Bakura

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

First teaser trailer: Tomorrow When the War Began

(this is just an image. Link to trailer in next paragraph)

Yes, as of 9am this morning there is a teaser trailer for Tomorrow When the War Began (film based on John Marsden's very popular novels). I couldn't embed it, so don't click on the image above as it's just an image. If you want to see the trailer you will find it if you click here.

The trailer includes a website at the end, http://www.twtwb.com/ but when I just checked it I got an error message - maybe it will go live Any Day Now - worth bookmarking, anyhoo. According to imdb, the film's release date in Australia is 2 September 2010.

Just in time for Trailer Time at lunch today - woohoo!

Cheers

Ruth

Trailer Time Easter 2010

Today at lunchtime (in the second half, about 20 min) I plan to run Trailer Time, a bunch of book-related film trailers (candy-coated get-'em-reading propaganda).

Read all about the mechanics, hints'n'tips here at my original entry about Trailer Time (GIFSL* 42, and thus potentially the answer to life, the universe and everything).

Monday, March 29, 2010

Children's Book Council of Australia 2010 Shortlist

Find it here.

Initial reactions:

the older readers list titles (most relevant for a high school library) aren't ones yet that have garnered much of a following among my kids - they've been in the collection for varying amounts of time, but none have yet set the world on fire. Hmmm. I'll cherrypick from the picture books and information books lists with my high schoolers in mind.
I could sit here and reformat the list for publication on this blog as I've done in other years (A), or I could leave school at a respectable hour (B).
(B). It's been a wet day, madly busy, a lunchtime that was crammed in the library, computer breakdowns all day. You're all well able to click a link, aren't you? Ciao!

Cheers

Ruth

Naming fantasy book characters

Imogen Russell Williams in the Guardian's book blog has an enjoyable rant/discussion about the names of characters in fantasy novels. As I've been working my way through the audio books of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (so I'll be absolutely ready for the next volume later this year), this conclusion about Novik being a superb namer rang true with me:

Naomi Novik, whose dragon breeds range from the sturdily English (Regal Copper, Winchester) to the sneakily French (the dark Fleur-de-Nuit, used for night attacks, and the Flamme-de-Gloire, a dangerous fire-breather).

Could be a good piece to share with your English teachers. I'm sure kids would have sturdy opinions on character names. (Gratuitous insertion of one of the book covers - love those black and white UK edition covers!).

The Guardian's online Books site has so many wonderful resources. Worth checking regularly.

Cheers

Ruth

Sunday, March 28, 2010

A week without books

Bibi Van Der Zee, a constant reader, describes her week without books in this article in the Guardian.

A couple of quotes:

I decided to try giving up books for a week because I have come to the point where I wonder if they are holding me back. On the whole, the world seems to think that books are always a good thing, that you can never get too much of them. People admit to being bookworms in the same way they admit to being "just too tidy really", or "a bit of a workaholic".

***
But the rest of me is missing books like a drug, to the extent that I start to wonder if it actually is some kind of drug. The odd thing is that when I try to find out more about it, about whether reading fiction produces some kind of hormone in your mind, no one seems to know. Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard Library and a specialist in the history of the book, tells me: "Reading is mysterious, and we don't really understand how it is that we make sense of these signs that are embedded in paper or on computer screens. There have been attempts by cognitive scientists to measure the chemical exchanges in the brain, but as far as I can tell no scientist has really fully explained it. They're working on it."

So we don't know exactly what is happening, how the piles of pages or markings on the screen are transformed into other worlds inside our minds. But we do know that our brain experiences what the characters we are reading about experience.

***
Books, I realise, have been one of my longest, truest friends. When I'm anxious, sad, angry, in need of comfort, a book is often the first place I will go...

The day that the ban is lifted, I wait until the children have gone to bed, and then pick up the novel I was halfway through when the axe fell, pour a glass of wine and settle down with it, a bit worried that somehow (like the first puff of a fag when you've given up smoking for a while) it won't be as good as before, that somehow I will have spoilt it.

But there's no need to worry. Immediately, it is as if the wardrobe doors to Narnia have been thrown open again and thousands of other technicolour lives have tumbled straight back out from that eighth dimension inside my head. Day-to-day life just fades out, I stop worrying, stop twitching and just forget who or where I am for a gorgeous hour. ...reader, I am never giving up books again.

***

Cheers

Ruth

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Quote of the Day

Student examines a copy of the graphic novel version of Twilight.

Miss, Edward's head is a disco ball.

!!

Cheers

Ruth

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

Some time ago, Elmore Leonard wrote his ten rules for writing fiction (eg. you can have two or three exclamation marks per 100,000 words of prose, and no more). Successful author without a doubt, worth reading ditto. The Guardian (UK) recently invited a number of other writers to contribute their rules, and published them in two parts.

Part one (which starts with Elmore Leonard's list)
Part two

One of the points made by Wolf Hall's author, Hilary Mantel:

Description must work for its place. It can't be simply ornamental. It usually works best if it has a human element; it is more effective if it comes from an implied viewpoint, rather than from the eye of God. If description is coloured by the viewpoint of the character who is doing the noticing, it becomes, in effect, part of character definition and part of the action.

Michael Moorcock mentions the Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot. Which is at the very least worth discussing with kids writing creative pieces; I've pointed it out to some kids doing Extension 2 English major works as well (where plots can sag under the weight of Beeeyooootiful Writting (sic). Also, it's fun.

FOURTH 1500 WORDS

1--Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.
2--Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl is presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)
3--The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.

Cheers

Ruth

PS. Heads-up: In the second part, Will Self contributes in his point 10 a suggestion you might like to review before blithely handing this out to your class. Sigh. He could have made the same point differently, but I guess the temptation to be an enfant terrible (although he's perhaps a tad old to be an enfant terrible) was too great (and nor does the paper have any requirement censor to school-level).

PPS. I'm too old to be an enfant terrible too. I'm just sayin'.