Category Archives: All The Other Stuff

Originally posted on Big boots & adventures:
A pithy title, I know, but you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to boil that down from something substantially longer. Anyway; today I wanted to share a sample of the project I’m trying to get funding for (and if you’d like to fund an app of this, dudes…

Every now and then, I like to look at the first pages of some very good children’s books and analyse just how and why they achieve that goodness. Today’s post is on the wonderful Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens and you can browse some of the previous entries in the First Page series here . IContinue reading “First Pages: Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens”

I have a couple of EXCELLENT things to share with you in this post, hence … um … this post. I moan a lot about children’s literature getting a less than positive coverage in the media (ie: none) so it is important to acknowledge those moments when it does. And one of these moments  inContinue reading “Articles and programmes and things of interest (oh my!)”

Due to the eternal loveliness of my long suffering family, I got to spend the weekend in Oxford. There was a particular rationale behind being there for this weekend: the 4th July commemorates the the day that Charles Dodgson told a story to Alice Liddell and her sisters, and the Saturday nearest to that dateContinue reading “Oxford, The Story Museum and Alice’s Day”

Consider this the blogging equivalent of the part of the conference where people tell you where the fire exits are located and what the plans are for lunch… The index of authors is now up to date. Want to see if I’ve reviewed a particular author? Check here first  The about me section has beenContinue reading “A brief bit of housekeeping”

I think it was this morning  that this post finally came into some sort of focus for me. I believe, very much, in children’s literature and the ability for it to tell stories that cannot be told in any other way. I also believe that sometimes we need literature, books, to be our poles inContinue reading “Europe, Brexit and children’s literature”

It’s a landmark day in British children’s literature today; it’s the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway  awards and for those of you who aren’t quite sure of what that means, they’re pretty much the bookish equivalent of the Oscars. Between them, these awards have recognised some of the very best in British children’s literature in its day, and the pastContinue reading “It’s Carnegie Day”

Originally posted on Big boots & adventures:
This weekend was a busy weekend. I presented some of my research at Horse Tales; a one day conference held in the lovely surroundings of Homerton College, Cambridge. One of the great highlights of this day was getting to hear KM Peyton speak. Goals. I adore her. The title of my…

So, the other week, I explored the sordid truth around the books I don’t review. This post is to explore the other side of things; the books I do review. Again, it’s in no particular order, nor does everything apply to each particular decision to review,  but one thing I can definitely say is thatContinue reading “The books I do review”

I’ve been collating a new reading list of titles with the help of innumerable lovely people on Twitter. This reading list covers anger in children’s and young adult literature with a specific focus on the angry girl character. The feminine angry. That which we are so often uncomfortable with and yet, is there. From MaryContinue reading “Anger in children’s / young adult literature : a reading list”

Have you heard of the books on prescription service? The deliciously acronymed (and perhaps only acronymed inside my head thusly) BOPs are a great staple of the public library service in how they allow and enable people to discover literature that may prove of assistance at certain times in their lives. The particular scheme IContinue reading “Shelf Help : Reading Well and The Reading Agency”

Bit of a short post today, but a very important one. CBBC have a book club. I am SO happy about this; and even the comments on the link make me happy. Every Sunday afternoon, the CBBC Book Club talks children’s books on the telly.  How exciting is that?  Please do try and watch it, or use itContinue reading “The CBBC Book Club”

A quick link round up … I recently read a proof copy of Goldy Moldavsky’s ‘Kill The Boy Band’. I’m not going to be reviewing it as I’m not sure that there’s anything constructive that I can add to the discussion (and please don’t think of that as a detrimental comment; this is a complex,Continue reading “Links of interest”

I’ve been rereading this series recently (I review the opener here); partially as a refresher for a paper I’m delivering in the next few months, but also, you know, because they are good. I’ve been reading the originals and the reprints and I really love what Catnip hae done with them. And if I amContinue reading “The Jinny series by Patricia Leitch”

(Isn’t that just – perfect? Isn’t it a breathtaking page? It’s from ‘For Love of A Horse‘ by Patricia Leitch, and God, this book is everything, but everything and I am rereading and I am in love once more. How wondrous it is that there are books out there that just sing out their world toContinue reading “‘For Love of A Horse’ : Or, quite possibly, one of the best pages ever in children’s literature”

