THE AMBIDEXTROUS LIBRARIAN

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (M.R. CAREY) This book was totally worth every last cent of the $12.00 I paid for it.  Wandering the isles of Big W in an attempt to kill some time, I (naturally) gravitated towards the book section and was overcome by the psychology of the retail displays.  10 minutes later I had parted with my money.  Kudos to the marketing psychologists for a job well done! I was sucked in by the bright yellow cover, and the fact that it was crowded with glowing reviews, one of which was by Joss Whedon and I thoroughly respect anything that man has to say.  I didn't even really know what the book was about, as the jacket was so crammed with praise the actual blurb was very brief.  Perhaps that helped in the end - I'm not sure I would have picked it up if I knew the story was about zombies. That's not to say that I don't enjoy a good fantasy / sci-fi.  And I do really enjoy the current popularity of zombie apocalypse tales; they are ...

THE SINGING BONES (SHAUN TAN) This book is extraordinary. I have written on Shaun Tan before, but in case you missed it, he has an uncanny ability to inject a subtle sense of unease and disquiet into his works - both written and visual.  There is something that is simplistic and mesmerising about his art.  I find myself staring at the tiniest detail with a furrowed brow, all the while wondering how the simple curve of a line, or detail of shadow, can make me feel like I should look over my shoulder; like there is something waiting for me just beyond that dark corner. When I discovered that Shaun Tan had published a book of Grimm's Fairytales, and had created artworks to depict each narrative - I dived on it like a seagull on a chip.  And I haven't been disappointed.  The book does not seek to retell each tale in its entirety - each double page spread presents a small but flavoursome morsel of the tale, which is then enriched by Tan's sculptural interpretation...

THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO (PATRICK NESS) This book has been on my "to read" list for ages .  I finally read it.  Sweet hallelujah.  For other Librarians out there who may be reading this, you know what I'm talking about; the sheer pleasure of managing to ACTUALLY FINISH A BOOK from the ever growing pile.  I feel like I should have a drink to celebrate. And so, the talented Patrick Ness.  We recently acquired The Rest of Us Just Live Here  for the collection (another for the "to read" list), but I thought I would start with The Knife of Never Letting Go  because it has awards slapped all over it, and it's been around for ages and y'know, people generally rave.  Published back in 2008, it's been around a while now.  And it's a sort of near-future sci-fi dystopian tale.  Interestingly it was dystopian before  The Hunger Games  opened the floodgates. Todd Hewitt is a boy about to become a man.  He was born into the...

THE CAT WITH THE COLOURED TAIL (GILLIAN MEARS) I'm a Librarian, so there is a high statistical probability that I am also a cat lover (yep, it's true).  I gravitate towards cat themed stories with the same level of uncanny intuition that primary school girls have for horse and pony stories.  It's a gift. When one of my colleagues suggested we obtain The Cat with the Coloured Tail , I naturally thought it was a fabulous idea.  It arrived a couple of weeks ago and has already been borrowed once; when I put it back on display I was reminded that I should really take it home and read it one evening. And then Gillian Mears died. Gillian Mears - Sydney Morning Herald I knew of Gillian Mears; you can't be a Librarian and not know of  Foals Bread,  and I have The Grass Sister sitting on my bookshelf downstairs.  But I had not yet delved into her children's fiction, and so on the news of her passing I felt it was time to read what was to be the final fru...

LITTLE REBEL CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARDS 2016 Subversive, intelligent children's books.  Could I find a better topic to talk about? The Little Rebels Children's Book Awards ( administered by the UK's Letterbox Library as part of the Alliance of Radical Booksellers )  are a relatively new thing, having been around for only a few years (since 2013 it seems).  Is this because it is only recently that authors have felt the need to tackle big societal issues in children books?  I pondered this for a while and then realised that Dr. Seuss would argue with me (and win) on that point. Let me start by saying that although I think the title "Little Rebels" is awesome, I am actually going to say that I think there should be nothing deemed "rebellious" about reading literature that encourages us to think and form our own opinions.  In fact, I dislike my own description of the nominees as "subversive", but I'll maintain that adjective to argue my...

GOTTA #LOVEOZYA I actually went and did a little "Professional Development" the other day, dragging myself into the city to attend a Teacher/Librarian do that Readings Hawthorn hosted.  The evening consisted of four fabulous Australian YA authors talking on their latest middle years and YA offerings (and there was also wine!). I didn't really know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect to walk out of there feeling as inspired as I did.  It was awesome, and really quite uplifting. Emily Gale and Leanne Hall tackled the difficulties of writing for those odd middle years - not really a kid, but not quite a teenager.  If you can cast your minds back (I found it hard) it's a time when your folks are expecting you to act more mature, and you're feeling more mature, but no one is really giving you any credit or independence.  How do you reach that readership, and as an adult write something that doesn't sound either too simple, or like you're ...

#somethingwickedthiswaycomes It seems I may have been dwelling these last few days on innovative ways to get people reading.  After the comments I made in my previous post about possible future iterations of "the book", I stumbled across this example whilst aimlessly surfing the Googles: Macbeth is #killingit  (link to Booktopia) Yep, it's #Macbeth.  And apparently #Macbeth is #killingit. This is somewhat stretching my idea of what I was talking about in my previous post, i.e. innovative ways to engage kids in reading.  I dunno, this just seems somewhat... lame.  I mean, on the cover Lord and Lady Macbeth appear to have their heads substituted with emoji.  With. Emoji.  And they are checking in to their various locations and presumably hash-tagging their adventures whilst snap chatting the latest #epicdeadbody or #crazylady.  Students can see though this guise pretty  quickly, they are very wise to these adult attempts to ap...

SUNSHINE, DECKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS So, that's another year out of the way! I hope you enjoyed the school holidays.  I certainly did.  For me, it wasn't so much bookish as practical.  I cleared some land, levelled it, landscaped it and made a deck.  Not much time for reading in between all that but it was therapeutic to get out in the sun. Because all this practicality left me little time to actually read, I decided to focus on something a little less wordy, but no less relevant - the graphic novel.  Now, I did read a few but they are a little too adult to be termed YA so I probably won't review them here (one was an excellent memoir of growing up in Yorkshire when the Yorkshire Ripper was on the loose - highly recommended, but not particularly YA friendly). Devouring these graphic novels made me realise that literature comes in so many forms these days.  Traditionalists may find it easy to dismiss the graphic novel, but having read several excell...