Lili Wilkinson

I saw a documentary at MIFF on the weekend called The Delian Mode.

It was about Delia Derbyshire (great name), who worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s. Delia was a mathematician and musician, incredibly talented, innovative and eccentric. She’s best known for creating the Doctor Who theme music. When composer Ron Grainer first heard Delia’s version, he asked “did I really write this?”. Delia replied, “most of it.” She had spunk.

No computers. No synthesisers. Every sound painstakingly recorded to tape, then sped up or slowed down, cut, spliced on to a line of tape hundreds of meters long. Multiple sounds combined, not with a multitrack, but by simultaneously pressing “play” on 8 different tape-players and hoping they stayed in sync.

Delia was a visionary, a scientist and an artist. One of her early pieces of work could easily be played in a nightclub and pass as trance music – but it was created 30 years before trance developed.

She was certainly eccentric – she drank too much and lived a peculiar, isolated life (she was a hoarder, and said that when her house got too messy she just moved) until her first marriage in 1974.

The documentary featured interviews with electronic musicians Peter Kember (Sonic Boom) and Adrian Utley (Portishead), who said that because of the ambient soundscapes created by the BBC in the 60s and 70s, listeners were primed for electronic music. It was something they’d grown up with, as ordinary and commonplace as listening to BBC radio on a Sunday afternoon.

Delia died in 2001, age 64. She was incredibly excited about the new possibilities of electronic music and computers, and was still working on new projects. She hated all subsequent Doctor Who themes, regarding hers as the very best. I’ll let you be the judge of that:

Adele from Persnickety Snark is compiling a list of the Top 100 YA Novels of All Time. I’ve just agonised over my own personal Top 10 to add to the list. It was HARD, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some. But here they are:

1. Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
2. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
3. Ready or Not by Meg Cabot
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
5. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
6. Mandragora by David McRobbie
7. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
8. Skellig by David Almond
9. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
10. Abyssinia by Ursula Dubosarsky

I actually started with a list of 20, and getting it down to 10 felt a bit like murder. So here’re the runners-up, all of which I also adore:

Del Del by Victor Kelleher
So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Forever by Judy Blume
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
Space Demons by Gillian Rubenstein
Doing It by Melvin Burgess
48 Shades of Brown by Nick Earls
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

What are yours?

It’s lovely when things just come to you, unexpectedly.

I got an email about a month ago from a kindly soul who said she had an old Collins’ dictionary that was inscribed to a Lily Wilkinson in 1924, and would I like to have it?

It was her husband’s, the kindly soul told me. He used it to learn English when he first came to Australia. It’s such a beautiful little dictionary, with lovely little woodcut illustrations.

The inscription says “To Lily, with love and best wishes from E Anderson, 2.11.24″, and above it is written “Miss L Wilkinson, Post OFfice, Woodford”. I’m not sure if it’s a Woodford in Queensland or England or the US, and I’m pretty sure that this Lily Wilkinson isn’t directly related to me (surely Family History Mother would know if she was), but now I’m all afire with curiosity to learn who she was.

In her email, Joanna (the kindly soul) said this: “Only if ‘old books’ could talk… you could find out so much more.”

She’s right, and yet I also love the mystery of an unknown Lily Wilkinson. She could have been anyone. I wonder what her favourite word in the dictionary was.

I’m pretty sure this dictionary will make its way into a novel or story sooner or later, so thank you, Joanna, for this amazing and generous gift!

I wasn’t going to write this post, after reading everyone else’s 2009 wrap-ups, but people convinced me.

A lot of people I care about had a crappy 2009. I didn’t.

2009 started well, surrounded by my friends in Philip Island. Then Michael came into my life and made everything just that little bit more awesome. I’ve never felt so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful, inspirational, supportive people.

It’s also been a bloody good year for writing. I was a guest at the Edinburgh Book Festival and did about a zillion school visits which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had two books published, Angel Fish and Pink. I’m especially proud of Pink because it’s the first book I’ve written that I wasn’t commissioned to write, it was all me. It’s been so exciting to see it do well, and I can’t wait for it to come out in the US next year and see what they make of it. This year I’ve also sold books to the UK, Italy, China and Turkey, and I saw my first international editions (the UK and German versions of Scatterheart).

