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I happened to have a couple of Cybil nominees in my TBR pile, and I've finally finished them. Which is a good thing because they're due at the library tomorrow.

Binky to the Rescue by Ashley Spires is a very clever and charming graphic novel for younger readers. The basic premise is that Binky, an indoor cat, believes that the outdoors is outer space. Insects that come into the house from outside are aliens. When Binky accidentally goes through a window, he's truly out in the great unknown. He manages to survive the ordeal, but his dear friend, Ted, has been stranded out there. Thus, Binky to the rescue.

A marvelous little book.



Marcus Sedgwick began his review of Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones with the line "It's always the sign of a truly accomplished writer when their book holds you, despite the fact that not awfully much happens." That's exactly how I felt about Enchanted Glass. I enjoyed reading it, liked slipping into that world, but when I finished it, I thought...Did much happen here?

Enchanted Glass is one of those books in which a character finds out something about himself. In this case, it's not that he can perform magic. Lots of people can perform magic in the world of Enchanted Glass. Young Aidan Cain knows about the magic. Learning who his family is is the surprise here.

In an interesting twist, there is also an adult character who is learning things about himself in this book. Adult Andrew Hope and young Aidan Cain are almost co-protagonists.

Wynne Jones is very good at dealing with powerful adult characters in children's books. They don't take over the story or overwhelm the kids. That's true here, too.

Enchanted Glass's ending reminded me of The Pinhoe Egg's in that both books are wrapped up with what I can only describe as a bizarre twist relating to what some people would call morality. In the case of Enchanted Glass, the ending also seemed to be essentially saying that the action of the book had all been a big mistake.

I had the feeling that this book could be the jumping off point to a series. I'd be happy to see that happen, and if that's the plan, I hope Wynne Jones gets the opportunity to do it.

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All right.  Time to bring the smackdown on my Brooklyn colleagues.  Um . . . okay, I got one.  *ahem*  Uh, hey, Brooklyn!  Yeah, you!  The one across the river!  Your libraries are so rodent infested you’ve got raccoons in your main branch!  Aw, I’m just messing with ya, Brooklyn.  Don’t think of it as an infestation, but rather a sign of a healthy ecosystem.  A raccoon couldn’t last a second in downtown Manhattan, after all.  Tee hee.  Thanks to Ann Baybrooks for the link!

• Part of the reason the Under the Green Willow blog is perhaps the best children’s publisher imprint blog out there has to do with the fact that they (A) post every weekday (B) get great guest writers.  Case in point, the recent post by Peter Glassman (the Books of Wonder proprietor, doncha know) about Diana Wynne Jones.  Take particular care when he mentions how Diana was being pursued by an “overzealous fan”.  I have my own guess as to who that might have been.

• Back in May, Alice Pope created the Alice Pope’s SCBWI Children’s Market Blog.  I’m amazed she has time to do anything but blog now!  Not only does she do this amazingly comprehensive Wednesday Tweet Round-Up, but also news round-ups about the publishing industry that really perk up one’s ears (PW has a new news blog?).  In one recent post she asked for suggestions for her blogroll.  The suggestions came rolling in, and it’s quite a fantastic list.

• Kidsmomo tweeted the other day that while watching the television show Top Chef they couldn’t help but notice that Tom Colicchio resembled Jon Scieszka.  I wasn’t believing a word of it until Travis of 100 Scope Notes (who is giving away books today and only today!) found a pretty convincing picture.  Let’s do a bit of compare and contrast then.

Which one is the real former Ambassador of Young Person’s Literature?

Thanks to Travis for the pic!

• Required Reading for the Week: In terms of CommonSense Media (an organization I
  5 Comments on Fusenews: Fun with Doppelgangers, last added: 7/19/2010
  Display Comments
  Dianne White » I Like Pigs said, on 7/18/2010 9:41:00 PM
  

  [...] [...]

  Callie Feyen said, on 7/19/2010 5:55:00 AM
  

  Thank you so much for the “shout out!” I’m so excited and honored!

