2) We have just taken possession of some very exciting advances.
3) And we have died and gone to heaven, or, to put it anther way, our Faber colleague Jarvis
Cocker reads Oliver Jeffers.*
*There is an unconfirmed report that in the late nineties one Onion
handmade a T-shirt that said JARVIS across the... well ... the chest area, in
large fuzzy letters. But she didn't wear it to the Pulp concert at Festival
Hall, because that would have been deeply uncool. If Mr Cocker ever visits our
offices as part of being generally AT LARGE, we will scrub this footnote,
pretend it never happened and lounge in doorways trying to look sophisticated
and largely uninterested.
Judges' comments:
Condon
writes about teenagers with great empathy. His first-person narrator Tiff is at
a crossroads, burning to pursue her dream of becoming a journalist but slow to
realise that her greatest story lies in her unconventional family. Skilfully
drawn characters, ranging from her adopted grandfather to a gruff reporter
colleague, help the reader to become aware that words sometimes conceal more
than they reveal.
Judges' comments:
This is a profoundly beautiful story, a memoir of youth retold in old age
to a schoolgirl, forging a link between generations. A booklover's tale, it
recalls a girl who escaped from the isolation of country life and family tragedy
through both the written page and an unusual friendship with a boy stranger.
Jonsberg unravels her memories to give us a compelling affirmation of enduring
love.
Let there be boisterous cheering all across the land!
And news just in from the other side of the world!
Delighted we are to see another of our favourite books on TWO winners lists in
the CBI Book of the Year Awards which
are the leading annual children's book awards in Ireland. DELIGHTED!
Judges' Comments:
Following the lives of two fifteen-year-old twins, this imaginative and
empathetic supernatural thriller coalesces past and present to explore the
complexities of fraternal love and the pain of loss.
Celine is the first author to win both the CBI Book of the Year Award AND
the Children's Choice Award.
HURRAH!
Let there be boisterous cheering all across the oceans!
* It's the same book, just wearing different clothes. Perhaps
we should start referring to it as Taken Away Into the
Grey?
And who among you think that Arya Stark should get more screen-time because
she is clearly the best - the bravest, the smartest, the true-est, the most
interesting?
Everyone?
Thought so.
With that in mind, here is reading list for Arya fans:
'The squires, who were boys training to be knights, copied Sir Benedict's
moves with their wooden practice swords. So did Tommy with the small paring
knife she was meant to be using on the potatoes.'
Tommy might be just a kitchen girl, but she is brave and
fair-minded and loves swords. And what's more she has a talking cat on her side,
so you know things are going to get interesting. But when Sir Walter's special
sword is stolen, Tommy, the new Keeper of the Swords, is in serious
trouble...
Tommy is a feisty, brilliant heroine, and the Sword Girl books, by the
completely lovely Frances Watts, are
fabulous read-alone or read-aloud books for anyone who likes swordplay
and derring-do and girls being brave and ingenious. (Which is clearly everyone,
right? Thought so.) And Greg Rogers's illustrations
are totally charming. Best of all, when you've finished Book 1, you can move
straight on to Book 2: The Poison Plot.* We're
sure these books would have been huge favourites in the Winterfell library, for
Bran (and that other younger brother you never see) as well as Arya.
We
think Goldie and Arya would get on like a house on fire. At the very least, they
could probably both escape unscathed from a house on fire. Goldie certainly
knows how to use the threat of fire to her advantage... She also knows what
it's like to cut off your hair and pretend to be a boy, and to escape from a
cruel dictator. But for Goldie, the sword she wields is bit of a mixed
blessing...
Hermione is obviously incredibly brave, smart and loyal, but we're going to
give honorary sword-girl status to Neville Longbottom, because he overcame a lot
of obstacles, including under-confidence and body-image issues, to become a
brave and trusty warrior who knew how and when to wield his sword for maximum
effect.
With a Sword in My Hand by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem
& Pat van Beirs, translated by John Nieuwenhuizen
Marguerite's father is desperate for a son. Instead he's stuck with a
feisty, stubborn, red-headed daughter who refuses to behave like a lady. Aw
yeah. Marguerite fights (and kisses) the boys, she rides like a hellion
and, like Arya, she has a fencing maestro to whip her sword skills into
shape.
This is an intense and unusual book based on the real life of Marguerite
van Male. The Medieval court comes to smelly, loud, beautiful life and
Marguerite is an unforgettable heroine.
Cool
and rational, rather than fiery and impetuous, Sabriel might drive Arya crazy.
But Arya would have to respect her bravery in the face of Death, her sense of
duty and honour, and the fact that Sabriel's sword is not even her most powerful
weapon... Not to mention the fact that Mogget, in the right mood, would be more
than a match for a direwolf.
---------------
And now, may we suggest you watch the Game of Thrones theme song as sung by
the actors who play Arya, Sansa and Bran.
* Pssst. Sekret news. There are two more Sword Girl books coming in
September when Tommy will be starring in Tournament Trouble and The
Siege Scare. Everyone pleased? Thought so.
On Saturday night at a sparkling Sydney event, the winners of the 2011
Aurealis Awards were announced. And we are delighted to reveal that today's
courier package contained two fabulously shiny items. LOOK! Aurealis Awards in
the wild!*
'The winners represent the best of Australian fantasy, horror and science
fiction writing in 2011 as judged by a panel of their peers. This year's
winners join the likes of Sara Douglass, Garth Nix, Isobelle Carmody, Trudi
Canavan, Shaun Tan and Sean Williams, all of whom are multiple Aurealis Award
winners.'
One hundred HURRAHS for Penni!
One hundred HURRAHS for Lian!
And if you slip on over to Adventures of a Bookonaut, Sean's wonderful summary of how the evening unfolded may have you thinking you were
actually there.
* Well, when we say 'in the wild' here, we may actually mean 'on the filing
cabinet.'
Just when you thought it was safe to venture out in daylight and not be
accosted by a [pasty or sparkling] vampire - along come Justine Larbalestier &
Sarah Rees Brennan who
give their vampire a hazmat suit - so he can go to school...with the humans...
Dear readers, we admit have been keeping secrets from you, but now we are
ready to come clean.Team Human is
almost a real actual book! And it's not just any book. As Cory Doctorow says:
'This is the vampire-human supernatural romance you want the world to fall
in love with.'
And the good people at Kirkus Reviews are also much enamoured:
'Laugh-out-loud funny, heart-wrenchingly sad and fist-pump-in-the-air
triumphant, this sparkling gem proves that vampires, zombies and even teenagers
. at heart, we're all on Team Human.'
Remember how excited we were that the advances of Brigid Kemmerer'sStorm landed
in the House. Well, imagine how excited we are that it's now a book, out in the
world, for people to drool
overread! RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED!
Is everyone paying attention? We have a very important public service
announcement. Mother's Day is not in fact THIS Sunday. It is indeed NEXT
Sunday. This was news to us. We concede we were not entirely across this, so we
thought we should give you the heads up. Mother's Day is the second Sunday in
May. Yep. Second Sunday. Not First. Don't do the mixing up or your mum will be
displeased. She might end up with two Mother's Days. And while this might sound
like GOOD THING, we draw your attention to the The Night Before Mother's Day.
Herewith, this hilarious little book by the incredibly clever
collaborators, Doug MacLeod & Judy Horacek, read
in full by the wonderful Tracy Harvey.
We design, edit, publish and generally wrangle books, authors and illustrators, and eat cake in a three-storey Victorian terrace with a view of St Patrick's Cathedral.
