David Hill and Diana Neild. Julia Marshall described the advice she'd been given by John when she was considering starting up Gecko Press, and pointed out how many other people have benefited from their helpful and wise suggestions. One of the publishers' reps described the bookshop as a "haven" in their busy day, and  one of their favourite places to visit (especially at morning tea time!)

But the star turn was undoubtedly Kate McIntyre, who has grown up with the shop - as she pointed out, it is only a few months older than she is. She told us that she'd only scribbled down a few notes an hour earlier, but she kept the audience captivated as she talked about what it had meant to her growing up with the bookshop as a second home, meeting world- famous authors, giving advice to book-buying customers as an eight-year-old and hanging out with the staff until she started proper "work" there at the age of about 15.

Finally John said a few words, and then there there was more wine and juice and deliveries of pizza, and lots more talk and a buzz of congratulations and admiration.

It was a great evening and a well-deserved celebration, with several themes that came through most of the speeches.  One was the quality of the staff whom John and Ruth have chosen and mentored, and how much they contribute to the bookshop's success, with their own wide reading enabling them to give valuable and reliable recommendations to  customers trying to choose the right book.

Another theme that emerged was is that it is all very well to set out to follow your dream, but a dream involves a lot of hard work and determination to make it succeed, and that's what Ruth and John have in bucketfuls.

So if you haven't been there for a while, make a visit and buy a book to celebrate their success and to wish them well for the next 20 years!

Walking home by Simon Armitage

Some years ago, I heard Simon Armitage when he was in Wellington for Writers and Readers Week, and bought his book All points north straight afterwards. Lately I've been enjoying his latest book,Walking home (sub-titled Travels with a troubadour on the Pennine way.) Simon Armitage is an English poet who came up with the idea of walking the Pennine Way north to south - against the prevailing weather conditions, and the usual direction of walking it - with the intention of finishing near his childhood home, a village called Marsden on the edge of the the Peak District. The idea was that the humiliation of failing to make Marsden would act as a spur to completing the 256- mile walk.

The trouble with many travel books is that they can be very self-absorbed. The writer makes it sound as though they are the only one exploring this fascinating part of the world, whereas if you've been there yourself, you know perfectly well that it must be swarming with other tourists. That's why I enjoy reading travel writers like Bill Bryson who can season their work with a lot of self-deprecating humour and write about fairly ordinary places while making them sound fascinating.

And that's why I'm really enjoying this book, because Simon Armitage is constantly poking gentle fun at himself and the whole idea of a 'travelling poet" (a big part of his expedition involved giving poetry readings each night) but his focus is usually outward, at the scenery, and the weather, and birds and flowers and geology, and the people he meets en route who take on board the "travelling poet" idea, offer him hospitality, organise the readings and become part of the whole project.

When we lived in England, we did a lot of walking in the Lake District, and also embarked on a misguided attempt to complete the  Coast to Coast walk in March. (It ended halfway across in a blizzard, so I can sympathise with some of Simon Armitage's descriptions of the inclement weather he encountered, even in summer.) We still have a couple of Alfred Wainwright's guides  - A pictorial guide to the Lakeland fells is one I've just picked off the bookshelf, Book Seven - the Western fells, crammed full of Wainwright's trademark maps and detailed drawings. So I'm also enjoying the language of the place names which are condensed poetry in themselves (from just one day's trek: Billysbeck bridge, High Cup Gill, Maize Beck, Meldon Hill, Birkdale Farm, the Cauldron Snout waterfall and the cliffs of Falcon Clints) as well as relishing the unusual and wonderful vocabulary he employs.

I also admire his determination to stick to his own rules, reading his poems in all sorts of venues after a long day's walk, when he must have been exhausted and yearning to hide away in a quiet place by himself.

 

The book is also peppered with references to other journeys, and other travelling poets - Wordsworth, the great walker, and Odysseus of course - and with occasional anecdotes that tell the stories behind some of the poems he reads, like "Causeway". Altogether it's a lovely mixture of travel book, memoir and poetry. I'm getting to the end of it now and I'll be sorry to come to the end of the journey.

Margaret Mahy Readathon Saturday

Our Margaret Mahy Readathon at Brooklyn library on Saturday morning was an absolutely charming event.

Eirlys Hunter dressed up as a most splendid-looking pirate to read The man whose mother was a pirate.



She also provided a pot of bubble mixture, and the bubbles kept the children enchanted while she read Bubble trouble (a tongue-twister of a poem which both Eirlys and I can remember having once heard Margaret recite off by heart.) It's interesting to hear that bubbles also featured in a number of other Margaret Mahy readathon events.



