Margaret Wild is a much-loved, award-winning author with over 70 titles to her name, having great success with acclaimed books including Fox, The Very Best of Friends, Harry and Hopper, Lucy Goosey, Davy and the Duckling, and The Treasure Box. Her books extend to a wide range of themes, and are characteristically known for their […]
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By: [email protected],
on 6/29/2015
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book News, Fox, Walker Books, Children's Book Council of Australia, margaret wild, New Book Releases, Judith Rossell, Little Hare Books, Harry and Hopper, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Ritva Voutila, The Treasure Box, The Stone Lion, Romi Sharp, Bogtrotter, Davy and the Duckling, Lucy Goosey, Picture Book of the Year Awards, The Very Best of Friends, Add a tag
By: [email protected],
on 8/17/2014
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mr Chicken lands on London, picture book reveiws, Book News, children's picture books, Book Week, CBCA, New Frontier Publishing, Libby Hathorn, Little Hare, New Book Releases, Allen & Unwin, leigh hobbs, Old Tom, Dimity Powell, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Sophie Norsa, Ritva Voutila, Add a tag
By: [email protected],
on 5/25/2014
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's picture books, margaret wild, New Book Releases, Little Hare Books, acts of kindness, Dimity Powell, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Ritva Voutila, The Stone Lion, review, Book News, Add a tag
By: Wendy Orr,
on 12/8/2012
Blog: Wendy Orr's author journal (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's literature, kids' books, story telling, book excerpt, Ritva Voutila, Poppy's Path, Add a tag
By: Wendy Orr,
on 12/7/2012
Blog: Wendy Orr's author journal (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's literature, art books, Kid Lit, Oscar Wilde, Selfish Giant, Ritva Voutila, picture books, Add a tag
This is one of the most stunning picture books I’ve ever seen. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since Ritva used the winter picture on the invitation as an e-Christmas card last year. And despite having been to Melbourne on Monday and Tuesday, and my horror of going there more than once a week (or once a month!) there was no way I was going to miss the launch – I wanted to see those paintings ‘live.’ They were as wonderful as I’d expected from that sneak peek, but the book is even better. It’s beautiful not just to see, but to hold; everything about it is beautifully crafted: the binding, paper quality, design... The words, of course, are Oscar Wilde’s, so they’re hard to improve on, but the paintings have added further depth – and I love how she’s humanised the giant. He looks an 18th century country gentleman, just oversized. Reading the story unillustrated, I’ve always pictured a Jack the Giant Killer type of giant – this version makes much more sense. 
The exhibition, at Melbourne Art Rooms, 418 Bay St, Port Melbourne, is up till 20 December. And if you can’t buy any of the paintings (those that weren’t sold last night!), you can get them all inside the book. (That was what I decided to do.) The book is published by Allen & Unwin Australia and should be available in all good bookshops.
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By: [email protected],
on 6/29/2015
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book News, Fox, Walker Books, Children's Book Council of Australia, margaret wild, New Book Releases, Judith Rossell, Little Hare Books, Harry and Hopper, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Ritva Voutila, The Treasure Box, The Stone Lion, Romi Sharp, Bogtrotter, Davy and the Duckling, Lucy Goosey, Picture Book of the Year Awards, The Very Best of Friends, Add a tag
By: [email protected],
on 8/17/2014
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mr Chicken lands on London, picture book reveiws, Book News, children's picture books, Book Week, CBCA, New Frontier Publishing, Libby Hathorn, Little Hare, New Book Releases, Allen & Unwin, leigh hobbs, Old Tom, Dimity Powell, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Sophie Norsa, Ritva Voutila, Add a tag
Today officially heralds the start of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week 2014. This year’s theme: Connect to Reading – Reading to Connect can be interpreted in many ways just as ones connection with art can take place on several levels. I have long purported that the humble picture book is one […]
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By: [email protected],
on 5/25/2014
Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's picture books, margaret wild, New Book Releases, Little Hare Books, acts of kindness, Dimity Powell, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Ritva Voutila, The Stone Lion, review, Book News, Add a tag
When picture books have the ability to make your heart beat a little faster, fill your eyes with tears and send your spirits soaring. When they effortlessly harness thoughts and project feelings with poignant clarity; to say they are exceptional seems woefully insufficient. Rare are the picture books that can fit this bill, yet Margaret Wild has little trouble doing so.
