A Royal Slice*

With the upcoming wedding of Wills and Kate - ahem, sorry, William and Catherine - taking up most of the tv and radio waves (and the entire market in tatty souvenirs) for the forseeable future, we thought that we'd take this oportunity to celebrate some unconventional royals.

E Nesbit did a great line in surprising monarchs. She imagined kings who were property developers, princesses who married lift men, and Fairy Godmothers who gave the oddest advice to their royal charges. One of the best is Billy the King. Eager to make his way in the world, Billy King answers a job ad at his local employment office. 'Hard-working king wanted; no objection to one who has not been out before.' Sounds ideal, but things - of course - don't go as planned for Billy. There is an ineffective prime minister, a monarch-eating monster and all sorts of trouble. But luckily there is also Eliza, the brand new queen from the neighbouring kingdom.

Margaret Mahy must be sprinkled with some of the same magic dust as Nesbit. Strange and interesting royalty abound in her short stories, too. Like the melancholy king who is cheered up by music made by Selina and her grandmother who live in the dump-diddledump-diddledump (much to the distress of the royal physicians who feel sure the king's ears will be polluted by untold germs). But perhaps most lovely of all is the beautiful princess who marries a clown. 'Princesses don't marry clowns! They marry princes, simpletons, and seventh sons; they marry the youngest of three brothers - but NEVER clowns!' And like all good clowns (and all good princesses!), this clown is made of equal parts humour and melancholy - so lovely - sigh.

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch, Illustrated by Michael Martchenko

Elizabeth begins as a princess princess - all pretty clothes and marrying perfect princes. But enter the dragon, who burns Elizabeth's clothes and generally forces her to look at life differently. Elizabeth outsmarts the dragon, rescues the prince, discovers he's not so perfect afterall and dumps him to pursue her own interests. WIN!

The Princess and the Dragon by Audrey Wood

Rather similar in flavour to The Paperbag Princess - but this one goes a step further. The roaring princess and the ballet-dancing dragon just aren't cut out for the roles society wants them to play. Never fear - I can feel a swap coming on! Aren't the courtiers delighted when the abrasive princess is replaced by the polite-as-pie dragon! And isn't the princess delighted when she can live in a cave and terrorise villagers to her heart's content! Play to your strengths seems as good a moral as any.

Mimus by Lilli Thal translated by John Brownjohn

This is a strange and wonderful book. When Prince Florin and his father, King Phillip, attend a banquet in the neighbouring kingdom, they are greeted with devastating betrayal. After the ambush, Prince Florin is forced to live in the stable with Mimus, the wily court jester. Mimus is by turns cruel and generous, proud and lowly, brave and cowardly. In order to save his own life, Florin must learn the ways of the jester and unravel a secret plot. But can he trust Mimus? An epic mystery: funny, chilling and gripping. No monarch can remain unchanged after living the life of the jester.

The Princess and her Panther by Wendy Orr and Lauren Stringer

'One afternoon... a princess and her panther crossed the desert sand. The princess was brave and the panther tried to be.'

We're all for brave princesses who inspire courage in their little sisters. All for it!

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Just like Kate, Buttercup is a beautiful commoner, plucked from obscurity by the prince of the land. But Prince Humperdinck is about as far from Prince Charming as a prince can possibly get. And poor Buttercup is kidnapped by a swordmaster Spaniard (who is not left-handed), a Turkish giant (who has a sportsman's heart) and a clever Sicilian (who is not as smart as he thinks he is) - who are then outwitted, outplayed, outlasted by the Dread Pirate Roberts whose intentions are...well... more seemly than any Survivor contestant's intentions ever are. So if all the hoo-ha about Wills & Kate's wedding has put you in the mood for a fairytale royal romance - with a happy ending? As you wish.

* We have to give an honourable mention to AA Milne, who gave us King John (who was not a good man, but did kindly put up a notice concerning James James Morrison Morrison's mislaid mother), and of course 'The King's Breakfast'.

