Bookathon - X

 X marks the spot. Exams. Exposé

 I am reading a book at the moment recommended by my counsellor called Taming Toxic People. The science of identifying & dealing with psychopaths at work & at home. 

No I haven't been divorced or dropped by a callous ex. Although the experience of working in a toxic workplace with a boss who shows pyschopathic traits is sadly all too common. The advice given, psychopaths cannot change so look for another job while you are there is what it amounts to. On the cover is a silhouette of a man brandishing a naughty chair and a whip. 

 Don't get the wrong idea, I am not reading x-rated books! When children couldn't find an X book I told them try finding one with X in the title. Or it could be about X-men or My cat likes to hide in boXes or My Mum has X-ray Vision. 

So Taming ToXic People. It turns out I have read this author before. David Gillespie writes books about sugar being Sweet Poison, and being a dad to seven children and advocating for Free Schools. He also wrote a book called Big Fat Lies, and I'm wondering if it's similar to Liane Moriarity's Big Little Lies, which put me off divorced soccer mums and primary schools big time. It also made me question what the parents were REALLY up to that made their children so violent, at least, in Australia. 

The Learning Network only gave this answer to everything - trauma. Basically even having children is traumatic and when you delve into the science of brain injury and stress response and the amount of drugs given to pregnant mums to ease the pain I'm thinking no wonder it's a miracle most us are actually coming out alive. My hunch is psychopaths had too much exposure to anaesthetic at birth and hence cannot empathise with others or feel pain. 

There's another author I recommend who DOES start with X and she has only ever one name, Xinran. I have read all her books from What the Chinese Don't Eat, The Good women of China to China Witness, to Sky Burial and Miss Chopsticks, and her most heartbreaking, Messages from an Unknown Chinese Mother to her most recent Buy Me the Sky: The Remarkable truth of China's one-child generations. 

Having not ever lived in China but possessing an entire DNA of Chinese blood I can only say I am extraordinary lucky to be alive here to tell the tale. Which I may do at some point. It's often the case that the truth is stranger than fiction. How I miss my yum cha book restaurant. Xinran's books would be prominently displayed on the trolley along with Por Por's cookbook. You can no longer silence a Chinese woman or bind her feet like they did in the olden days. She'll do a dangerous thing - she'll write a book. 

Happy reading! xxx

Stick around for dessert after we've finished the alphabet at the Great Kiwi Bookathon

Bookathon - W

 Where's Wally?

Actually Wally is staying in the library as he's been banned from the classroom. Teachers were saying that I wasn't to let their pupils borrow Where's Wally books because they weren't READING any words.  Because when it came time for SSR (sustained silent reading) they would say they were reading Where's Wally when they were really just looking at the pictures. 

I can't argue with that because I find Where's Wally books frustrating. I can never find Wally either. So I marked the Where's Wally books Not For Loan and they stayed in the puzzle books section of the library. Where he was easy to find. 

Then I worked in another school library where Where's Wally books were allowed to be borrowed. There was a swift circulation of these books along with Minecraft, as digital literacy seemed the order of the day there and the teachers got all the children on to I -pads and tablets as soon as they could see. Even though they mashed up the ipad I had in the library and the replacement went missing. I -pads etc have their place but I am not a fan of them, I prefer turning pages of REAL books.

The books that everyone genuinely wants to READ (i.e the words)  are Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. I think he found the winning formula for the beginning reader and I swear that Dr Seuss never got a look in once the children found this series under W. Elephant and Piggie are a cartoon duo that are like the odd couple. Elephants name is Gerald and he wears glasses, is a bit myopic, and anxious, while Piggie doesn't seem to have a Christian name and she is carefree and happy-go-lucky. They are best friends and have mini dramas that involve dilemmas like Should I share my ice cream? ask each other Are you ready to play outside? and think of adventures like Let's Go For a Drive! (even though they are not yet old enough to drive, and even though they are animals and not humans). The most popular title would have been There is a Bird on Your Head!, while the most loved would definitely be The Thank You Book.