I did NaNoWriMo, which nearly killed me but felt like a pretty awesome achievement. I baked Christmassy things. I learnt how to use a sewing machine. My cat that I’d had since grade 5 died. I visited my senile grandmother and was pretty sure she had no idea who I was. I helped deliver another successful Reading Matters. I turned 28. I fell in love. I joined a writers’ group. I walked along Hadrian’s Wall for three days. I learnt the six steps of drinking whisky. I read lots of books. I finally started watching Battlestar Galactica.

I’ve watched people I love be sad this year, and struggle, and make hard decisions. And sometimes I feel guilty, because my life is pretty damn awesome. But guilt is a useless emotion, so my New Year’s Resolution is to feel lucky instead of guilty. And take the awesome while it’s here, and acknowledge that I’ve worked damn hard for it.

I’m really looking forward to 2010. I’m looking forward to writing a lot, and getting better at it as I do. I’m looking forward to reading exciting new things. I’m looking forward to all the adventures that life presents (except for the complicated provisional tax thingy the ATO wants me to do). And most of all I’m looking forward to spending time with the people I love, and doing everything I can to make their 2010 as awesome as my 2009 was.

Happy New Year!

The fabulous Steph at Hey, Teenager of the Year! has just become the first ever reviewer of Pink. I like the bit where she says “The distinct theme of this novel is ‘it’s okay if you’re not sure’ – not an issue that’s common in YA literature at the moment, but which is masterfully handled in Pink.”

Those of you who aren’t super-cool teenage bloggers and didn’t get ARCs have to wait until August to read it.

Also, how cool is the new Girlfriend Fiction ad? I want that T shirt.

Let me tell you a story.

It starts with philosophy, and then moves through feminism, politics, graveyards, literature, monsters real and imagined, syphilis and ends up with, of all things, the humble computer. And it’s ALL TRUE.

So there was this guy, right? William Godwin. He was a political philosopher and novelist in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. He wrote a book called Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams, which is said to be the first mystery novel.

William married a lady called Mary. Mary Wollstonecraft, to be precise. You may have heard of her. She is one of the pioneers of modern feminism, and wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, where she argues that women aren’t inferior to men at all, they are just not as well educated. And wouldn’t it be nice, if everyone were treated as rational people and our social order was founded on reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary had a few children (some illegitimately), but we’re going to focus on her namesake, Mary Godwin. Mary Wollstonecraft died when baby Mary was only ten days old, so little Mary was brought up by her father and given a somewhat eccentric education. The story goes that William Godwin taught her to read by tracing her little pudgy fingers over the letters on her mother’s tombstone. He said, of Mary:

“She is singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible.”

Mary Shelley

Mary, it seemed, was destined for great things. And here’s where it gets interesting.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was estranged from his aristocratic family and his pregnant wife, because of his interest in radicalism. He was drawn to William Godwin’s political theory, and offered to pay off Godwin’s debts. Then he met Mary, who was seventeen at the time (Shelley was 22). They began secretly seeing each other. When William Godwin found out, he was mightily annoyed (especially since the debt-paying-off never eventuated), and Mary and Percy ran away together to live in sin.

A few years and a miscarriage later, Mary and Percy found themselves in Geneva with their friend Lord Byron, who was having an affair with Mary’s stepsister, Claire.

They rented the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, and basically just hung out writing, boating and talking late into the night. Also there was John William Polidori, a romantic novelist.

One particularly wet and rainy afternoon, Byron suggested they all write a supernatural story to entertain each other. Polidori wrote a short story that is basically the reason why teenage girls go weak at the knees at the mention of Edward Cullen – the story, Vampyre, is acknowledged to be the beginning of the vampire genre.

Mary also started what she thought would be a short story, but ended up being Frankenstein.

We’re going to follow this story on a slightly different path now, for the final chapter. Lord Byron had two daughters. The second was with Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s stepsister. This illegitimate daughter, Allegra, died aged 5.

The other daughter was Ada, also known as The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron, or, later, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, or, now, Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace is perhaps best known as being the first computer programmer. Well, sort of. She worked with Charles Babbage on a sort of theoretical predecessor to the modern computer. She also recongised that computers were capable of much more than just calculating numbers, which was something that no one (including Babbage) had ever considered.