Exciting times for the world of children’s literature; the Carnegie shortlist is out, and there are some very good books out there. In fact, one might call these rawther very good books indeed (thanks Eloise!). I’m always excited by this shortlist, as I am with every award list I come across, because they allow a chance to take theContinue reading “The Carnegie shortlist is out”

Louise Rennison has passed away. And, after much wondering what to write, and knowing that I have to write something, this is that. The stopping of the clock. It isn’t easy being funny. Writing can be funny and mean, so easily; it can be quick and sharp and it can gain a space for itselfContinue reading “It isn’t easy being funny (thank you Louise Rennison)”

A quick heads up to those of you who are looking for some timely and classy reading suggestions: the Carnegie longlist is out today and features a range of wonderful titles. I get to vote on the Carnegie because I’m a member of CILIP and it’s something which makes me very proud. It’s an award ripeContinue reading “The Carnegie longlist is out”

I’ve been thinking about difficult books, recently, about pieces of children’s literature that are stark and unflinching or those that present difficult and controversial narratives. I am passionate about books being available to readers, always, but then there are moments when there are books that challenge that stance for me. I am honest about that,Continue reading “8 ways to handle difficult books”

A quick note this morning to celebrate the landmark achievement of Frances Hardinge last night. Her wonderful, wicked, complex young adult novel The Lie Tree won the Costa Prize. The whole damn thing. All of it. If I could insert an emoticon or some sort of wizardry here to express how I feel about that, IContinue reading “‘The Lie Tree’ by Frances Hardinge has won the Costa Prize”

Last night I was having a chat with a colleague about representations of vegetarianism and vegetarians in fiction. To my shame, I couldn’t think of many potent examples in children’s literature of this. My instincts went to somebody like Richard Adams and Plague Dogs / Watership Down (which I have just reread btw, and am a bitContinue reading “Vegetarians / vegetarianism in children’s fiction”

Just a quick heads up that this programme was on channel four last night. As ever with lists of things, there’s those things that are in and those that aren’t, those that make you beam at the TV and go “YEP, NICE CHOICE” and those that make you go “WHAT REALLY?”. Which is all great.Continue reading “Britain’s Favourite Children’s Books”

“Madge! Wake up, old thing! It’s Christmas morning! Merry Christmas to you!” Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (1925) Jo of the Chalet School   Merry Christmas to you and yours. Thank you for the time you’ve spent reading, commenting and just being around this blog this year. I wish you all the best for 2016 and, ofContinue reading “Merry Christmas”

Today’s book in the slightly-more-intermittent-than-I’d-like first pages series is Cowgirl by G.R Gemin. For those of you who don’t know what this series is about, I have a look at the first pages of books and analyse just how they do what they do. You can look at the previous posts in the series here.Continue reading “First Pages: Cowgirl by G.R Gemin”

(Spoilers) I cried. It took me a while to find myself back in Panem; to understand the threads of plot and the shapes of life there once more, but once I did, I cried. Oh how I cried. But even as I lost myself in this, I thought about love and how at the heartContinue reading “Mockingjay and the bruised, bruising love”

Alongside this blog, I have another devoted specifically to my PhD research. What I want to do with this post here, is give you a little bit of a taster of that research as part of my contribution to #NNFN. NNFN is National Non-Fiction November and it’s a month spearheaded by the FCBG to exploreContinue reading ““Second to the left, and straight on ’til morning” : children’s literature and literary travels”

It’s been an interesting few weeks in the land of children’s literature. I’m so very conscious of a tendency to complain at the paucity of coverage, so I think it’s only right to acknowledge those moments where children’s literature has sort of been sneaking into a lot of things I’ve watched and read. Which isContinue reading “Children’s Literature : A bit of a quick media round up”

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know how much I believe in the empowerment that children’s literature can bring. Books, literacy and all the skills that come around that are one of the greatest superpowers that we can give children. And, on International Literacy Day, it seems right to acknowledge thatContinue reading “The Syrian Refugee Crisis : a link roundup”

There are places in this country that I’ve never been to, and yet know.  They are spaces defined and shaded by others; by the trip my grandparents took there, by my father’s stories, by my mother’s words, and Llandudno is one of them. My grandparents came here on holiday, making the short trip down from ManchesterContinue reading “Curiouser and Curiouser : Looking for Alice in Llandudno”