Waiting is Not Easy! is an exercise in patience and your dramatic reading skills. You can pretend to throw a tantrum too in I will take a nap! Though my favourite might have been I really like Slop! great for picky eaters (or readers) especially those who were doing the Pizza challenge and had to read 7 books for rewards. There are 28 books in this series and you wouldn't want to miss reading each 64 page one, so you'd possibly get 4 pizzas out of Mo Willems which is very good value! 

Mo Willem's other books haven't been as popular although children still read The Pigeon has to Go to School. The pigeon is like a 2 year old toddler who thinks he's the centre of the universe. He also wants to drive the bus. I'm sorry pigeon, you have to wait and you have to sit your drivers licence exam before you do that. And take a bath as he's grubby.  Mo Willems books have been translated into all languages and I am waiting on the Te Reo versions of Elephant and Piggie. Happy Pig Day! was definitely a hit in Chinese. They are perfect for reading out loud and I'm sure blind and low vision children will get a kick out of them in a way they can't do with Where's Wally. 

Don't forget to donate to the Great Kiwi Bookathon where these children will gain access to these wonderful books.

Bookathon - V

 Sorry Vasanti while your name does start with V, I already had you under U and it wouldn't be fair to the other V authors. Of which I could only find one but still. V is for Jules Verne, also known as the 'Father of Science Fiction'.

It seems I actually don't read a lot of Science Fiction but the Science Fiction I prefer read is one from more than a hundred  years ago and so most of it has actually come to pass. They have now renamed it Speculative Fiction about books set in the future, and they can be utopian or dystopian. Dystopias are books about the end of the world. So like the Left Behind Series or 88 reasons why the Rapture will be in 1988. Or 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, Tomorrow when the War Began, and the Last Kids on Earth. All fun stuff. The Book of Revelation might come under this category as well. But it's only natural that writers of certain era will be worried about the advent of World War Three. Comic conventions in this post-modern era simply call the whole thing Armageddon. 

Utopias on the other hand, aren't so popular. It's now not profitable or compelling enough to write about the wonders of the age and how everything will be wonderful and isn't it a Brave New World - the future is bright and promising. But my author today was a Utopian author even though all the things he wrote about came to pass reading it now takes you back to that bygone age where all these things were potential possibilities on the horizon. 

Now you CAN circumnavigate the globe in 24 hours by jumbo jet or concorde but back when Jules Verne wrote Around the World in 80 days in 1872  the wager was that it couldn't be done in 1920 hours. Reading the novel is entertaining and insightful and a fun adventure through time and space. It's also was hugely popular in his day like how chef/writer  Anthony Bourdain reached cult status eating his way around the world and presenting it in TV (as well as numerous others..Michael Palin, Monty Don, Michael Portillo, Joanna Lumley, Billy Connelley etc)   The best part of 80s days was when Phileas Fogg and Passepourtout met his Indian princess Auoda and took her on a to North America where she marvelled at snow for the first time. 

Armchair travellers like me enjoy it because travel from New Zealand is so expensive. Plus nobody has ever challenged me to a journey by betting a million pounds. The other tale by Jules Verne that I delved into was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I once chose this book for a book club read and everyone turned up to the discussion night with different versions/editions of the classic book. You can read the real life version about life on the Calypso on a Jacques Cousteau expedition, possibly inspired by the Jules Verne tale itself. 

The third of his adventures, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, hasn't actually been accomplished yet. But I live in hope that one day, we could go inside and there is actually an entire metropolis and prehistoric creatures in there that we'd never heard about. As of writing fourth adventure, From the Earth to the Moon, has been accomplished, though I was a bit disappointed in that one, for when Americans landed on the moon they didn't really do much except plant a flag, pick up some moon rocks and gaze back at planet Earth. 