Ada’s mother was very worried that her daughter might succumb to the madness of her father (you know, the syphilis, incest, sexual promiscuity that Byron is famed for), so she had Ada privately tutored in science and mathematics for a young age (the best way to stave off madness, as I’m sure you all know, is quadratic equations).

She was good mates with Charles Dickens, and also with Babbage, who said this about her:

Forget this world and all its troubles and if

possible its multitudinous Charlatans — every thing

in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.

So here we are, at the end of our story. Or the beginning. Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and I have pledged to blog about women in science. Although I ended up blogging about women in political science and science fiction, as well as the ordinary kind of science.

I think perhaps one day I will write a novel about this strange dynasty of women. But in the meantime, if you want to hang out in Ada's world a little more, I can recommend Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine.

Remember when David Levithan came to Melbourne and made this speech, talking about killing the vampires for young (queer) teens?

Here is a machinima version of the original Die, Vampire, Die! song from [title of show]. Highly recommended for anyone who ever feels the pain of creativity.

(via Brooklyn Arden)

On Sunday, 50 young people, six authors and other assorted interested/ing individuals gathered at the State Library, to hear two additional authors talk about stuff, and eat cake.

The authors on stage were Simmone Howell and Justine Larbalestier. They were awesome. It was all awesome. The cake was awesome.

And it made me really happy, because it kind of felt like coming home. I’ve been working at the Centre for Youth Literature for nearly six years now*, but I’ve been involved for a lot longer.

The first CYL event I went to, a Bookgig at St Martin’s Youth Arts Theatre. It was 1993. I was 12. The author was Isobelle Carmody, the book was The Gathering. I went to a whole lot of Bookgigs as a kid, and loved them all. Talking about books with other young people and Real Live Authors seemed to be pretty much the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and I’m pleased to say that it still is.

Here’s a photo of that first Bookgig. See if you can find Tiny Lili**.

*ZOMG.

**Clue: Jeans too short. White socks. Otherwise, I haven’t really changed.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

I’ve always appreciated Barbie. 

Barbie is the kind of woman who says ‘Hey, girls! You can be a surgeon or a sign language teacher or a UN Ambassador or an astronaught or a paleontologist. And wear a nice hat and pretty shoes.’ Barbie had careers. Barbie ran for President in 2000, long before Hillary or Palin came on the political scene. Barbie was never defined by her male partners. And Barbie showed us that deformity can be beautiful too. We don’t judge Barbie for her scary legs or her twisted pointy feet.

Barbie is equal opportunity. She has black and Hispanic friends, as well as a friend with cerebral palsy, who gets around in a pink wheelchair. She cares about the environment, and about children’s rights.

In the current billion-dollar lawsuit of Barbie vs Bratz, I am 100% on Barbie’s side.

And now, Barbie’s latest campaign is for the smart girl. She’s launched a web TV show with Amy Pohler (of SNL fame), called Smart Girls At The Party. It’s basically a show that celebrates smart girls – girls who write, read, play music and think. I highly recommend.

You know the one age group of Californians who voted against Proposition 8?

CNN exit poll*

Vote by Age Yes No?

18-29 39 61?

30-44 55 45?

45-64 54 46?

65+ 61 39

Proposition 8, for those of you who might not know, was a proposed constitutional amendment that would make gay marriage illegal in California. It passed, being the one nasty small-minded smudge on what was otherwise a proud day for America.

But have a look at those numbers. The only group who voted No – voted against discrimination – was the young people.

Have a look at this map, sent to me by the wondrous Snazzy.

It’s often easy to cry that the world is going to hell-in-the-proverbial, but sometimes it helps to take a step back. Yes, there is still sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, religious fanaticism, poverty, discrimination, global warming and racism in the world. But we’re getting better. Overall, long-term, things are getting better. And from what I see in the world, and what the data above suggests, is that, over time, we are becoming more open-minded, more unprejudiced, more understanding**.

Here, also from Snazzy, is a letter written by an eight-year-old Filipino-American girl to Barack Obama with some advice about a dog, and a request that he make a law that requires everyone to recycle, and also ban unnecessary wars***.

