Bookathon - M

 Margaret Mahy. Katherine Mansfield. Margaret Mitchell.

It doesn't matter so much what *I* like to read. When you are reading aloud to an audience, the most important thing is to read what they like. Or in that mythical bedtime story session that I never really had as a child. If that ever happened, I don't remember it. I only ever remember one time I was sick and couldn't sleep, I asked the nurse if she'd read me The Secret Garden. 

This was because my parents never read to me as a child. We had TV to entertain us at the touch of a button.  We had radio. What was the point of books?

However I still remember those old school cassettes that had stories on them and made a bell sound when it was time to turn the page. 

Books are meant to be shared, especially picture books. I've never got why reading has turned out to be such a solitary activity, but then introverts like me take to it like a duck to water. 

I digress. Who's the M author today? Margaret Mahy is well loved and still up there with the best. She was a  librarian who wrote at night when her children were asleep. She's the original word witch, and anytime you read a Mahy book something out of the ordinary will happen, whether it's A Lion in the Meadow or a Great White Man Eating Shark. My favourite was Nonstop Nonsense. She could make a story out of anything, pulling words out of a dictionary like a magician pulls a bunny out of a hat.

Another Margaret - Margaret Mitchell only wrote one novel, the 1036 page Gone with the Wind. I must mention it because I've read it several times and the ending always gets me. Tomorrow is another day. When you've lived through a civil war, you have to be glad you survived. For me, the book is a talisman for facing the worst case scenario. What would Scarlett O'Hara do? This book was turned into the classic 1939 MGM movie. It's only about 4 hours long, but it's epic. Reading it may take more of your time, but it's totally worth it. 

Katherine Mansfield is one of our own who left these shores for her OE and never returned. However The Garden Party and The Aloe have become our very own short stories that Kiwis have taken to heart. 

But what of picture books? Well two M authors today have honorable mention. Dawn McMillan's I need a new Bum! has actually been controversial (in the US, a teacher was fired for reading it in class) but it's too hilarious to be kept hidden in the teacher's resource cupboard. Every child loves it even the poker faced ones who claim it's too juvenile. But you know what? You are never too old for fairy tales or rhyming stories about bums. 

Then there's Kyle Mewburn's Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! You have to read this one out loud. Whaea Selina says so. Read them in bed, read them on the stairs, read these books on chairs. Read them on the loo, read them in a hammock, read them on the train to Britomart, and read them walking up Lincoln Road without crashing into anyone. 

Don't forget to support our blind and low vision children in the Great Kiwi Bookathon this month.