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By: Maryann Yin,
on 9/17/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: J. R. R. Tolkien, People, Digital, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 8/14/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Trends, People, Peter Jackson, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 8/11/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Biz, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 4/6/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: J.K. Rowling, Bookselling, Trends, Lewis Carroll, John Green, Jane Austen, Markus Zusak, Charlotte Bronte, Harper Lee, J. R. R. Tolkien, Raymond Feist, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 3/4/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authors, George R.R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 2/12/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Videos, Digital, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/25/2014
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Ideas/Commentary, Peace on Earth, Merry Christmas, Peter Jackson, Rewilding, E.O. Wilson, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ralph Bakshi, Anthropocene, MGM, Winsor McCay, Mel Blanc, Hugh Harman, Rankin Bass, David Brower, Add a tag
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By: C.J.Busby,
on 5/5/2014
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's fiction, fantasy, Susan Cooper, diana wynne jones, writing for children, J.K Rowling, tragedy, J. R. R. Tolkien, National Curriculum, C.J. Busby, Add a tag
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 9/17/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: J. R. R. Tolkien, People, Digital, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 8/14/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Trends, People, Peter Jackson, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 8/11/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Biz, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
By: Maryann Yin,
on 4/6/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: J.K. Rowling, Bookselling, Trends, Lewis Carroll, John Green, Jane Austen, Markus Zusak, Charlotte Bronte, Harper Lee, J. R. R. Tolkien, Raymond Feist, Add a tag
What’s the most popular book in Australia?
According to the results of Dymocks Bookstore’s booklover’s 101 survey, that honor belongs to Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. More than 15,000 bibliophiles participated in this survey.
Here’s more from The New Daily: “This year 17 Australian books made the list, including AB Facey’s A Fortunate Life and Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee…Ms Higgins said 35 books on the list have been made into successful films – including the recent Hollywood hit Fifty Shades of Grey.” We’ve linked to free samples of the top ten books below.
Free Samples of Australia’s Top 10 Favorite Books
01. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
02. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
03. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
04. Magician by Raymond Feist
05. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
06. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
07. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
08. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
09. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
10. The Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 3/4/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authors, George R.R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin has given away a rare, first-edition, copy of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. This particular volume contains illustrations created by Tolkien himself.
The donation was made to Texas A&M University. According to the school’s blog post, the book will be displayed at the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives for a few weeks.
During his visit, Martin explained that “there’s no doubt his effect upon me was profound and I take a strange pleasure in seeing him included in a library like this, to be a 5 millionth book with Cervantes and Walt Whitman. It represents an acceptance of fantasy into the canon of world literature which I think is long overdue, frankly.” Do you agree with Martin’s opinion? (via Chron.com)
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 2/12/2015
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Videos, Digital, J. R. R. Tolkien, Add a tag
Have you ever felt a little lost while reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? The team behind the C.G.P. Grey YouTube channel has created two videos about this beloved book trilogy.
Part one (embedded below) contains a general overview about the mythology behind this epic story. Part two (embedded above) offers an explanation about the all powerful “one ring.”
Fair warning, viewers may encounter spoilers so proceed with caution. What is your favorite fantasy novel? (via Fast Company)
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/25/2014
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Ideas/Commentary, Peace on Earth, Merry Christmas, Peter Jackson, Rewilding, E.O. Wilson, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ralph Bakshi, Anthropocene, MGM, Winsor McCay, Mel Blanc, Hugh Harman, Rankin Bass, David Brower, Add a tag
We rarely see "Peace On Earth" alongside more traditionally revered holiday standards like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"�but we really should.
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By: C.J.Busby,
on 5/5/2014
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's fiction, fantasy, Susan Cooper, diana wynne jones, writing for children, J.K Rowling, tragedy, J. R. R. Tolkien, National Curriculum, C.J. Busby, Add a tag
I was thinking the other day about how, in so many children’s books, the hero finds they have hidden powers. I think it’s one of the aspects of children’s books I love the most, and loved especially as a child myself – the sense that, however ordinary you felt you were, there might be this magical ability hidden inside you, or some unexpected aspect of your character, just waiting for the right opportunity, the right trigger, to reveal itself.