In Obama’s response, he writes, “I want you to look up the word ‘empathy’ in the dictionary. I believe we don’t have enough empathy in our world today, and it is up to your generation to change that… I hope you will always be an active participant in the world around you, and that you will seize every opportunity to make the world better. Seeing young people like you who care about making things better inspires me and gives me great hope about the future of our country.”

In today’s New York Times Op-Ed, Al Gore proposes to make all of the US’s electricity renewable within 10 years. The article is passionate and practical, and I highly recommend you read it (especially you, Mr Rudd). But here is the bit that made me cry:

Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves.

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama’s campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.

People often ask me why I write for teenagers. This is why.

______________________________

*Nicked from this post by Justine.

**I was going to say “more tolerant”, but I’ve made a personal pledge to stop using that word. The dictionary tells me that “tolarate” means “to accept or endure something unpleasant or disliked with forbearance”. It’s a horrible thing to say (I’m looking at YOU, Palin).

***She is an Obama fan despite the fact that her parents are named John and Cindy. For serious.

So I’ve been following the US election pretty… obsessively. Like, REALLY obsessively.

And there are a few people who have been eyerolling me whenever I mention it. Because, after all, it isn’t MY country. I didn’t vote. It isn’t MY president. Why should I care?

This is, of course, ridiculous.

I’m sick of people saying “they’re all the same”. I’m sick of people saying “one vote never made a difference”. This is nonsense. Every vote makes a difference. And they are not the same.

I’ve got a lot more to say on this particular issue, but I’m very tired, so for now I’ll just say – today was a good day to be alive. I’m off to bed with the knowledge that when I wake up tomorrow morning, the world will be a little bit better than it was this morning.

Reading one of Margo Lanagan‘s short stories is like running across sizzling tarmac and then plunging into a deep pool of clear, cold water. It’s an enormous shock to the system, but it’s wonderful. Except by the time you’ve acclimatised to the cold, you have to haul yourself out of the pool and sprint across the tarmac again before you can jump in the next pool and start all over again. It’s an amazing experience, reading a book like Black Juice or Red Spikes. But it takes work.

So I admit I was a little nervous about Tender Morsels. I thought it would be hard work. I knew it would be beautiful – it’s Margo, after all, and she is one of the greatest writers in Australia. But I thought it would be one of those books you had to push yourself through.

I was wrong.

Tender Morsels sucked me in from the opening sentence*, and kept me held tight until it rather cruelly spat me out at the end. It is gripping and sad and beautiful. The language is breathtakingly stunning. The characters are real and wonderful. It takes old and tired elements of fantasy – magic, medieval villages, wolves, bears** - and reinvents them, new, glittering, fascinating.

I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if (especially if) you are one of those frankly unenlightened people who thinks they don’t like fantasy.

It’s published here as an adult novel, in the US and UK as YA. I think it’s both. It’s crossover. There are… controversial bits.

Read more in this interview with Margo, which includes a lolsome fictional grilling from Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert. Here’s a sample:

Well, after Jon/Stephen had mentioned all Tender Morsels‘ sexual content and general weirdness and darkness, and waved the book around and asked “What is in the WATER down there in Australia, that your young people read this sort of story?,” I would say:

“This book sits right on the upper edge of the YA category, and in fact in Australia it’s fallen right off the fence and is published as an adult book. But, categories-schmategories, Jon/Stephen – this is just a story. I’m going for a sense of story that may be hardwired into us, or at least is laid down when we’re very young, and never goes away. If you’ve ever enjoyed being creeped out by a campfire story, or enchanted by a fairy tale – or in fact if you’ve ever had an imaginary refuge that you go to in your head, a mountain cave or a sunlit forest glade – you’ll like Tender Morsels. This story is the kind that pushes everyday life out of your head completely.”

JON/STEPHEN: And replaces it with fornicating bears?

MARGO: Well, bears have gotta do what they gotta do, no? And I have it on good authority, from one grown-up female reader, that some of these bears are dead sexy. There’s a lot of bad sex in this story, but the bears get some of the good stuff.

She’s right. The bears are totally hot.