Monday Stuff and Items

1) Interesting to see so many kids and YA characters representing on the Forbes magazines Fictional 15 rich list. Carlisle Cullen invested wisely in the 1700s, Artemis Fowl has sketchy interests, and Chuck Bass is... well, he's Chuck Bass.

The breakdown of how Forbes calculated the wealth of Smaug the dragon is particularly worth reading.

2) Patrick Ness's Top 10 "unsuitable books for teenagers" is hilarious and spot on - particularly number 10!

3) Heads-up, authors. The bar has been raised. What will you put in your next acknowledgements?

4) In honour of the fact that the Cake-maker Virtuoso has, until very recently, been in Japan, here is an amazing Japanese house called the Shelf Pod, designed to store the owners' vast collection of books.

5) This chaotic modern life. Always ringing the changes. And their unexpected consequences. I mean, who would have thought that updating the public transport ticketing system would have such a profound impact? What's a reader supposed to use as a bookmark now she no longer has those perfectly sized expired train tickets? Well one clever designer may well have the answer... build 'em in to the book!

CBCA Shortlist 2011

This morning in the House of Onion:

11.58 AM - click through to the CBCA home page in anticipation of a shortlist.
11.58.30 - refresh screen
11.59 - refresh screen
11.59.1 - refresh screen
11.59.2 - refresh screen
11.59.3 - refresh screen
REPEAT UNTIL
12.00 - view shortlist, SQUEAL, gallop around, congregate, SQUEAL, disperse to call authors, SQUEAL, take a few calming breaths, blog...

Older Readers

About A Girl by Joanne Horniman



Early Childhood

The Tall Man and the Twelve Babies by Tom Champion Niland and Kilmeny Niland,
illustrated by Deborah Niland


Noni the Pony by Alison Lester


Look See, Look at Me! by Leonie Norrington and Dee Huxley



Picture Book of the Year

Hamlet by Nicki Greenberg


Two Peas in a Pod by Chris McKimmie



Eve Pownall Award

Drawn from the Heart: A Memoir by Ron Brooks



You can see the full list in all its glory here.
And there are many more exciting things on the Notable Books List.

Big congratulations to all the wonderful authors and illustrators on both lists!

Trailer trove

Our first introduction to the Filthies and their struggle against the elites of the Upper Decks was in Worldshaker by Richard Harland.

D. M. Cornish said:

'I loved Worldshaker! A claustrophobic setting of rivets, iron and steam, rustling silks and stiff collars and even stiffer manners; dark, twisting, bustling, brilliant. I was very, very glum when it came to an end.'

Well, be glum no more, D. M. Help is almost at hand!

Hitting the shelves in May is the fantastic fast-paced sequel - Liberator in which Col's and Riff's world has been well and truly turned upside down. This compelling steampunk story is positively crackling with political intrigue and class tension all served up with a sprinkling of good old-fashioned URST.

Herewith a trailer:

Move over Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars and Hercule Poirot, there's a new detective in town. Introducing Beatrice May Ross - and her excellent powers of observation and deduction. A Pocketful of Eyes by Lili Wilkinson is teen rom-crime, featuring a dead body in the Red Rotunda, a mysterious benefactor, a handsome young man with an unusual interest in the mating habits of animals and - wait for it - a hot kissing scene on the back of a stuffed tiger. *editor fans self*

Herewith a trailer:

And an interview with the lovely Lili:

And what ho! - a website for The Golden Day, the hauntingly beautiful new novel by Ursula Dubosarsky. We've shown you this trailer before - but it's so short and so enticing and so beautiful we thought we'd give you another helping...