There was a small boy who roared convincingly during the reading of A lion in the meadow, and we were also lucky enough to have a mother in the audience who had grown up in Christchurch and used to hear stories read by Margaret during Storytime at the Public Library. What a wonderful memory to have.



We tried to explain to the children gathered to listen (and they were very good listeners) that they were part of a very special occasion, paying tribute to - and just enjoying - the fabulous, funny and magical writing of Margaret Mahy. And it certainly felt like a special occasion for us, knowing that all over the country, other people were also reading and listening to these wonderful books.

 

 

Margaret Mahy nationwide read: Saturday 11 August

On Saturday 11 August, all over New Zealand (and even further afield), people are gathering to remember and celebrate the life and work of Margaret Mahy (1936-2012) by reading some of her fabulous stories!

There is sure to be an event somewhere near you - check out the Margaret Mahy nationwide read under Events everywhere. Most (but not all) are happening at 11am. If you live in Auckland, Cambridge, Tauranga, Taupo, Wellington  Oamaru, Alexandra - and many places in-between - there will be readings, drawings and craft activities by local children's writers and illustrators.

I'm looking forward to reading at Brooklyn Library with Eirlys Hunter. We've both been raiding our bookshelves for our battered and much-read copies of some of Margaret's picture books - and Eirlys has even promised to lookout for a multi-coloured wig.

Stop what you're doing!

Books about reading don't always work, but when they do, it's like stepping into the company of friends who love books as much as you do.



Stop what you're doing and read this! contains ten essays about the experience of reading by writers like Blake Morrison, Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson. It was put together in response to research that that came up with depressing findings such as that one in three teenagers in Britain reads only two books a year (or fewer!)

Here are two gems of quotations:

"Select the right words and put them in the right order and you can run a cable into the hearts of strangers." (Mark Haddon, who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

And there is another quotation from Virginia Woolf, which is referred to in a review of this book but I can't find in the book itself, so I had to Google it and here it is:

"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, 'Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.'"

Jane Austen quiz : the answers

So here are the answers to the quiz about Jane Austen and her work:

What is Mr Collins' first name, and how do we know?

William - it's written at the foot of his letter to Mr Bennet, but that's the only time we hear it.

Who is the only woman to marry a man younger than herself?

Charlotte Lucas (marrying Mr Collins)

Who is the only married woman to call her husband by his Christian name?

Mary Musgrove, Anne's sister in Persuasion, calls her husband Charles (often in tones of exasperation or complaint).

Who is the only married man to call his wife by an affectionate shortening of her name?

Admiral Croft, also in Persuasion, calls his wife Sophy

Which characters are never heard to speak directly?

Captain Benwick in Persuasion - although he's often quoted, we never actually hear him speak, neither do we hear Robert Martin, Harriet's suitor in Emma, or - more surprisingly (when you think about the movies) - Georgiana Darcy. (Of course, you couldn't have a non-speaking main character in a movie - it wouldn't work.)

And lastly, not from the books but from real life: how many other contemporary writers (novelists or poets) did Jane Austen meet in her lifetime?

The answer?

None. Not one. Imagine that.

Wonderful Jane Austen

The other good thing about libraries - usually a good thing, although it can be inconvenient - is that they waylay you with enticing-looking books to read when you should be doing something else.

I couldn't resist What matters in Jane Austen? (subtitle: twenty crucial puzzles solved) when I spotted it among the new books.



The chapter on "What games do characters play?" made me aware for the first time that that whenever I come across a description of any of the characters settling down to a game of whist, loo, speculation, vingt-et-un or anything else, I tend to block out the name and mentally replace it with "random card game". But actually, readers of Jane Austen's time would have known exactly how each game differed and what the subtext was. For example, some games demand a certain number of players, so each card game is a way of grouping the characters, separating some, throwing others together. It's almost like choreography in the limited space of  a drawing room.

And blushing! Such a simple act but again, how much subtext it carries. Which novel has the most blushing? Which heroine blushes the most? Do men blush? What do they do instead? Who is the one male character who does blush, and when?

You can also find out which characters die in the course of the novels (surprisingly few of them), and how much money you need to live on, and what the characters call each other - particularly the married ones, and the hidden meaning behind words like "blunder' and "the seaside".

John Mullan is an English professor, and if his lectures are like his book, they must be highly entertaining. In fact, one of the best things about this book is that it makes you want to go back and read all the novels again, looking for hidden signs amongst the blushes and blunders. I enjoyed the way he drops in little snippets of information, like the fact that most of Jane Austen's novels take place over a year (but there is never any mention of the heroine's birthday) as well as the attention he gives to Jane Austen's beautifully written sentences, so perfectly turned that they can hinge on one well-placed word such as "wisely" in Mr Darcy's self-deluded musings: "He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should escape him."