The Stone Lion is her newest picture book with Ritva Voutila (mums with school aged kids may recognise her unique art from the dozens of Storylands Early Readers). The austere cover and title leave little 
doubt as to the subject matter but the subtle beauty of the regal, maned lion crouching upon his engraved stone pedestal (you can really feel it), spur the need to know more about him.
Wild cleverly chisels out a tale of unlikely heroes (the stone lion) and unseemly characters (homeless youths, librarians and gargoyles). There is also the subtle persuasion that hope is determined by the passing of time as shown by the illustrations of swirling leaves, fleeing birds and umbrellas adrift.
The magnificent stone lion statue stationed outside the library dreams of a life more animated if only so he can ‘pounce and prowl and leap’. But one fateful snowy night, he is forced to re-evaluate his own desires when a baby is abandoned at his paws.
Ritva Voutilda’s beautiful, muted pastel illustrations mirror both the stone lion’s cold forlorn heart and the kernel of hope that 
beats within us all. Miracles are easy to believe when they result in great change as The Stone Lion so ably demonstrates.
Using unadorned yet intensely sensitive language, Wild makes us feel something real for something which is unable to feel yet wants to in an incredible allegory about wanting more, accepting less and understanding the power of benevolence.
This is not a picture book brimming with rainbows and lollypops, and sunshine and happiness. But it does sing with a clear purity of heart that kindness is indeed its own reward. The Stone Lion is a picture book older readers will enjoy for its touching and profound celebration of humility.
It is truly exceptional.
Little Hare Books a Hardie Grant Egmont imprint April 2014
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By: Wendy Orr,
on 12/8/2012
Blog: Wendy Orr's author journal (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's literature, kids' books, story telling, book excerpt, Ritva Voutila, Poppy's Path, Add a tag
To follow up from yesterday's post on the art of Ritva Voutila: I'm having trouble attaching a longer excerpt of Poppy's Path on my site, so for Jill and anyone else who wanted to know more, here it is.
One wild wet morning, high in the hills and far away, a baby was born.
Her mother wrapped her in a new red scarf and laid her in a carved wooden cradle to keep her warm and safe.
Then the valley rocked and the mountains thundered. A roaring river burst from the heart of the hills, sweeping fields and forests, carts and cottages, down to the sea. The baby’s cradle became a boat, and she laughed as it leapt down the raging waters.
An eagle plunged from his crag. He skimmed so low that the river splashed his feathers and when he rose again, a red scarf dangled from his beak and in the scarf was a baby.
He flew over the mountains to the village in the valley and laid the baby on the doorstep of a red-roofed cottage. Inside the cottage, an old man and old woman heard the wings and wondered, and came out to see. They did not expect to see a baby on their doorstep, but the villagers often brought them lost animals and birds fallen from their nests, so they were not surprised, but they were very, very happy.
They looked out to see where the baby had come from, but all they saw was an eagle high overhead, and a field of poppies glowing red and bright as the sun came out after the rain.
‘We’ll name her Poppy,’ said the old man.
‘She can be our grand-daughter,’ said the old woman and held her tight.
****ILLUS****
Poppy soon grew tall - ‘like a giraffe,’ teased the boys;
smart - ‘like a monkey,’ laughed the girls,
and brave - ‘like a lion!’ said her grandfather, his eyes shining bright with pride.
Poppy’s hair was red and her eyes were bright; her legs were quick and restless and brown from the sun.
‘I’ve never,’ sighed the teacher in the tidy white school,’ known anyone quite like Poppy.’
Because when everyone else was walking or running or skipping straight from their homes to school every morning, Poppy was having adventures.
‘Do you know what happened?’ she’d ask, when she finally got to the school, opening her eyes round and her arms wide, ‘I found a baby dragon in the cows’ field!’
‘It was a lizard!’ said the boys.
‘A baby dragon,’ insisted Poppy. ‘I picked him up – and then I saw the mother dragon, watching us from high in the air; her scales were gold and red, and her breath was pink.’
‘A cloud in the sunrise!’ said the girls.