  JMyersbook said, on 7/19/2010 7:40:00 AM
  

  The Mo Willems piece “Uh oh” piece is fabulous — and if I were that chick in the middle, I’d be worried about my beak, at the very least. Just sayin’.

  rockinlibrarian said, on 7/19/2010 7:55:00 AM
  

  You know, when I first saw Alice Pope’s Blogroll Suggestions post, yours was the first–and only– I thought of that was a True Necessity to Every Blogroll, and I very nearly left a comment saying so, but by the time I got there about four other people had suggested you, so it seemed like I’d be going overboard.

  ditditdit said, on 7/19/2010 4:02:00 PM
  

  I pulled Bath’s books off our main shelves the day he got arrested (and felt bad about the “innocent until proven guilty), but it somehow seems easier to do that in a retail environment than in a library. With our books there’s still a financial tie to the author (and he’s local, to boot) and it seemed like a suitable gesture.

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Via Charlotte at Charlotte's Library:

"I kicked off this post with a squee for MWT's Conspiracy of Kings, which is dedicated to Diana Wynne Jones (whose most recent book, Enchanted Glass, is shown at right). DWJ's struggle with lung cancer continues, and her editor at Greenwillow said in a comment at Sounis that she would welcome notes and such. Here's the address:

Diana Wynne Jones
c/o Greenwillow Books
1350 Avenue of the Americas
New York NY 10019 USA"


Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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Okay, here it is, that Chrestomanci post I've been talking about.

Chrestomanci is a title held by a character named Christopher Chant who appears in six books and four short stories by Diana Wynne Jones. The universe of the book is made up of multiple worlds in which magic may or may not exist to varying degrees. The person who holds the title Chrestomanci is always an enchanter with nine lives, and his function is to "police" the use of magic. He's a government employee, actually.

The novels are available these days in three volumes, each containing two books. The short stories, I believe, are out of print. I got a copy from a library and then bought a beautiful paperback from an on-line dealer.



I have to admit, I found some technical glitches with these books:

Some may find this nitpicky, but I noticed from the very first book that Wynne Jones uses a noticable number of "echoes." Echoes occur when an author uses a word two or more times within a couple of sentences, making the second word strikingly noticeable to the reader. Echoes break flow, unlike parallel construction, which sort of forces flow to follow a certain flow. (Echo!) Echoes are usually caught by copy editors, which is why I know about them. Copy editors have caught (most) of the ones I've made in the past.

Chrestomanci is one of those Pimpernel/Wimsey like characters who appear to be far less powerful than they are. In Chrestomanci's case, he is often described as looking vague or appearing to be vague. That is a sign, for the people who know him, that he is on top of his game. The word "vague" is used to describe him so frequently that it becomes an annoying mannerism--like when a character is constantly adjusting her glasses or rolling his eyes. I also sometimes wondered if it really described anything. What the heck does vague mean in this context?

Some people might think that some of the boy main characters--Cat, young Christopher, and the Italian kid whose name I can't remember--seemed a bit alike. And some of the books include explanation scenes at the end, sort of like when the detective explains everything at the end of a mystery novel.

But as I said, those are all technical things. What is interesting and attention-grabbing about these books might be described as their more conceptual aspects.

Chrestomanci is a charismatic, adult character in a children's book. However, in most of his books, he is not the main character. The main characters are always children who are discovering who they really are. In fact, in the only book in which he is the main character, Chrestomanci is a child. What's more, though Chrestomanci appears to fix problems related to magic, he usually cannot do so without the assistance of child characters. He is not a grown-up who simply waves a magic wand and makes everything okay. There is no doubt whatsoever that these are kids' books, in spite of his presence.

Though these books always involve child characters discovering that they have magical abilities, and though there is a recurring adult character, the books are very different. Yes, the world building is the same, but the storylines are different, and the settings are often much different.