_____________________________

*For those of you who have read the book: yeah, that pun was intentional.

**The BEARS. Oh, Margo! The BEARS. I loved them so very much.

1. SPRING.
2. Muppets.
3. People who pack out ACMI cinemas to watch Muppets.
4. Especially the guy who gasped in horror in The Dark Crystal when [a spoilery thing happened near the end].
5. Text messages.
6. Brownies.
7. The Spensley Street kids who recognised me on the street the other day.
8. Spensley Street kids in general.
9. Babies who can roll over.
10. Skype.

Last week, Melbourne became a UNESCO International City of Literature.

It’s been a long time coming – Melbourne has always been a very literary place. I’m writing this post in a pretty literary building – the State Library of Victoria. Marcus Clarke used to work here, as well as a host of other awesomely literary luminaries. The Library will also be home, next year, to the Centre for Books and Ideas, being the Melbourne Writers Festival, the Victorian Writers Centre, the National Poetry Centre, the Emerging Writers Festival and Express Media.

I love Melbourne. I love its cafes and bookshops and bars and libraries and laneways and did I mention bars? And I love the way, in the middle of winter, hoardes of Melburnians brave the cold and the rain and line up for hours to see some obscure German film at the Film Festival, or see a motley bunch of writers talk about themselves at the Writers Festival.

I love this. I love the way Melburnians get out there. I love the way we think about things and talk about ideas and sure, a lot of us are total wankers, but I kind of love that too (from a distance).

I’ve been involved in the Writers Festival for the past three years, but this is the first time I’ve really felt like I belonged. It’s like I’ve hit critical mass – last year I had one non-fiction book out, and a forthcoming novel – now I have two novels and anthology with my name on the cover. I can say I’m an author and not feel like I need to justify it. I know people, this time. YA people, publishing people, Express Media people, and many others.

It’s my town. My City of Literature. And at the risk of sounding like a greeting card – it’s yours too.

Nicely timed with the Writers Festival…

(via Kirsty Murray)

So it’s a year since Harry Potter mania peaked and then disappeared. We all got over it. We read the epilogue and said “ORLY, JK? Albus Severus? For cereal?”. And now a year on most of us look back on those years with a slight nostalgic confusion – what were we thinking?

Except for me. (and Hank).

I am more obsessed with Harry Potter than I ever was when HP mania was around. I’m sure you all remember my snarky comments about plotholes and adverbs. I read the books, I enjoyed the books, then I enjoyed criticising the books. It was my Thing.

So what’s the deal?

The deal, my friends, is Sarah Rees Brennan.

She’s a YA author. She has a book of her very own. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure it’s excellent.

She also writes Harry Potter fanfic.

And it’s AMAZING.

It is a hundred squillion times better than anything JK ever wrote. She understands the characters better than JK does. And she certainly understands romance better than JK does.

Anyway. The end of the most recent chapter made me squee like a fangirl. I WANT MORE.

(here’s chapter one, for the interested)

I devoured this book over two days.

It’s scary.

Really scary.

Scary in the way that 1984 is but times a million, because 1984 is about a future that never happened, but Little Brother is about right now.

Basically, it’s about what happens after a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Marcus, a relatively normal 17 year old with a penchant for minor hackery, gets arrested by the Department of Homeland Security for being found near the attack site without a good excuse. He is taken to a secret offshore prison, tortured, and then forced to sign a document stating that he was held voluntarily.

Outside, the DHS is taking over. Civil liberties are being stripped from citizens who happily allow it because it’s making them safer. A general air of terror and paranoia lies over everything. And Marcus can’t help wondering – who are the real terrorists, here?

It’s an extraordinary novel that every teenager should read. Every adult should read it too, but it’s young people who really need to read it. I think it’ll really speak to the new generation of technology and news-savvy kids who are growing up in a world where fear and secrecy are considered to be the same thing as security*.

The world is a scary place, and it’s easy to believe that there’s nothing you can do – especially if you belong to one of the most politically disenfranchised groups of people in the world – young people. Hopefully Little Brother will encourage them to take a little turf back.

You can buy the book here, or download the whole thing for free in just about any format you can imagine here. 

___________________________

*Plus, there’s sex!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

How awesome is English!?