In one of my favourite books as a child, Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, Cat Chant discovers, after many trials and mix-ups, that he’s an enchanter – from being a child who could do absolutely no magic, he becomes one who can make almost anything happen by just telling it to. In Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, Will discovers he’s an Old One, and learns to use his new powers to fight the Dark. And Harry Potter, ordinary downtrodden child, finds he is really a wizard, and a very special one at that.
But in more mundane ways, many children’s books chart the ways their protagonists learn to draw on hidden strengths or find reserves of bravery, intelligence, compassion, understanding, or determination to overcome obstacles and win through in difficult or challenging circumstances.
In The Lord of the Rings, for example, it is the 'children' of the book, the hobbits, who really save Middle Earth - and they do so by finding in themselves the sort of courage, grit, compassion, confidence and ability to survive that they'd never have dreamed of in sleepy Hobbiton. The change in them is made gloriously manifest in their final return to the Shire and the battle with Sharkey.
In essence, these sorts of stories tell their readers – you can be amazing! It’s a great message for children – indeed, for any reader. It says, nothing about you is fixed, you don’t have to accept that you are only ever going to be this person or that person. Round the corner, an adventure might be waiting that will draw out of you all sorts of things – that will change you into a kind of hero, with new and unexpected powers. No matter that you are not top of the class, or ‘gifted and talented’, no matter that you think of yourself as ‘ordinary’ – there’s always hope.
This kind of transformative possibility in children’s books seems to me to be the very opposite of tragedy. In tragedies, most often, it’s the inherent flaws in the protagonist’s character that lead to the inevitable tragic outcome. Hamlet’s total introspection, his inability to stop dithering; Othello’s insane jealousy; Coriolanus’s pride; or in the classic Greek tragedies, the hero’s hubris, or their rigidity, or the inevitable repercussions of one terrible action. There’s a feeling of watching a slow motion train crash – nothing stops the slide towards mutual destruction because none of the characters are capable of changing who they are. When I was in my twenties, life sometimes felt exactly like this, and when it did, my best friend and I used to wail: ‘Aargh - I’m in an Iris Murdoch novel!’
In much adult literature events unfold in this way – the characters, like Martin Luther, ‘can do no other’, they react to each other and to events in ways that drive the plot forward, and it’s not very often that one of them finds a hidden power that solves the tangle they’ve all got themselves into. For me, then, tragedy is a quintessentially grown-up (‘literary’) form of literature, about people working through the consequences of who they are, who they have become. But children are always becoming, and so children’s literature seems to me in its purest form the very opposite of tragedy – characterised not by comedy, but a kind of positive hopefulness, an expectation of finding some new, positive aspect of yourself which explodes into the plot and turns it on its head.
This seems especially important to me now, when schools – even primary – are riddled with exams and tests and gradings: children, according to Ofsted good practice, should know exactly what National Curriculum Level they are (a 3a, or a 4b) and why they aren’t yet at the next level up. There is only one path allowed: three points of progress in academic work per school year. Ofsted is not interested in whether you might, in the meantime, have fought dragons, or learnt to conjure a whirlwind.
As with all generalisations, I’m sure people will find exceptions and caveats, and I don’t at all mean to be prescriptive. It’s not that I think all children’s books must conform to this model – but for me, the ‘ideal type’, if you like, of a children’s book, is that it has this sort of transformative hope at its centre. And the ideal anti-type is the tragedy.
C.J. Busby writes funny, fast paced fantasy for primary age children.
Her latest book, Deep Amber, is a multiple worlds adventure for 8-12, published March 2014 by Templar.
'This is an adventure... here are runes and swords and incredibly stupid knights in armour – enjoy!' (ABBA Reviews: Read the rest of the review here).
Website: www.cjbusby.co.uk
Twitter: @ceciliabusby
C.J. Busby writes funny, fast paced fantasy for primary age children.
'This is an adventure... here are runes and swords and incredibly stupid knights in armour – enjoy!' (ABBA Reviews: Read the rest of the review here).
Website: www.cjbusby.co.uk
Twitter: @ceciliabusby
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