Chr

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The anticipated delight of a new title from an author you have been reading for years cannot be underestimated, and I am happy to report that I enjoyed Diana Wynne Jones' latest book, the just-published Enchanted Glass,very much indeed.  It's a stand-alone, and it has all the old W J magic about it--at least I thought so. There is just something about her writing which fuses the mundane and the magical in a way which makes me feel that were I to walk into one of her country villages, I would recognise the landscape and characters immediately.  I would even go so far as to say that if I had to choose a fantasy landscape to walk into, then it would be one of hers. They are so comfortably English, and yet have an edge of hidden danger and wild mystery about them which I find very appealing. 

I didn't discover Diana Wynne Jones at all till I was in my twenties, but I loved her books no less for that. I was working in those far off days as an editor for Heinemann, and was nominally in charge of some of the (then) new and shiny yellow Banana Books.  It was terribly exciting to be editing such literary luminaries as Mary Hoffman, Penelope Lively, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Dick King-Smith (to whom I was known as the Lacy Scout) and the late, lovely Douglas Hill with whom I had possibly the longest, chattiest and best author lunch ever and never got back to work at all.  It was a wonderful time, and I plunged headfirst into reading every modern children's book I could get my hands on to catch up on the ten or so years I'd missed out on. 

That included Charmed Life, and I fell in love with Chrestomanci Castle and its inhabitants at once.  You can imagine my delight when a Banana Book story from Diana Wynne Jones fell onto my desk. And now here comes the Dreadful Confession.  I found that I wasn't actually very keen on it, and I had to write and say so to her agent. Did I do the right thing? It is a question which haunts me even now, and I'll never know the answer.  Apart from anything else, I was longing to meet her.  But even the best of us have an off writing day now and then.  At least,  I know I do. It's part of the rocky territory which goes with this author business.

PS: In mitigation, I now own every book Diana has ever written, both adult and children's and reread them often when in need of comfort--and my own children pounce on them as eagerly as I do.  I do hope that's some small recompense for that one youthful editorial misdemeanour, (and if anyone else out there has a deep dark literary secret they'd like to confess, here's the place to do it!).


Lucy's blog is HERE
Her website is HERE
Lucy is also on TWITTER
and has a fanpage on FACEBOOK

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Dear Diary

right. When last heard of I was putting on fancy clothes to go to the Newbery Caldecott Alcott Awards Dinner, and receive the Newbery Medal.

I wrote the speech back in April, and recorded it then, so that it could be given out to people at ALA as a CD and printed in The Hornbook. Then I didn't look at it again, figuring that way it would be new and interesting to me when I got to it at ALA.

This did nothing to decrease my nervousness; neither did wearing a suit.

Beth Krommes gave her acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal for her book The House in the Night, written by Susan Marie Swanson. I gave my speech and somehow wasn't nervous any more when I gave it. Then Ashley Bryan was given the Louisa May Alcott award, and had a thousand librarians singing and reciting poetry together. It was pretty wonderful.

Here's a Scripps report on the evening, my editor Elise Howard writing about the experience of getting The Graveyard Book a chapter at a time over three years; and at http://wowlit.web.arizona.edu/blog there is a multi-part interview with Nick Glass, who was on the Newbery Medal Committee.

So I won the Newbery Medal (or did I? At http://jameskennedy.com/2009/07/13/i-win-the-newbery/ James Kennedy tells a very different story.)

The following morning was a signing that went on for a very long time. As I walked away from it I got two phone calls: the first to tell me that a dear friend, Diana Wynne Jones would be going in for an operation. I called Diana, and I'm not sure whether we reassured each other (although the operation was a success, and by the time you read this she should be back at home). As I put down the phone on her the phone rang again, and I learned that my old friend Charles Brown of LOCUS Magazine had died, peacefully, asleep on the plane on his way back from Readercon, one of his favourite SF conventions.

Charles was irreverent, astonishingly well-read, opinionated, funny, and he knew where pretty much all the bodies were buried in the world of science fiction and fantasy, or fancied he did. I enjoyed his company from the first time I met him, in the UK, in around 1987, enjoyed and was frustrated in equal measure by his interviewing technique from about 1989 on (he would ask opinionated questions and make statements and really have a terrific conversation with you - then, when he wrote up the interview he would leave himself and everything he had said out, as if it was a long monologue). (Here's an extract from one of those with me in 2005.)