There are many more fascinating aspects of the novels to mull over: how often do plots rely on the weather? how does the age of her heroines relate to the average age for women to marry in Jane Austen's time? how do sisters get on together, and which sisters seem to be the best suited?

And here are a few more tantalising questions::

• What is Mr Collins' first name, and how do we know?


• Who is the only woman to marry a man younger than herself?


• Who is the only married woman to call her husband by his Christian name?


• Who is the only married man to call his wife by an affectionate shortening of her name?


• Which characters are never heard to speak directly?


• And lastly, not from the books but from real life: how many other contemporary writers (novelists or poets) did Jane Austen meet in her lifetime?

Librarian's choice

One of the (many) good things about libraries is the serendipity they can bring to your reading, often as a result of scanning the shelves of recently returned or recommended books. I was thinking about this recently when we were on holiday with a group of friends. Everyone had brought books to read, and we would talk about what we were reading and pass the books around. There was also a big selection of books available on an e-reader - but somehow that's not the same as being able to look at the cover, read the blurb and handle the book itself to get an idea of whether you'd like to read it.

At Central Library in Wellington, there's always a display of books in the Fiction section under Librarian's choice and Reader's choice. (Actually, I'm not totally sure where the apostrophe goes: one librarian and one reader, or more than one? I'll have to check it out next time.) I'd always assumed that some care went into selecting the books to go on here, but last weekend I was standing by the display shelves when a librarian came along and starting slinging books on, some at one end and some at the other, with no apparent pattern. Of course, perhaps there was a hidden pattern that I couldn't see, but from now on I will have to assume that the Librarian's and Reader's choice are often overlapping.

One of the books I picked off the shelves was Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.



Evelyn Waugh is always worth re-reading, although I'd forgotten how casually he uses terms to describe black people that would nowadays be seen as deeply offensive. It means that there's often an uncomfortable edge to the humour (being Evelyn Waugh, he probably wouldn't care) apart from the scenes set in England, especially in the environs of Boot Magna, where the worst crisis imaginable is the accidental substitution of "the crested grebe" for "the badger" in a newspaper's nature column, leading to wonderfully funny lines like these ones :

'He might bluff it out. Lord Copper was a townsman, a provincial townsman at that, and certainly did not know the difference between  a badger and a great crested grebe... "Lord Copper," he was saying [in his imagination] , "no man shall call me a liar unchastised. The great crested grebe does hibernate."'

Book lists

I love discovering new lists of recommended books, even if I never get to the end of them. Here's another one: 30 books to read before you're 30.

The extra-good thing about this list is that I don't feel under any compulsion to complete it, seeing as I've already passed the finishing point. The interesting thing about it is, as always, seeing which titles I can already tick off. The surprising thing I realised (when doing that exercise) is that I obviously read under some categories far more widely than others, and the ones I'm missing out on most are science (The Origin of Species) and the political side - The Rights of Man by Tom Paine, Rousseau's The Social Contract , The Art of War by Sun Tzu, The Prince, Walden and Plato's Republic - all titles that I've heard of but never sat down and read in their entirety.

On the other hand I can tick off most of the novels, even the hefty classics like War and peace or Crime and punishment - but I did read Crime and punishment a long time ago, and reading it again now would probably be a totally different experience.

Who makes up thse lists? They multiply all over the Internet so it's hard to track down the intial list maker. Maybe it's all just a ploy to sell the two books on the Bonus list at the end (How To Cook Everything and Honeymoon with My Brother.) Still, I'm glad to see there is at least one children's book in there (The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham.)

I'm not sure if I'll follow up on any of these, although I do like the sound of Getting Things Done by David Allen. I heard about this list through my daughter who has decided to tick some of them off, so she's started with 1984 and To Kill a Mockingbird, but I think she probably needs a list of 20 books to read before you're 20. Now there's an idea...

The Ripliad

Well, it turns out that there are some good non-vampire reads out there for teenage readers after all.

In 1955, Patricia Highsmith wrote a psychological thriller called The talented Mr Ripley. Forty four years later, it was made into a film starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. I've heard of the film, but never seen it, and I didn't realise that it was based on Patricia Highsmith's book, or that she went on to write four more Ripley novels which are collectively known as the Ripliad.

Always so exciting to enjoy a book by an author whose work you don't know, and realise there are several more to go! I guess this is how young readers feel when they discover a new series. Sometimes you can gorge on too many at once and end up feeling like you've eaten too much choolate, so I've stopped for a break after the first two books. But what a great character Tom Ripley is: part charming, part repulsive, mixed up together in a way that reminds me of Lolita, so you are half horrifed at what's going on and half hoping he gets away wtih it.  