The above is a grammatically correct sentence, using three meanings of the word ‘buffalo’: the bison, the place, and the verb, which means ‘to bully’.

So, it means: the buffalo from Buffalo who are bullied by other buffalo from Buffalo, also bully buffalo from Buffalo.

Getit? No? Here’s the Wikipedia article, which also provides a link to the article on “James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher“.

(from English Russia)

1. I met Julia Gillard today. She was at the launch of the MS Readathon, and said some AWFULLY sensible things about how good it would be if Australia put as much effort into winning at reading, as we did into winning at sport. I have a girl-crush.

2. Boy Toy, by Barry Lyga, is a really good book. I heartily recommend. It’s a story that I’ve read many times before, but never as well as in this case.

3. I am going to pinch two very interesting comments that JL Bell put on Oz and Ends, from a panel:

-”Teen books are like adult books, without all the bullshit.” –H Jack Martin.

-”I thought I’d been condescended to because I’m an Indian. That was nothing compared to the condescended to because I’ve written a YA novel… because I’ve written a book about a 16-year-old, that means I’m a capitalistic whore.” –Sherman Alexie, author of another very good book.

Don’t ever let it be said that craft isn’t awesome. If Architecture in Helsinki AND Tricot Machine are doing it, it’s cool.

Architecture in Helsinki – Like It Or Not from helsinkids on Vimeo.

Tricot Machine – Les Peaux de Lievres

In honour of it being the Melbourne Comedy Festival, I present: The Evolution of a Skit.

Remember the Four Yorkshiremen skit from Monty Python? Well it turns out it wasn’t originally a Python Skit. The first version was on the At Last the 1948 Show, and featured John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman and Graham Chapman.

The Pythons did it some years later, and it’s pretty much the same. Here’s a live version:

And then finally, here’s a more recent live version, with Eddie Izzard, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves and Alan Rickman. They updated it a bit, but it is still full of lolsome goodness.

My favourite book cover of the week:

My favourite headline of the week: Man charged after teen bashed with hedgehog.

My favourite cheezburger of the week:

And here’s an old favourite, with a twist.

Over at insideadog, Maureen Johnson is putting to the test the theory that all books are made better with a zombie.

And you’re invited! Transform a work of existing literature by adding a zombie. You might even win a prize…

Here’s examples from Maureen, Justine and Scott. And here’s mine, with apologies to Walt Whitman:

O ZOMBIE! my Zombie! our fearful trip is done; 

Our bodies weather’d every whack, the brains we sought are nom nom nom; 

Our lunch is near, the bells I hear, the people all screaming, 

While follow eyes the zombie reel, our onslaught grim and daring: 

But O brains! brains! brains!

O the bleeding drops of red, 

Where on the deck my dinner lies, 

Fallen cold and dead.

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

(the rest is here)

Check out Free Rice, a project from poverty.com

For every word you correctly label, poverty.com will donate 10 grains of rice to a developing nation.

It’s procrastination AND worthy AND promotes literacy!

So, if Enid Blyton left secret codes in her books to tell the world how much she hated her first husband… well, that would be Made of Awesome.

But the “clues” that biographer Duncan McClaren found in the Mystery books are… unconvincing. To say the least:

1. Her husband used to drink in the cellar. The bumbling policeman got locked in the cellar. Once.
2. Her husband had no imagination. The bumbling policeman had no imagination.
3. Her husband’s name was Hugh. The bumbling policeman’s name was Theophilus Goon, which anagrams to O Hugh Spoilt One or O Let Hugh Poison.

Yeah? Well it also anagrams to Highest I Polo On and Eighth Oil Spoon. And Sleigh Hop In Too.

There are, in fact 32250 legitimate anagrams of Theophilus Goon. Yep. THIRTY TWO THOUSAND. Secret code my foot.

So let’s give up on that particular “theory”, and look at the awesome new promotion for the Wyoming Library.

I used to love the idea of these books as a kid, but was always deeply disappointed. I also went through a phase where I read those Fighting Fantasy books, which was like a Choose Your Own Adventure but played with dice. Except I always cheated – cause who’s gonna know?