Jules Verne is the second most translated author in the world (the first is Agatha Christie, the third is Shakespeare) but he comes top for me. I love the adventure and excitement and risk taking, possibly why Sir Edmund Hilary is on our $5 note. You can become a foolhardy dreamer too and go places in books...by embarking on a the Great Kiwi Bookathon. Save up your $5 notes and help blind and low vision children experience Utopia as well. 😍

Bookathon - U

 Utopia. Urban Myth. Ubiquitous.

I am stuck on U. But thankfully I found The Boring Book by Vasanti Unka. The Boring Book defies description. It's the kind of book that might put you to sleep, though it has pages and a library card pocket and a date due slip at the back and words, and things in it that don't really make sense. I think it's the kind of book that you might  say you have read to your teacher and they can ask you what it was about and you can be honest and say it was boring!

I've booked Vasanti Unka for Book Week as she knows a bit about books and how they are made, having both written and illustrated a few. Her mystery book 'Who Stole the Rainbow?' has everyone guessing who the culprit was. 

Was it ...the sun?

Was it...the rain?

Was it..the clouds?

You'll have to read it to find out...as I always tell my children. Keep them guessing until the last page. Although I am terrible with mystery books. I always want to skip to the back where all the answers are. 

I am the Universe is a big picture book about the vastness of space...in a large format too. It has a billion star rating. 

I promised Vasanti butter chicken if she would come to the school for Book Week...since she has complied a book called a Suitcase of Saris: From India to Aotearoa : Stories of Pioneer Women. But I don't know if she'd be impressed with the school's butter chicken. I found there would always be too much rice and never enough sauce. So I'll have to find some other way of luring her in..

Then she can teach us how to make things out of socks and gloves and felts because she writes craft books too. I am looking forward to it. Even though I've already nearly done an entire Book Month this June I have thought about extending it and having another Book Week and after that 2024 can be Book Year. 

Currently there's only one more week of the Great Kiwi Bookathon left so help our blind and low vision children access books and get your donations in.

Bookathon - T

 Today's Titles for T authors

The Joy Luck Club. Sisters. The Hobbit.

I'm talking Amy Tan, Raina Telgemeier and J R R Tolkien.

Amy Tan's first novel The Joy Luck Club really did become that touchstone story of immigration and relations between mothers and daughters for a great many Asian Americans - a group and culture as distinctive as African Americans, or even European Americans, not that anyone ever calls them that! While it's been many years since I've read it, it still resonates even now, and when I talk with Asian children of the diaspora it's like we have this thing where we just KNOW...yes this is what Asian parents are like. (Even with fathers and sons) it's like this thousand generation ancestor filial piety thing that you can never really explain to an outsider. We (especially the Chinese) are caught between two worlds and A LOT is expected of us. 

The Joy Luck Club itself can be confusing as it's narrated by four daughters and three mothers, the fourth mother has died so its more a collection of interlocking stories than one narrative.  Like many family sagas has its share of tragedy and triumph. One of the stories in it I remember is the one of the proud mother of a chess champion, and what happens when her prodigy daughter fails a competition. Or, taking from Amy Tan's actual life, how she feels when she fails her piano recital. And then..what about all the other things in life we fail to do? 

I know mum's can't live through our daughters though physically us daughters did live inside our mums for approximately 9 months. But we have to pay them back somehow. And so it is. Amy Tan has written more on Chinese mothers (my favourite was The Kitchen God's Wife) but  for more detail on this phenomenon try reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. 

Sisters is about the bond between sisters this time in a  European American (?) family which is pretty much based on Raina Telegemier's own life. The mum and dad are actually on the verge of breaking up as is quite a common occurrance these days particularly at a vulnerable time for young children and the mum is taking them on a road trip to meet up with the dad, Raina's younger sister sharing the back seat with her and being, as younger sisters can be - completely annoying. 