Agent Report: Bologna Children's Book Fair

PRIMARY MISSION: Fly to Italy and present yourself at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Soak up atmosphere. For about two seconds. Then attend eleventy-million appointments* each day for 3.5 days discussing books, books, books with lovely agents, publishers and rights managers, who all begin to blur into one unless they have a particular distinguishing feature such as:

(a) a cute accent

(b) stylish boots

(c) they are male

(d) all of the above.

Followed by evening functions which consist of much eating and drinking and lead to crawling into bed, exhausted, at midnight.

SECONDARY MISSION: After the winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is announced: engage in the sport of Shaun Tan spotting.

STATUS: Accepted.

HEREWITH A PHOTO ESSAY FROM THE AGENT IN THE FIELD

FINAL MISSION: Locate some kind of motor vehicle that will convey you and your guests to end-of-day activities...

* When we say eleventy million here - we might mean closer to twelve, but we're sure you get the idea.

The scent of childhood

It's curiously entertaining that the enduring image of Australia held by folk from other places is usually of a land of odd or deadly animals, a fireworks-friendly bridge, an iconic opera house, a rather large reef and a big red rock in the middle of a desert.

Of course, those of us who live here know it is much more than that. We also know that most of the population lives in sprawling urban landscapes clustered around the coastline, and that it would actually be a very unusual event if we looked out the window and saw kangaroos hopping down the street. The lights of the MCG - yes. Kangaroos - not so much.

Despite the fact we are drawn to large cities, a goodly number of us did grow up in small country or coastal towns,* and only later migrated to the big smoke - in pursuit of education, and employment, and eating emporiums that are open after eight o'clock. So while we are enamoured of the bright lights, big city and its hole-in-the-wall bars and fine dining establishments, for many of us there is a little part of our heart that pings when we read a book set in the rural landscape of our childhood.

And, as we've mentioned before, we're looking at you: Snake, by Kate Jennings. How delighted are we to discover that the good folk at Black Inc. have re-released this brilliant novella. Extremely. Delighted.

So here's to books that ring true with the colours and sights and sounds of the country, its calm and its cacophony, its far horizons and casual claustrophobia, its dusty paddocks and high haystacks, its flood-prone plains and tracts of eucalypts, and the full moon, bright and blazing orange as it edges up over the horizon.

Here's to books that ring true with the scent of childhood.

* Where kangaroos were not necessarily an unusual sight, but a koala-sighting - now that was something to write home about.

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

The 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award recipient is:
SHAUN TAN

From the jury:

Behind a wealth of minutely detailed pictures, where civilization is criticized and history depicted through symbolism, there is a palpable warmth. People are always present, and Shaun Tan portrays both our searching and our alienation. He combines brilliant, magical narrative skill with deep humanism.

Hooray for Shaun. So much hooray!

Pick-me-ups

Sometimes in the aftermath of earthquakes and tsunamis and floods and countries or nuclear reactors teetering on the brink of meltdown, we all need a good pick-me-up. And often it's hard to identify exactly what pick-me-up might work.

The glorious weather in Melbourne at the moment might be enough - especially after the summer-that-never-was. Or maybe a slice of the Cake-Maker Virtuoso's spectacular Rhubarb upside-down cake might do it. Or a nice crunchy new season apple. Or a one-point win for your football team in the opening round of the season. Or a good book (I wonder if there are any of those around here?). Or of course, that old fall back, a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.

But if none of these are working for you, here are some items that might just do the trick.

In Melbourne - what ho! A Children's Book Festival this weekend at The Wheeler Centre featuring loads of our favourite authors and illustrators. What an excellent idea that is. Hurrah!

In Sydney - Team Unicorn and Team Zombie are shaping up for a good old-fashion feud. Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld (Team Zombie) are set to showcase their debating prowess against the finely honed skills of Margo Lanagan and Garth Nix (Team Unicorn). So roll up, roll up to see if the score can be settled once and for all. Kick-off is at 6pm on Thursday, at Kinokuniya Bookstore.