Anyway, for your Friday lolz I purloin present: The Choose Your Own Adventure Novels That Never Quite Made It.

More here. (check out the Deadwood one on page 5 that I am not posting here because of Delicate Young Eyes)

Also, I am guilty of six of the 20 most overused things in YA literature. The shame.

The tiny and delightful Lisa has given me a Thinking Blogger Award. I am quite flattered.

My bloggy birthday passed several months ago, and I didn’t even realise. It’s been lovely and surprising how many people come up to me and tell me that they read (and enjoy) my blog.

Here are the TBA rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

So here are Five Blogs that Make Me Think:
1. Misrule, for thought-provoking and interesting things about the world of children’s and YA lit.
2. Audrey and the Bad Apples, for ranting, raving and being rosy-cheeked, all with astonishing style and poise. (and also for proving that bloggers can become Real Live Friends)
3. eglantine’s cake, which takes equal parts of thinking, feeling and laughing and bakes something very tasty with it all.
4. Justine Larbalestier, who has the amazing gift of being prolific and not-boring at the same time, AND managing to write kick-arse books while she does it.
5. the munkey can type, who doesn’t blog nearly often enough, but when he does it’s always made of awesome. Even when it’s about Big Brother.

Go forth. Read and think.

I have such a complicated relationship with Harry.

I approach him as a reader, a fan, a critic, a children’s literature professional and a writer.

I spent the weekend with my peeps, curled up on sofas under doonas, munching on pumpkin cupcakes and bagels and listening to Snaz read the book aloud. It was awesome. We laughed, we cried, we complained at the huge tracts of exposition. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as I always have whenever I’ve read a HP book.

There are a lot of criticisms I could make, but I’m going to skip over most of them. You can overlook a lot of faults for a book that inspires so much hype, joy, love and enthusiasm.

BUT.

There’s just this one thing.

The muggles.

I really, really, really wanted there to be a Muggle in the final battle. I wanted, just ONCE in the entire 7 part series, for there to be a Muggle who was a Good Guy. Not someone nasty or stupid or ineffectual. Someone GOOD. I really thought that we might see the New Improved Dudley again.

And after the series railed for so long against the Slytherins and Death Eaters for their attitudes towards halfbloods and mudbloods and purebloods – what happened with the Good Guys in the end? All the wizards married wizards and had little pureblood wizard babies. No mixed marriages. No ‘squibs’. It just totally validated everything the bad guys were gunning for.

Even the single interracial relationship (Lupin and Tonks) wasn’t permitted to exist in the Happily Ever After. And tell me Dobby wasn’t totally the black guy who dies in the first half of an action movie.

Finally, I just need to share the cover of Melbourne’s right-wing tabloid propaganda machine Sunday Herald Sun, on the day when most of the English-speaking world were reading Harry Potter:
For a moment I wasn’t sure if I was seeing the Herald Sun or the Daily Prophet. Then I saw that peculiar use of the word Wizard! and wondered if there was a Harry Potter musical.

At the launch of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist*, both Ros Price (the publisher) and David Levithan (one of the two authors) said some very nice things.

I don’t think it’s entirely true to say that the book only got published in Australia because Mike and I pushed so hard for it. The book got published in Australia because it’s fucking awesome. We just pointed that out to some people (okay, everyone we met), and Allen & Unwin were nice enough to listen.

It is very gratifying to learn that, when it comes to YA in Australia, my opinions count for something. It’s flattering. It also feels like a responsibility.

I have a pile of signed books from Reading Matters, from writers who I respect more than I can say. And many of these authors, above their signatures, thanked me for “fighting the good fight”.

This is, in part, a reference to David Levithan’s amazing, moving, provocative and inspiring talk about “Killing the Vampires” and making sure the right books get to the teens who really need to see themselves on the shelves of their library.

I can’t do justice to what he said with a neat summary. You will have to hear it yourselves. It was a talk for librarians, but everyone needs to hear it. At the conference, it received a standing ovation. I was not the only person moved to tears.

And you need to do more than hear it. You need to copy it, you need to put it on your blog, you need to tell people about it, talk about it, think about it. It has a Creative Commons license, so use it as you will.

Help us fight the good fight.

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* review here and first chapter here