This is a graphic novel in full colour so it's like reading a storyboard for a potential movie anyway. (Are you listening Disney/Pixar? )  Otherwise, it's just a regular family story but the sisters relationship is front and centre. Raina wants to love her sister, but how can she when she's so different and just doesn't understand? 

This graphic novel/memoir, along with Smile (about Raina getting braces) and Guts (about Raina having IBS) are THE top reads amongst tweens. Raina Telgemeier also illustrated the first few books of the Baby-sitters Club series by Ann M Martin, which had spawned over 250 volumes and sold millions of copies, and are most beloved among the readers who grew up in the late 80s and 90s. Even over Francine Pascale's Sweet Valley High book series which was a precursor to tv shows like Beverly Hills 90210. 

As we now know for girls the most important things in life are relationships. Ok forget about boys, (far too complicated)  let's concentrate on the familial relationships that are more intimate and long lasting than it will ever be between a husband and wife - those between mothers, daughters and sisters. Read  these authors books for understanding and empathy. 

This is not something you will glean from The Hobbit, which really has no girls in it whatsoever...or Americans. As it's set in Middle Earth which is somewhere near New Zealand I believe.  I just wanted to put it out there because J R R Tolkien starts with T and if you looking for escape its probably just the ticket, none of the hobbits actually have relationships or parents they all just seem to live happily barefoot in their hobbit holes and defeat a taniwha/dragon once in a while. And also, ok, there has been several movies but READ the book because the book was original while the movie took liberties which for me ruined it! 

Keep going with the Great Kiwi Bookathon I promise more good books to come..thank you if you've already made a donation. 

Bookathon - S

 William Shakespeare. Danielle Steel. Craig Smith.

All my S authors today are bestselling rockstars in the literary universe. Amongst English Majors, nobody can get away from Shakespeare. I thought I would leave him far far behind once I graduated but no he just has a way of popping up all the time in those annoying Pop Up-Globes like someone who doesn't know the show's over and the series has jumped the shark. Yes so like everyone in high school I read Shakespeare and I can't say I loved him, after all, 500 odd years from now what plays or screenplays will we still be performing in endless remakes - do we even know? Will The Simpsons scripts seasons 2-8 or maybe Friends be lauded as the golden age of wit and social commentary and entertainment as Shakespeare's royal soap operas were in his day? 

I call them royal soap operas because many were generally about someone in power, i.e royalty, a King who had something fatally wrong with him. Fratricide being a common occurance in those feudalistic times. Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Henry V, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra were like this. Or they were sitcoms set in exotic places that often had mistaken identities and twins or star crossed lovers like Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, As you Like it, Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer night's dream, The Tempest, All's well that ends well, The Taming of the Shrew et al. 

I want to say Shakespeare may have changed my life, or had some profound influence, but I could never warm to the characters like I could to say, Joey of Friends or empathise with them like Lisa of the Simpsons. Their Elizabethan concerns seemed alien to me and I was never au fait with exactly why everyone was acting so foolishly and stupidly on stage. Women were either strumpets or naive maidens, and men were either arrogant or lovesick. If you love needless drama, read Shakespeare. 

If Shakespeare was living and performed today you would probably end up with something like Diana, the Musical which was quite entertaining on Netflix if you saw it, and he would win a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay. So I am sorry Shakespeare lovers, I can never be in raptures over the beloved Bard and have feelings for him like the Darling Buds of May.  Or he would be like Danielle Steel,  endlessly recycling plots about rich people who turn to rags and then become rich again. You have to admire Danielle Steel, she knows how to tell a yarn, but the thing about Danielle Steel is...her books always ends the same with her on the back cover with her coiffure, designer clothes and expensive jewellery looking at you and smiling as if saying 'you have made me even richer'.  (190 books and counting) 

The last author who cottoned onto a good thing and is milking it for all it's worth, and like The Simpsons, shows no sign of stopping, is one who turned a well known joke into a huge fandom for preschoolers and primary children. Of course I am talking about The Wonky Donkey. Thank you Craig Smith, for all the honky tonky, winky, wonky, dinkey donkey making fan girls and boys of us all. 

