Author: johblogs

Stalker by Hazel Edwards

I was amazed to read on the blurb of this book that Hazel Edwards has written 131 books. That is a lot of books. I am sure I have probably read some of them, I just don’t remember them. Hazel’s Wikipedia entry says she has written 161. That is very productive. She also attended Traralgon High School for a part of her education according to Wikipedia.

Stalker was a light read. It gives an insight into the way radio works. It’s about a young volunteer radio announcer who receives a lot of unwelcome attention that ends in a conviction for the stalker. It’s an interesting topic in view of the information many put on the Internet now. How easy would it be for someone to collect enough information about a person to intimidate them?

I recently showed an Internet safety video to my students. The year 7’s took it more to heart than the year 9’s, who seemed to think they knew all there was to know about this sort of thing.

I saw ‘Everyone Knows Your Name’ on YouTube today. Whilst I don’t want people to live in fear of the Internet, I guess it’s important for all of us to think before we post, for lots of reasons. A good reminder.

CBCA Awards 2007 Shortlist

I finally looked at the CBCA Awards shortlist today and looked forward to reading the books on the list. I read most of the shortlist last year and totally enjoyed them. It’s great to look forward to winter with a list of books to read that are almost guaranteed to be great. I have included a new tag “CBCA Awards” in my blog. I’ll have to go back and add it to all the books I read from the list and mentioned on this blog last year. My apologies to readers with feeds who may get these posts reposted.

I have already had the pleasure of reading “Red Spikes” by Margo Lanagan. It is a collection of amazing and wonderful short stories and is my favourite so far! There is a great story ‘Under Hell, Over Heaven’ in there based on the Catholic concept of Limbo. I wonder if the Pope read this story too as he has recently made some changes.