On the interwebs - over at Meanjin Mandy Brett's wonderful essay Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction. We are highly tempted to steal it and add it to our occasional series, What Do Editors Do All Day. Instead, we will simply say, thank you, Mandy. You made our day with this thoughtful, inspiring, eloquent and insightful essay about what it is we do all day, and why we do it.

And if for some unfathomable reason these items don't float your boat, perhaps what you need is a goodly dose of Maru.

Double the Trouble

Intriguing, yes?
Mysterious, yes?
Want to know more, yes?*

As ever, we are here to help...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that good things are always better in twos.

Noah knew it.
Frank Sinatra knew it.
Wrigley's knew it.
Peters Ice-cream, the makers of the sorely missed Two-in-One, knew it.

And you will know it too, once you get your hands on Troubletwisters , because it contains:

- Two main characters (TWINS!)
- Two strange cats
- And TWO AUTHORS!

That's double your New York Times best-selling action.
Twice the amount of critical acclaim.
And two times the talent.
Because the authors in question are Garth Nix and Sean Williams.

You will know Garth from the Keys to the Kingdom series and the Old Kingdom series, but did you know he can employ special night vision to save electricity?**

You will know Sean from his many series, novels and collections which include The Fixers, The Broken Land, Astropolis and Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Force Heretic (with Shane Dix), but did you know that he is the inventor of a celebrated Brussels sprout curry?

Together they will be unstoppable!

As well as double your fun, Troubletwisters also boasts:

- a very cool and enigmatic grandmother with a Hillman Minx and special powers,
- a secret antique shop,
- and an Oracular Crocodile.

Before we wrote this post, we thought we might try to play it cool, try to be hip, attempt to sound a little bored even: 'So anyway, we're publishing this new series, no biggie, maybe have a look at it, or not, whatever.'

But we fell at the first hurdle because Troubletwisters is just TOO DAMN EXCITING - and it's only the first book!***

Stuff cool, forget hip - grab your twin, your doppelganger, your other half and RUN DON'T WALK to the bookshop in May.



* Sounding a wee bit like Yoda, we are?
** It's Earth Hour every night at Garth's house.
*** Breathe, breathe, breathe into paper bag. Calm down.

Awardy goodness

The Aurealis Awards shortlist was announced today.

And my what a pretty shortlist it is.*

Kids' fiction (primarily through words)

The Keepers 1: Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner

Kids' fiction (primarily through pictures)

Precious Little by Julie Hunt, Sue Moss and Gaye Chapman

Best illustrated book/graphic novel

Hamlet by Nicki Greenberg

Five Wounds by Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett

Best YA short story

'A Thousand Flowers' by Margo Lanagan

from Zombies vs Unicorns Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black (eds)

Best YA novel

Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Guardian of the Dead is a Young Adult Fiction Finalist in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards - only the most prestigious awards in all of New Zealand!

BUT DON'T STOP THERE!

Guardian of the Dead is also a finalist for the Australian Shadow Awards presented by the Australian Horror Writers Association

Huge congratulations, to Karen - and to Lian, Julia, Sue, Gaye, Nicki, Jonathan, Dan and Margo!

Woo hoo!!

*Editors bat their eyelashes becomingly in the direction of the shortlist*

Candles in the dark

Last Friday, when we downed tools and congregated for our end-of-week wine, we didn't expect to end up clutching our glasses, huddled round a computer, glued to live footage of tsunamis devastating northern Japan.

Lili Wilkinson has a simple, eloquent post that articulates well what we have been feeling in the week since then.

Sometimes, in the face of terrible events about which you can do nothing, it's hard to keep going with the everyday things. It's easy to come to work and ask, who cares about this comma? Why is this cover important? What do books matter when so many people's worlds have fallen apart?

But then we rally, and we remember that every day life is for living full and well, and that books can offer great comfort in difficult times.