Back when I started my PhD, I remember doing a lot of looking online for articles. My search terms were something along the line of “Good god, what have I got myself into” and “What exactly is a PhD anyway” ? It, as you may imagine, was a fairly fruitless search. I found articles writtenContinue reading “This much I know : reflections on the PhD process thus far”

(Something slightly different today. Normal service resumed shortly!) — The words are too much to bear. He turns and runs out of the house and begins the climb up the hill towards the castle. Once he hits the woods, he slows down to a walk. He is breathless. Raw. There is an unfinished edge to everything he does.Continue reading “A lyrical emptiness”

I have updated my review policy / about page. I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do every now and then because it provides you with up to date info about the context of this blog and of the author (Ed: who she?). Whilst the information there is worth a read (please do, if you’reContinue reading “A brief bit of housekeeping”

One of the panels I attended was delivered by the very excellent Neill Cameron. Amongst many other things, he’s currently the artist in residence at the lovely Story Museum in Oxford. As part of this work, he runs a weekly comics club which is doing some delightful and brilliant things – have a look atContinue reading “Neill Cameron talking comics – #fcbg15 recap”

I have been at The Federation of Children’s Book Groups conference over the weekend – you can catch up on Tweets here. It was quite the thing. One of the highlights for me was the Publishers’ Exhibition whereby you can catch up with lovely people and find out all about their new titles. I thoughtContinue reading “This is some of what caught my eye @ #fcbg15”

(A slight segue) Today is International Women’s Day. Twitter has been sharing many inspirational women and much more under the hashtag, and there’s been some thought provoking coverage in the wider media. I am proud to live in this passionate, nerdy and vivid space on the internet and in real life and to know soContinue reading “#empoweredcrying”

Just a quick note to say that I’m posting stuff that relates specifically to my PhD research over here now, as opposed to doubling up content here. Go and have a look (take a look? come and have a look? Grammar is hard…) if literary tourism and children’s literature is your bag 🙂 Thanks!

Just a quick news in brief sort of article for today, but last night I was wondering a bit about politics and politicians in young adult literature so I asked for some suggestions of titles on Twitter. Here’s the storify of what I was recommended. I hope it proves of interest ! 🙂

I’m looking at Room 13 by Robert Swindells at the moment as part of my PhD. It’s one of the books I hope to reference and work with in some depth as I look at literary tourism in the United Kingdom. Room 13 is one of those greatly plotted and written books that it’s aContinue reading “Mapping Room 13 by Robert Swindells”

“One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling Merry Christmas! 😀

A brief post for today but if you have a couple of minutes spare this morning, can I recommend you watch this (From 26mins onwards). People are amazing. I think that’s all that needs to be said.

I’m conscious that this is a children’s literature blog and I don’t want to start segueing off into telling you about what I had for dinner or things like that, but I do want to tell you a little bit about Mockingjay Part One. The film is an adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel Mockingjay (partContinue reading “A couple of thoughts on Mockingjay Part One and the nature of heroism”

Last night, #kidbkgrp met on Twitter and talked about historical children’s literature. It’s a big old topic so I was interested to see what was said! We covered periods of history we wanted more books about (publishers / authors – if you’ve got anything about the Russian Revolution, do stick your hand up now?) andContinue reading “#kidbkgrp Historical Children’s Literature”

Woo-hoo! It’s the end of my impromptu-theme of art books for children. To end it, I thought it might be useful to collate a few more suggestions of art books for kids  / further resources- I know this is something that I want to come back to in the future, and I thought it mightContinue reading “Further reading”

Last night we talked about boundaries and responsibilities in children’s literature. It’s a bit of a vague topic but one that has a lot of relevance for children’s books and the world of reading / publishing in general. Children’s books are defined by adults for children and very rarely the other way round. Therefore weContinue reading “#kidbkgrp – Boundaries and responsibilities in children’s literature”

Originally posted on Daisy May Johnson:
This post is part of the “I’m looking for a book about…” review group hosted by Playing By The Book. This months edition is focused on books about the seaside, beaches and oceans. More information and a schedule of upcoming topics is available here. The titular quote to this post…

Last night, we talked about re/reading classic children’s literature. It’s a topic that seems perenially interesting when you apply it to children’s literature, and it’s a topic which is perenially difficult to actually define. What is a classic? Who decides a classic? Can classic status be revoked? How do books become classics? And how doContinue reading “#kidbkgrp recap – Re/reading classic children’s literature”