‘She bellowed and roared!’ said Poppy. ‘She swooped down beside us so the baby dragon could crawl on her back. They took off again with a great Whoosh!, with the baby dragon squealing and the mother hiccupping flames, then the cows started mooing and the calves started bawling – and the dragons chased the cows round and round the field!’
‘Oh, Poppy!’ said everyone. ‘You’re such a story teller.’
****ILLUS****
Poppy could jump higher, skip longer, whistle louder and run faster than anyone in the village.
‘It’s not fair!’ said the boys. ‘No one can whistle so loud.’
‘Or skip so long!’ said the girls. ‘Not fair!’
‘Why not?’ asked Poppy, jumping over the white school fence and running home before anyone else had time to get out the gate. Because sometimes Poppy wanted to run for as long, as fast and as far as she could from everyone who knew where they belonged and the path that their lives would take.
****ILLUS****
All the other children in the tidy white school knew exactly what they would do when they grew up; the girls would do the work that their mothers had and the boys would follow their fathers. But the raging river had taken Poppy’s mother and father, and she did not know what her place in the world could be.
‘You’ll find it one day,’ said the teacher, but she did not say how.
Sometimes the teacher read them stories from old books of the world outside the valley, of animals they had never seen and people that lived lives they could not imagine. ‘Tell me more,’ begged Poppy.
‘We don’t need stories that aren’t real!’ said the boys.
‘We want stories about us and our village!’ said the girls.
‘Those are all the stories I have,’ said the teacher to Poppy. ‘But I think there must be more, out in the world where there are people to tell them and people to hear.’
‘Maybe if I hear all the stories there are to be heard,’ thought Poppy, ‘I’ll find the way that my life should be.’
0 Comments on Poppy's Path excerpt as of 12/8/2012 9:17:00 PM
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By: Wendy Orr,
on 12/7/2012
Blog: Wendy Orr's author journal (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's literature, art books, Kid Lit, Oscar Wilde, Selfish Giant, Ritva Voutila, picture books, Add a tag
This is one of the most stunning picture books I’ve ever seen. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since Ritva used the winter picture on the invitation as an e-Christmas card last year. And despite having been to Melbourne on Monday and Tuesday, and my horror of going there more than once a week (or once a month!) there was no way I was going to miss the launch – I wanted to see those paintings ‘live.’ They were as wonderful as I’d expected from that sneak peek, but the book is even better. It’s beautiful not just to see, but to hold; everything about it is beautifully crafted: the binding, paper quality, design... The words, of course, are Oscar Wilde’s, so they’re hard to improve on, but the paintings have added further depth – and I love how she’s humanised the giant. He looks an 18th century country gentleman, just oversized. Reading the story unillustrated, I’ve always pictured a Jack the Giant Killer type of giant – this version makes much more sense. 
The exhibition, at Melbourne Art Rooms, 418 Bay St, Port Melbourne, is up till 20 December. And if you can’t buy any of the paintings (those that weren’t sold last night!), you can get them all inside the book. (That was what I decided to do.) The book is published by Allen & Unwin Australia and should be available in all good bookshops.
I also admit that seeing the exhibition made me feel lucky all over again that Ritva illustrated one of my books, Poppy’s Path, years ago. It was a little chapter book, so they were black and white line drawings: fantastical, perfect, showing definite traits of Ritva's northern European background (Finland) – and totally unique.
All of her art is worth looking at, and The Selfish Giant and its exhibition are a great opportunity.
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| Art from Poppy's Path |
2 Comments on The Selfish Giant lives again - the Art of Ritva Voutila, last added: 12/8/2012
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Great recommendations, thank you! I love Wilde, so it will be great to enjoy him with my children. The illustrations are stunning. What age group would you recommend Poppy's Path for? I love the sound of the story and the illustrations are wonderful. Can it still be bought from you direct? Do you think I could get it before Christmas?
Thanks Jill. I do still have a few spare copies of Poppy's Path - $10 + postage. I think it's probably for ages 6 to 10, or maybe even 11 & 12 if they enjoy that slightly more fairy tale-folk tale type of book - I'm never very good at deciding age groups! I'll post a slightly longer excerpt so you can decide. If you email me at wendyorr1(at)mac.com I can send you payment details and get it off to you in the next couple of days, so it'll easily get there by Christmas. Let me know who you'd like it signed for.