He had been expecting to die for a long time - his health was not great - and had put various mechanisms in place to make sure that Locus Magazine continued after his death. Having been dragooned into being part of one of these mechanisms, I wound up seeing Charles every few years at meetings which existed, as far as I could tell, solely so that he could see a bunch of his friends once a year and point out to them, with a delighted chortle, that he was not dead yet and had no need of their help: have a bagel.

(I suspect, by the way, that the Locus Special Offer for readers of this blog still applies, seeing the webpage is still up.)

This is his placeholder Obituary in Locus.

The last time I saw him we had brunch in the Hotel Claremont in Berkeley. He told me delighted stories about the 1968 Worldcon there, of the intersection at that con of the SF old guard and the (then) young hippies, told scandalous stories and named names. I have forgotten all the stories and all the names, except for the information that convention attendees used the laundry chutes as a quick way to get downstairs, which was the least scandalous thing I learned.

Then I did a CBLDF panel, during which I took pleasure in pointing out that the same Nick Bertozzi comic, The Salon that had almost got Gordon Lee imprisoned in Rome, Georgia, last year, was in this year's Lynda Barry edited Best American Comics 2008.

Home from Chicago. Signed hundreds of book jackets with Miss Amanda Palmer for her Who Killed Amanda Palmer book. Then, in company with Miss Maddy and Maddy's friend Claire, we set out on a mad adventure (which we are still on).

In San Francisco we stayed at the Hotel Union Square, which was amazingly convenient and nice. Visited Google, got to be backstage at the Fire Festival, dined with Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman and their marvellous family (I suspect Michael and Ayelet of having acquired their children from some amazing Madeleine L'Engle-like Wrinkle in Time kit)(also they have a drumkit for their kids in the lounge), saw Wicked because the girls wanted to se it, and they loved it utterly (my mini-review? love Gregory Maguire's book, liked the book of the show, was sort of unmoved by the songs which seemed no better than they had to be), lunched with Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown, and generally tried to be on holiday, except for Sunday Morning.

Sunday Morning I did a reading and a signing for Brian Hibbs (and a hundred people) at Comix Experience. It celebrated Brian's Twentieth Comix Experience Year. Brian describes the signing here. (He also describes the problem with Twitter and signings and suchlike in a fascinating essay here.)

On Tuesday evening, as I blogged at the time, we found ourselves in Las Vegas, where an improvisational Tarot comedy troupe had much fun interviewing me and then making comedic theatre, and a great time was had by all... ( my card was the three of cups)

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Well, that taught me a lesson. Last weekend I was co-organizing a three-day conference about one of my favourite children’s authors, Diana Wynne Jones. There were 74 people there, from a total of 14 countries. Even for someone with the multitasking skills of a six-armed goddess this would have been a hefty undertaking, and for your poor correspondent it was daunting indeed, though there were considerably more than six capable arms and legs devoted to the conference’s service. I’m glad to say that it went as smoothly as such an undertaking ever can, but by Sunday evening I was pretty pooped.

Then, on Monday morning, my partner and I headed off to another conference in west Wales (this time organized by someone else) where I was to give a paper on the Romans in Britain as represented in children’s books. That was fun too, and included appearances by Michael Cadnum and Caroline Lawrence amongst the assorted scholars. (ABBA's own Lucy Coats would have been there too, but was indisposed - hope you're feeling better, Lucy!). But so much concentrated networking, listening, thinking and socializing have left me a little bleary-brained - and somehow it slipped my mind that I was meant to be posting a blog here on Monday. I totally missed the ABBA birthday party, too! Mea culpa. It was only ever going to be a breathless piece about how hard it is to fit the writing life in with the day-job life, sometimes, but in fact I seemed to have demonstrated that rather than talked about it. So you can think of my post’s non-appearance as a piece of post-modern performance art, right?

Yeah, right. Now, back to the writing pad...