We're thinking not of the warm, easy, old-slippers kind of comfort books - although we love them too - but rather the books that deal with hard things and offer hope. Hope of survival. Hope of rebirth. Hope of ... well, just a little flickering hope. The books that remind us that dark times end, that the human spirit is strong, and that there can even be beauty in great sadness.

Here is a list of a few books that we think are candles in the dark.

Good Night, Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian

As a child I tried to ban anything sad from the house. Books. Movies. Music. Dad wasn't even allowed to sing Oh My Darling Clementine. The fact that it's supposed to be a funny song made no difference. Poor old Clementine being lost and gone forever = TOO SAD.

Good Night, Mr Tom - the story of how small and broken evacuee William, and gruff and broken old Mr Tom transform each other with friendship - was one of the first books that taught me the importance of allowing yourself to be sad. The book has many layers of sadness and many layers of happiness. And just when you think it's all going to end well, the rug is pulled out from under you. And you cry and cry and cry. And then when you can't cry any more, you're given a quiet, softly burning hope. A memory. An acceptance.

The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy

The first of these books - The Good Master - paints an idyllic picture of life on a big ranch in rural Hungary. But in The Singing Tree, World War I rips that idyl to shreds. The Good Master himself, Marton, and his brother, Sandor, are called to fight. Anti-semitism threatens to poison village life. The farmhouse shelters German evacuees and Russian prisoners, and Jansci and Kate bravely shoulder new responsibilities.

But the saddest, most illuminating part is when your mother explains to you that Marton and Sandor - who you have been hoping and hoping with everything you have come home safe and sound - would have been 'enemies' of Australia. And you can never again see war in black and white, but only in greys and muddy browns and blood reds. But also you are comforted that sides don't matter, that 'everywhere eyes of men, women, and children were turning to the same light of hope.'

A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard

Very close to the bone for anyone who lives in or loves Melbourne - the shock of reading about the State Library being bombed is profound! But Glenda's writing is luminous, her characters dance on the page - literally and metaphorically - and there is love and friendship and compassion and community even in the wreckage of all else.

The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis

'There is a lion in our village and it is carrying away our children.' The lion in Binti's village is AIDS. And it's not just the children that are dying. The situation is bleak almost beyond reckoning, but the book is warm and funny and matter-of-fact, and Rosanna Vecchio's beautiful cover illustration captures the quality of this light.

Old Pig by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

Old Pig is dying. But carefully, gently, lovingly she prepares her granddaughter. The colours are soft and the mood is calm. Many of Ron Brooks's books pour the terrible beauty of sadness straight onto the page. I'm thinking of Fox, of John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat and of the Bunyip of Berkley's Creek, which ends with such glorious promise - another bunyip! All may be right with the world after all.

I Am David by Anne Holm

I read this book a squillion years ago, and the finer details of David's journey from the concentration camp are long lost in the warm fog of books read and loved, and kept close to my heart. What remains is the powerful emotion the title evokes. I am David. Yes. A candle. In the dark.

Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine

This is the only true story on this list. When Fumiko Ishioka, the head of the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Centre, asks the Auschwitz Museum to send her a few objects to help her explain the holocaust to children what arrives is a brown suitcase with the name Hanna Brady on it in white paint. But who was Hanna (really spelled Hana)? And what happened to her? Fumiko's investigation takes her around the world, to Europe, to Canada, to great sadness, but also joy. This book is filled with beautiful photos that bring you very close to Hana, Fumiko and the Japanese children that visit Hana's suitcase.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson

There is a passage in this beautiful book about friendship and grief that basically sums up what we're trying to say in this post. So we'll give the last word to Jesse:

'Now it occurred to him that Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile?'

Noun-verb activities

Oh, a lovely long weekend of Autumn in Melbourne*, how did we love thee? Let us count the ways. And let us do it using list of noun-verb activities that occupied the Onions over the March Labour Day long weekend. Herewith a list of how we laboured - or not, as the case may be.

