Carrum sighting

Lovely to hear (thanks MCG) that Carrum Sailing Club was seen out and about this week in uptown Melbourne, in the hands of a child. The child was in a stroller and 'reading' intently. :)

Book Week

I love Book Week. A chance to share all the things I love about books and writing. And at Firbank Grammar on Wednesday last, I was able to share with the whole school. And more. The gorgeous preps wrote me some illustrated letters complete with custom-made envelopes. And in a bonus bonus, I met up with a childhood friend - not seen for (ahem) many years. Was lovely to have a very brief catchup.

On Friday and today, I was working with Year 8s writing War Poetry. They came up with some amazing images in their poems.

This Friday I'm off to Buxton to workshops with Preps, 1s and 2s. Love a sing and dance I do! So we'll be reading stories, singing, dancing and making gates I think.

Newport Substation Arts Centre

Every first Saturday in the month (except January) there is an Artists' Market in the wonderful substation in Newport, Vic. I've loved this old square building since I first moved to Newport over 18 years ago. It occupies its space comfortably, at home between road and rail.

Some years ago, a group of people who shared a love of this building began doing something about it. And the building has a new life. It's an arts hub with all sorts of things happening. There are classes in African drumming and latin dancing. My choir (Newport Community Choir) is again performing there next weekend, in cahoots with Willin' Wimmen, a Williamstown choir. And then there's the Artists' Market... See here for details.

But I digress...

With my storyteller friend Jackie Kerin, I spent last Saturday at the Substation.

Jackie had set up a story room and we tag-teamed throughout the day, storytelling and book reading, and generally talking to people about all things books and story.


Children of all ages stopped by to chat and listen. Adults visited too, with and without children. And Jackie and I talked all day about books and stories. Bliss.

Kinder kids

I went to my local kinder for my fortnightly reading session this morning. I was running late and grabbed a handful of books to take with me. One of them was I Spy with Inspector Stilton by Judith Rossell.

Usually my main audience is girls with a couple of boys flitting in and out as their restless legs will take them, but today the balance was different. They LOVED Inspector Stilton, boys and girls both. I had boys fighting over the right to find the things on the page and several times had to halt the 'finding' to get the boys to remove their heads and bodies from the page!

After Inspector Stilton the boys stayed too, for me to read different books, ones from the kinder bookshelves. That led to a conversation about me having to go home and do some work, that work being writing stories.

I've been going to the kinder with this group all year, and it's the first time most of those boys have come to join the reading with me, let alone ask questions about who I was and what I do. They were intrigued with the notion of someone actually writing stories as a job, and also with the idea that I'd brought books written by people I knew.

One other link...I'd taken Sally Murphy's 'Pemberthy Bear' illustrated by Jacqui Grantford and also another story 'Squeezy Cuddle, Dangly Legs' Jacqui has illustrated. They were very interested to see a picture of 'Pemberthy Bear' book in 'Squeezy...' It seemed to make sense of the notion that books are created, do not merely appear.

Old favourites, new foods

I've had a good reading January. I've managed to finally make it to the bottom of the pile of books by my bed and the pile by my computer. I decided it was time to catch up on a couple of childhood favourite books I wanted to reread. I moved around a lot as a child, including moving to PNG when I was 10. There wasn't room to take all my toys and books and many of them disappeared but having grown out of many of them, I hardly noticed. But many years later, as an adult I discovered that my books hadn't actually been 'disappeared' but given to my cousin whose three daughters had read them. Her girls were done with them, so some of my favourites came home again. There were Russian Folk Tales, Tales from Eastern Lands, a bumper collection of fairy tales and a few novels. One of the books that didn't come back was Johanna Spyri's 'Heidi' although one of the sequels did.

So yesterday I went to the library and borrowed 'Heidi' and 'Pippi Longstocking' (the latter I'd never read, or didn't recall). 'Heidi' I enjoyed as much as I did as a child. I was amazed to discover that it was written in 1880 (!!) and translated from the original German a few years later. 'Pippi Longstocking' I enjoyed too for all the humour and offbeat happenings.

Now I'm back to more recent books. I've got 'Requiem for a Beast' and 'Flavours of Melbourne'. The former caused controversy after recognition in last year's CBCA Awards, and the latter is a food history of Melbourne. I'm looking forward to reading about what was eaten in the 1850s Melbourne.

Back to kinder

I've just spent a lovely, noisy hour at kinder reading books. It's the kinder where all our children attended...it's even the same teacher. My children, one now adult, the other two teenagers will no longer sit and let me read picture books to them. No surprise there.

With all the talk about literacy I thought it was time I contributed. I love talking in schools, but that isn't something that happens regularly enough and reading is often a minor part of a presentation/workshop. I wanted to just read. I took a pile of books from my own library and interspersed them with books from the library corner offerings.

I'd planned to be there for half an hour, but it was an hour. Kids came in and out, chose their favourites, chose new ones from my pile. They read along to Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and 'The Gingerbread Man' and went off into block corner to make a boat after I'd read my story 'Ebi's Boat'. They counted the butterflies in Sue Whiting's 'Taming Butterflies' and were riveted by Michael Rosen's 'There's a Bear in a Cave'.

It was great fun. I plan to make it a regular thing.

Which book next?

My idea of hell has two parts. One is to be somewhere without a pen and paper. It seldom happens, but I still have nightmares about how I'll capture that phrase, that idea. The other is to be somewhere, even at home, with no book to read. My bedside table always includes a tower of books. I'm not sure it's ever been empty. There are old books that I always wanted to read, books I want to reread and then new books. There are also often books that one of my sons has recommended. I used to finish every book I started, even if it was a struggle. Not any more. There are just too many books to read. Although there are exceptions. I did persevere with 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel, although finding the beginning chapters very dense and less than riveting. They were interesting, but I really couldn't work out where they were heading. I'm glad I did keep going though. The ending stayed with me for a long time.
I love the library. I read too much to be able to support my habit without these wonderful places. I do buy books too, particularly Australian children's books. I'm a big fan of fiction mostly, although I'm growing to enjoy non fiction more and more. Non fiction is seldom bedtime reading for me though.
I love that I can call reading work. Whether it's keeping up with what's being published, reading to review or for research, reading is a wonderful thing.