I don't like a lot of modern crime novels - too graphic and too unpleasant, but I did enjoy meeting Tom Ripley. And one of the reasons it's great for a teenage reader is because Identity is the big theme in English at this year level, and Tom Ripley certainly has some serious identity issues.

Non-supernatural books...

... are sometimes hard to find, at least if you're looking for YA books.

I've just been trawling through the YA shelves in the library, trying to choose some holiday reading for a keen teenage reader who isn't keen on supernatural romances. It isn't easy.

So what is on offer? Lots of characters defined by their capital letters: the Chasers, the Forgotten, the Immortals, the Demon King, the Storks (not birds, but an ancient order of women with mystical powers, if you're wondering.)  Blood and ashes and other nasty stuff with dark covers. You can choose from a  "scary, creepy, awful and awesome" read, a "gripping blood soaked tale" or " chilling trilogy with a deeply frightening story." There's a a boy who is supposed to be crowned Vampire King, a girl who can see and talk to ghosts and another girl who hunts, traps and kills demons, hellhounds and other supernatural creatures, but isn't quite sure who she is.

I'm sure some kids like to read these books - at least, I hope they do, because at least they would be reading something. I hope it's not just a matter of publishers jumping on the post-Twilight supernatural bandwagon and assuming kids will like them. You have to dig hard to find a book that reflects what a teenager's life is like today. Or to find books like Parvana's journey and The heaven shop by writers like Deborah Ellis, who deal with important issues like racism and refugees, and kids who face real-life problems.

I also wonder if all the writers writing these books actually like writing about vampires, werewolves and the rest. Again, some of them must, but what about all the others? Are they also doing it just to fit the trend?

But there is help out there. The Daily Telegraph has booklists for young readers including "Vampire-less books for teenagers" - so there you go.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/children_sbookreviews/9146440/Ask-Lorna-vampire-less-books-for-teenagers.html

The hunger games, The lottery and other creepy stories

The hunger games had its New Zealand premiere on Wednesday night. I've read the series and liked the first book more than the next two, which felt a bit repetitive. "Liked" isn't exactly the word. I found the whole premise behind the hunger games gripping but almost too dystopic (is that a word?) Today while I was thinking about it, I was suddenly reminded of the American short story The lottery by Shirley Jackson, which was first published in the New Yorker in 1948 and is one of the creepiest stories I have ever read.

The lottery tells the story of what happens in a small village as children and adults gather for this annual event, meant to guarantee a good harvest. The head of each family first draws a slip of paper from a box; then each member of the chosen family has to draw another slip. Part of the horror of the story (which resulted in cancelled subscriptions for the New Yorker and sackfuls of hate mail for the author) lies in the very matter-of-fact way in which it is told. I won't say what happens next but you can read it here:

http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

And on the subject of The hunger games, there's a fascinating guide to dystopian literature put out by Good reads, tracking its progress since the 1920s with a graph (tied in to world developments like WW2, the Cold War and 9/11) and descriptions of themes, and including classics like Brave new world and 1984:

http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/351-the-dystopian-timeline-to-the-hunger-games-infographic

You can ever view a very funny spoof Hunger games board game here ("where girls face their biggest fears: dating and death"):

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6743777/the-hunger-games-game

Blue Dragon Book Fair

Writers and Readers Week is over. Looking out the window, it seems that summer is over (if it ever arrived.) But the good thing about living in Wellington is that there are always lots of interesting Readers' and Writers' activities on - whatever the weather (which is just as well.)  Last week I went to the launch of David Hill's wonderful new picture book "The red poppy", illustrated beautifully by Fifi Colston.

This week, it's the turn of the Fundraising book fair for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in the Ngaio Town Hall from 9.00am to 1pm on Saturday 24 March. This is a fundraiser for the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation in Hanoi, Vietnam. All proceeds will be donated to Blue Dragon to support its work in providing education and training for kids in crisis in Vietnam.

Books - and access to books, whether in bookshops or libraries or second hand book fairs - are something we take for granted, but in countries like Vietnam and Laos, they are often a luxury and in many villages there are no books.

On holiday last year, we visited the public library in Luang Prabang (Laos)  and bought some books in Lao for US$2 each to put into a book bag hanging up on display. When the bag was full with 100 books, it would be taken out and distributed to village schools as part of the National Library's Book Bags for Lao Kids project. You can find more about it here: http://www.lao-kids.org/book-bags.php



We didn't get to visit the Blue Dragon children's home in Hanoi, but we did enjoy an excellent meal at the Blue Dragon cafe in Hoi An, which also supports their work. If you are travelling through Vietnam, it' s worth looking out for restaurants like these (Streets restaurant in Hol An is another one, or KOTO in Hanoi) which provide training and support for street children.