1. Sauce-making.

This involved roughly chopping ripe tomatoes, green apples, edible onions. Adding sugar, vinegar, secret herbs and spices. Simmering.* Bottling. Voila! - tasty tasty home-made tomato sauce.

2. Dress-making.

This involved the Tall Designer hitting his head on the lintel on his way into the house. It involved sewing and unpicking, ironing and putting in darts, easing in and pinning. It also involved the Cake-maker Virtuoso morphing into Seamstress Extraordinaire . She ran a tight ship, improvised admirably and did all the fiddly bits.

3. Dog-sitting.

This involved feeding six small meals of steamed chicken each day to a dog with a shaved belly and a seam of white, wirey stitches. He has told me with big brown-eyed gazes and wet-nosed nudges that he likes this eating plan - and could handle more!

4. DVD-watching.

Oh, hello Grand Designs. If you don't know what this involved, shame on you. It's clearly well past time you acquainted yourself with the fabulousnesses of frowny Kevin.

5. Sight-seeing 1.

Ahem. It seems that one of the Onions was not in fact in Melbourne enjoying the ausumn long weekend. She was, in fact, doing the sight-seeing in Italy. This involved taking a boat up the grand canal, chasing pigeons in St Mark's Square, buying a red leather bag from a tiny shop in San Polo, catching the train to Rome and standing, neck-craned, in muted awe of the dome of the Pantheon, before eating gelati in Piazza Navona.

6. Sight-seeing 2.

This involved taking an interstate visitor to Montsalvat and enjoying three glorious hours exploring the grounds in the sunshine.

7. Garden-maintaining.

This involved planting salad items and herb items. And weeding. Sigh.

8. Book-reading.

Well, of course there was book-reading.

9. Cake-making.

Hurrah! An activity from which we all benefitted!

This cake-making involved a recipe that came from Jan Smeterlin (a Polish pianist), via the Queen Mother (Elizabeth II's late mother), and then Maida Heatter (the real Cake-maker Virtuoso-Extraordinaire-Queen Mother).

The Queen Mothers Cake was meant to have the alluringly named Chocolate Cigarettes atop it, but the Cake-maker Virtuoso found at 7.30 this morning that she didn't have:

a) a marble work surface, or

b) time to temper the chocolate.***

So she improvised and dredged up a vague recollection of how chocolate leaves were made. This involved pulling leaves off the lime tree in the backyard, painting their spiny, ribby backs with melted chocolate, putting them in the fridge, and thinking this was sure to end badly and the cake's virtue would have to be that of plainness. Happily, it also involved peeling away a chilled leaf which left behind a very impressive chocolate-leaf imprint. The Cake-maker Virtuoso also reports that one end instantly melted onto her fingers.

Cake-make Virtuoso's lesson du jour: soak fingers in cold water before attempting this.

Speaking of the cake-maker Virtuoso aka Seamstress Extraordinaire - she has a blog! Oh happy day! So those of you keen to learn more about the actual making of all these cakes we consume - get thee over to Macarong where you will find the Cake-Maker Virtuoso being clever and funny and delightfully entertaining about all manner of adventures in the culinary arts.

* It has come to our attention that Autumn in Melbourne is being referred to as #ausumn by some clever peeps on the Twitter. And with beautiful crisp, still mornings that lead into lovely warm Autumn days, evenings with Brett Whiteley-blue skies and then on to cool nights, all the better for the good sleeping, #ausumn indeed. We most heartily concur.

** Be warned, the long simmering stage tends to fill all surrounding environments with a sauce-making scent that may result in extreme hunger - for you and your nearby neighbours.

*** We all know that reading through the instructions before starting a recipe is HIGHLY recommended, but who really does it every single time? Not us. And the Cake-maker Virtuoso has confessed that she is daringly neglecting to do this on a regular basis, and has found forte in her improvisation skills - improvisation skills which indeed proved transferable to the dress-making activities - see list item number 2.