Here is a great review for this book which I read last week. I loved it :)
Elvis and Olive Review on Tweendom
... but I can't wait to change that!
Since I finished "Autumn" I haven't really done a lot of writing, and that makes me a bit sad actually. I would love to start writing and drawing again soon.
I can't wait til November - NaNoWriMo!! I've started thinking out a few ideas ready for the month. It's almost impossible for me to finish one 50,000 word children's novel, so I think I might write two. The ideas of which I have in my head already... Can't wait to start writing!
Other than that, not an awful lot of interesting things are happening...
So I shall blog again soon!
Autumn is finally here!!
I almost didn’t notice its arrival in Sydney, but up here in Armidale, where I’ve been visiting for the past two weeks, Autumn is well and truly here!
I was feeling a bit sad about being away from home, until we went for a walk and I was suddenly cheered up by a sea of red, yellow and orange. It is simply beautiful…
It’s made me wonder: what is it about Autumn that gets me so excited? I mean, the title of my book even honours this beautiful season!
I’ve loved Autumn ever since I experienced a true Autumn in New York. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. We just don’t have anything like it in Sydney. Well, not where I live, anyway. The weather gets cool and cozy, people start getting ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and the shops are stocked with beautiful prim, country style decorations, and the farm barns become surrounded by piles of large pumpkins, while the corn fields grow tall then fall.
The ground becomes positively covered in a layer of leaves which crunches as you walk over them… Or if you’re lucky and have found a patch of particularly deep leaves, you can kick them up and watch them float back down. The sound is devine. The smell of the cool air is like cozy, and the feel is like winter: but it’s still warm enough to skip the gloves.
Soon enough, Halloween arrives and as children crunch over the leaves in their bright costumes, and the sound of their happy voices fills the neighbourhood, the beautiful atmosphere of Autumn (which I can only describe as one of thankfulness and community) pours through the door.
Autumn makes me feel happy. It reminds me of how blessed I am, it reminds me to thank God for my friends – it reminds me to be thankful full stop.
I love Autumn. For whatever reason(s), it will always be very special to me. What is your favourite season? They all carry such different and special meanings to us.
It's good to be back in Australia, but we sure had some amazing adventures! We visited five different states (New York, California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona), most of which I had never been to before, saw some absolutely beautiful sights, got a lot of snow, and took thousands of photos between us!
I also got to pat a squirrel, which is very bad I know, but it was soooo cute! It jumped up on my knee - I just about died with excitement. I'm not scared of rabies shots - I'm the girl who wants to get the shots anyway so that I can touch bats, just in case I ever need to! (Bats are adorable, by the way, especially Fruit Bats and Blossom Bats). The photo above was taken while I was feeding him some cookie (don't do that, kids! It's bad, so they tell me).
Anyhow, all our mail got delivered today, and I was so excited to see this postcard from Siobhan Parkinson:
Thanks so much for the postcard, Siobhan! I'm so glad you got to visit my blog and see that I loved your book.
In other news, this Saturday I am having my inaugural Picture Book Party! I am so excited!! And my book is officially for sale. In a few weeks it will be on Amazon. Here is the cover. Click on the link on the side of my page to check it out.
Thank you for reading!
Yay, tomorrow we're off to America for another adventure!
Oh, and I have just discovered the joy of brush pens. Maybe I shall give my beloved pencils a break and give pens a go.... Hmm.
See you next month!
It's been horribly hot the past two days, but as I write this, my window is open with the cool-change breeze floating in to the sound of the crickets... Ahh, so nice.
Well, even though I've been really busy so far these holidays, I've managed to fit in a bit of reading, my sanity thanks!
I won't go into much detail but I'll just write a short note for my favourites (I don't write bad things about the books I didn't like, I just rather say nothing! Plus, someone else might love it, so then it'd be mean to ruin their perception before they've even explored the patch. I've just summed up my review policy! :P)
1. "The Story of Mrs Lovewright and Purrless Her Cat" by Lore Segal. This picture book is really lovely, yet not cutesy. Quite realistic and uniquely voiced. I love to read it over.
2. "The Mum-Minder" by Jacqueline Wilson. Short and sweet. It's a really clever little book. The style is as a holiday journal, and each chapter is a day's entry. Quite simple yet funny, and I loved the characterisations. A great, positive attitude, too. Uplifting and cheery.
3. "Oggie Cooder" by Sarah Weeks. This is an excellent first book by Sarah Weeks. The book is exactly my style. I really liked it - short, succinct, full of character, plus an unassuming moral. I liked it! And quite a unique story idea, too.
4. "Sleepovers" by Jacqueline Wilson. Funny and sweet. She manages to put so much story and character into so few pages! A true master.
5. "Second Fiddle, or How to Tell a Blackbird from a Sausage" by Siobhan Parkinson. I loved this book. Very cleverly written, and funny all the way through, and great characters. The set-up was so clever and interesting. It was so much fun to read. You should read it, because it's hard to explain!
6. "The Mermaid of Bondi Beach" by Gillian Rubinstein. I picked this one up because of the author. She wrote "Sharon Keep Your Hair On", a picture book that I remember my curly-headed librarian reading aloud to us from a big-book, complete with exaggerated Australian accent. I later bought the book when I was older and took it on my travels, reading it with the same exaggerated Aussie accent, and the American kids I read it to LOVED it. I ended up leaving it overseas for this one little girl who loved it so much I had to read it everytime I saw her. Anyhow, same author. This was short, predictable, but I still liked it. It was a matter-of-fact fantasy, and I like those. (You know, the kind where they just state "a fairy came by to see me" or "it was a mermaid", as simply as saying "the sky is blue".)
7. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" by J.K. Rowling. I had to read them. I'm not an avid Harry Potter fan, but I do like them, because I love books that create a new, exciting world for us to be a part of. I liked these tales because they expanded on this world. They also reminded me of Enid Blyton. Much more literary than their serial predecessors, I reckon.
8. "Someday Angeline" by Louis Sachar. I hated "Holes", but I didn't let that sway me on reading this book. (NB: I probably only hate it so much because I was forced to read it at school. It ruins books for me). I loved this book, actually. It was interesting and unique, and quite funny. It had all these funny little quirks which were so fun to read. It was sort of sad, and quite clever. Well written.
So that's about it for now, on the reading front.
I've been pretty busy editing my book and re-painting some of the illustrations which needed improvement. A long, yet exciting process! I'm hoping for the book to be released in February, but we'll see!
'Til next time!
I am so excited about the coming year! Today is the last day of this decade - it went so fast! I remember the year 2000 so vividly; the olympics, the worry about Y2K, the excitement about high school the next year - and now it's all over! Tomorrow I shall begin a new decade as an adult.
The more you think about time, and how long the Earth has been here, and how much we've grown and learnt, the more confused your brain will get!!
Anyhow, here are my 5 resolutions and then 10 goals, which my Jacqueline Wilson 2010 diary helped me come up with (it's the best diary :P)
You can keep me accountable!
1. Finish at least five literary projects.
2. Self-publish or get published.
3. Reach my goal weight.
4. Get a distinction average at university.
5. Make new friends.
Things to do:
1. I'd like to learn how to create illustrations digitally, properly.
2. I want to travel to Dromkeen in Victoria.
3. I hope to become friends with some more writers/authors.
4. I plan to write five new books, or finish five old ones.
5. I want to succeed in publishing something.
6. I'm going to spend more time writing and illustrating (and studying).
7. I want to visit Darwin and Queensland family members.
8. I'm going to find out how to teach.
9. I'm going to read fifty books I've never read.
10. I'm going to change my attitude towards friends, and make them a higher item on my list of priorities.
So there you go! The self-publishing goal is done, by the way!! So excited!! Here is a page peek from my first copy, above...
Ciao, 2009!
Hope your year is off to a tremendous beginning!
...belongs to "Second Fiddle, or How to Tell a Blackbird from a Sausage" by Siobhan Parkinson.
Oh my gosh, it is the FUNNIEST first chapter ever, I love it. This is such a strange book, you should very, very much read it if you can!
I think this is my favourite post of all time.
I often have these awesome, simple experiences in everyday life, and they are so precious to me. My immediate thought is to write it down. I'm glad I do, because then I get to revisit those moments and enjoy them all over again.
I wrote this one last year, before my 20th birthday, lamenting the stuck-in-the-middle feeling of being a "teenager" yet almost an adult. Now I am well and truly a proper adult, but I have found a purpose for my childish tendencies - to write children's books! It just stinks that people don't let "kids" write for kids, and I used to groan about that a lot. But anyways, here's the link to the post; hate to say it like this, but it's worth the read. I met some fabulous kids.
http://aprilatthebreakfasttable.blogspot.com/2008/11/little-people-you-meet.html
Hello! It has been sooo very long since I have blogged on this blog. I am still reading and writing, but things have taken a bit of a different turn for me. It's so interesting to look back on this blog and see this progression of growing up... 
Today's post is all about something I'm very passionate about: writing (and illustrating) resources. I have people ask me a lot, "Where do you start?" Well, you start by reading lots and lots of books, researching the market and what publishers are publishing, and getting resourced.
"Dromkeen" is actually a place in Victoria, a physical "home" for Australian children's literature. I am yet to visit, but it's on my wish list! I regularly read this book though - it's old, but it gets me passionate about our literary history. Australian children's literature is something special, we're a unique place so we're bound to have unique artists coming out of the country. And some of these people have shaped children's literature internationally, not just in Australia. My latest illustration study, inspired by the book, has been Pixie O'Harris.
A priceless resource you can own is The Australian Writer's Marketplace. It's a comprehensive list of publishers, magazines, ezines, journals, etc, that you might want to submit to. Not only does it list them, but it gives you contact details and information on what they are after, and whether or not they accept unsolicited and unagented manuscripts.
These two books, "The Business of Writing for Young People" and "Writing Hannah: On Writing for Children" are really helpful, I actually used these in a TAFE course on writing for children. They are current and applicable, "Business" is really practical, while "Hannah" is a bit more of a conversation between Libby Gleeson and the aspiring writer. Definitely worth a read.
0 Comments on Halloween Feels Like Home as of 10/11/2011 12:08:00 AM
0 Comments on "The Rabbit Problem" by Emily Gravett as of 1/1/1900
This is a very original story with adorable, simple illustrations. A little monster who loves his toast and jam.
This is a cute story, with a non-preaching moral to it, simplistic illustrations, and a bit of comedic action.
There’s poop, there’s a mischievous dog, there’s a bunch of scruffy illustrations. What little boy wouldn’t love this book.
Kids love this book. It’s a great story about fear, and a little bit silly (in other words, original) so it’s perfect.
Mini Grey is one of my favourite picture book creators. Her stories are so original and addictive, and the illustrations are flawless. I never get sick of looking at these books, because I feel like I discover something new every time I read them. They are very clever, so parents will enjoy reading them as much as kids enjoy having them read to them. I have road-tested these in the classroom, and they are quite popular.
You are so creative and talented April! I love your Blog Spot! x