If you scan the S's at the bookshop or library today you are sure to find these taking up a lot of room on the shelves, their popularity knows no bounds and if they do get assigned reading in schools, watch out. They will drive you nuts for years to come. 

Keep going with the Great Kiwi Bookathon, where I am reading nonstop A-Z in June supporting blind and low vision children access to books.

Bookathon - R

 

Reading, writing and arithmetic? 

Today's author has 3 R's. Rachel Renee Russell, aka writer of the wildly popular series for girls Dork Diaries. For those who don't know, it's like Diary of a Wimpy Kid but told from a 14 year old girl's point of view. Nikki Maxwell and written in the style of Wimpy Kid, i.e hand written with cartoons. 

Girls absolutely love these books. As a former girl, I like them too. I guess you can say I never really grew up. Nikki lives with her mum dad, and little sister Brianna and goes to Westchester County Day School, which is actually a real-life well-to-do district in the state of New York. The problem is at this new school she is not popular, because she is a self-confessed dork and has a locker right next to a very mean snobby girl called Mackenzie Hollister who hates Nikki and makes fun of her clothes and in general acts like snakes-on-legs super villain, always bullying Nikki and giving her micro aggressions. Mackenzie is part of a group Nikki calls the CCPs -- Cute Cool and Popular. They wear the latest fashions just because they can and never have to want for anything. Nikki's dad works as a pest exterminator which is decidedly NOT cool and she is forever trying to hide the fact that that's what he does for a living.

Before I go off and tell you the entire plot of Dork Diaries I just want to establish that, at 14 years of age, these things are the most important thing in a girls life - to be able to make friends, be a friend, and fit in at school. Unlike the movie Mean Girls, Nikki did not come from living in Africa, or Grease, where Sandy came from Australia actually it's never mentioned in the books that Nikki is African American and her tormentor is what people in America call WASP. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. In the books, that doesn't figure into it. It's just full on class war. It all comes to a head in probably the best book IMHO is Frenemies Forever. This is the one where both Nikki and Mackenzie get transferred to a fancy private school. 

Luckily Nikki makes some new BFFs called Chloe and Zoe (I know right?) and they look out for each other, though the one friend Nikki makes that is most important is her diary which, you dear reader have the absolute privelege of reading. It's hilariously funny, smart and easy to read which is why girls from age 7 up love these books. Dork Diaries has gone on to about 12 books so far with her many adventures and they get better each time. At school, she gets involved with amongst other things, being a clumsy ice skater, organising a school dance, coming top in an art competition, helping out in the library, adopting a puppy, becoming a pop star, writing an anonymous advice column for the school newspaper and I think the latest one she gets to go on a school trip to Paris. That one's coming out in October. 

If you never got to do these things at school, relive your best (or worst) years in Dork Diaries. I read the near entire series in lockdown and so it was like I was back at school anyway. I also listened to them in audio, but you don't get the benefit of the illustrations when you just listen. Now some teachers might think these are just fluff, eye candy books that have no literary merit at all. Well I just say to these teachers you are no fun. Nikki is our heroine facing real life situations, and who hasn't been the new girl at school and tried to fit in? Who hasn't been a dork? Who hasn't confessed in their secret diary, all the awful things they have done? And who hasn't had an annoying sister and dreamed of being an only child? (Unless you are already an only child, lucky you). Who hasn't had an awkward crush?

One day you will look back on your school years (If you have survived them) and see, that it's all part of growing up and the most things you will learn are not actually what teachers teach in the classroom. And less boys miss out, Rachel Renee Russell has also written a series for boys about one of the characters Max Crumbly. 

If you'd like to win a brand new box set of Dork Diaries, email me and let me know.  Answer this question...what dance does Nikki do when she's happy? 

Otherwise donate to the Great Kiwi Bookathon so that our Blind and Low Vision girls can enjoy these books too.