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*Thunk*

That was the sound of my head hitting my table as I finally finished writing the first draft of my second piece of "Doctor Who" fiction... All that lies ahead is proof-reading and revisions, and that'll keep until tomorrow.

Now that's out of the way, I'll drag my head back out of the Whoniverse to tell you about this year's Oxford Literary Festival - the programme for which arrived on Friday and received a cursory flick accompanied by moans of mingled joy and misery. Joy, because there are some great talks going on again this year; misery, because my budget's going to keep me from getting to ANY of the talks I'm keen to attend (I get paid a week after it's all over, wouldn't you just know it?!)

Anyway, just to tantalise everyone, here's what I'm missing:

WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH ANTHONY HOROWITZ - Nightrise 4.30 pm

Anthony Horowitz is a hugely popular children's author whose books have won many awards and sold millions of copies around the world. He is the creator of the phenomenal Alex Rider series, which follows a teenage spy's adrenalin-packed adventures. He also writes extensively for film and television, with credits including Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War * and the recent Alex Rider movie, Stormbreaker. His new book, Nightrise, is the third in "The Power of Five" supernatural saga [the second of which was nominated for a Cybil].

(* David Tennant starred in an episode of Foyle's War - it's on my TBW (To Be Watched) list !)

FRIDAY 23 MARCH PHILIP PULLMAN and ADRIAN HODGES with MARK LAWSON The Ruby in the Smoke 6 pm

The Ruby in the Smoke, the first book in Philip Pullman's gripping Sally Lockhart quartet, set in Victorian England, was adapted for television recently by Adrian Hodges (starring Billie Piper as Sally). Philip Pullman and Adrian Hodges discuss the adaptation (with clips from the film) and Philip shares some photographs that helped to inspire the writing of the book. Chaired by Mark Lawson.

(The thought of missing this makes me want to cry - or scream ! Ditto the one below.)

SATURDAY 24 MARCH PHILIP PULLMAN'S THE GOLDEN COMPASS From Book to Film 2 pm

This year's Festival is proud to host a discussion on the evolution of The Golden Compass from book to film, in which Philip Pullman is joined by producer Deborah Forte to discuss their roles in taking an award-winning book to one of the most anticipated films of 2007. Chaired by BBC arts presenter, Mark Lawson.

The Golden Compass, adapted and directed by Chris Weitz, is the first of three films based on Philip Pullman’s acclaimed "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Released in December, it stars Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter, Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel and introduces Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra.


* * * * * *

Perhaps I should try my Sonic Screwdriver on a nearby ATM, as The Doctor did in the Christmas Special "The Runaway Bride" ?



* * * * * *

I'm in the middle (literally) of re-reading Garth Nix's "The Keys to the Kingdom" series at present, having picked up Lady Friday yesterday. However, I shall have to put the fourth book on hold whilst I re-read The House in Norham Gardens ready to start the Book Discussion on Tuesday. I'm also reading Paul Parsons' fascinating and very readable The Science of Doctor Who. Oh and I shall soon start researching for a third Who story featuring my original companion - so that means there will continue to be only a few book reviews each week.

* * * * * *

If you can get to Bristol's Forbidden Planet on Saturday March 17 from 1 - 2 pm, Diana Wynne Jones and Stephen Hunt will be appearing with four members of the Write Fantastic collective: Juliet E McKenna, Stan Nichols, Marc Chadbourn and Jessica Rydill. Fortunately it's a free event, and I've got a lift to get there and back too, so I'll be able to go - and maybe I'll even find something half way intelligent (or intelligible !) to say to Diana Wynne Jones, whose books I've admired since I read Fire and Hemlock (Of course, I'll have to be forcibly restrained from looking at all the lovely "Doctor Who" goodies!)

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Aussie Diana Wynne Jones covers.

The first came out last year...


That's the Aussie paperback version.

The next according to the Misrule blog is a new on coming out in March and edited by Sharyn November. This is the cover that apparently will be found in Australia, Britain, AND America.


I like the first. The verdict is being weighed on the second.

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