Tag: reading

CBCA Winners 2007

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2007 Winners
I am delighted that ‘Red Spikes’ has won the Older Readers category. Although I totally enjoyed each book that was shortlisted and we are considering using ‘Don’t Call Me Ishmael’ for our year 9s, my favourite’s were ‘Red Spikes’ and ‘The Red Shoe’. Margo Lanagan is an amazing writer and I have another of her earlier books to enjoy when I have completed two others I have began.
Catherine Bateson has taken out the Younger Readers book of the year with ‘Being Bee’. I am yet to read the rest of this category, but I can say I really enjoyed this one.
I am even less familiar with the other categories the CBCA Award Winners for 2007, I enjoyed Shaun Tan’s ‘The Arrival’, which won the Picture book category as well as the Honour books for the 2007 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books.

Sally Murphy at Scribblings has a great post on the CBCA Junior Judges Project. She has also created a list of 12 books to read before you turn 12. I want to create my own and will attempt it on the weekend perhaps.

Recapping My Weekend

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Pa
Pa is back in hospital again. He turned 87 on the 8th. I haven’t been able to see him for a week because I had the flu again and didn’t want to expose him to it. I am worried about him.
Lovely Saturday Afternoon Visit
Visited Andy’s mum on Saturday afternoon. She’s had a delightful renovation done on her back veranda. I am very impressed. White rooms, floor, ceiling, walls, big windows, white mermot blinds and gorgeous red leather couches and mats. I should have taken a photo. That room was appealing. I had a divine and tasty lunch and was fed so well it brought back my nana’s cooking.
Saturday Night Taxi Service
My good friend Rhonda and I put their theatre room to good use whilst spending the time between depositing the young people at their parties and returning to get them home. We watched ‘Thank You for Smoking’. Possibly not a great choice for my quitting phase, yet it didn’t do too much damage.
Housework – Bare Minimum
Enough said. Changed the sheets, a touch of vacuuming – blah.
Reading
I started ‘Boys of Blood and Bone’ by David Metzenthen this weekend. I have a pile of good books again and I feel really good about that. When I had the flu, it came when my pile of books had been down to the last unread one. It was kind of scary. When I went to work/school on Friday, I ensured I visited the library and restocked my pile. I have one from the CBCA Awards list – an Elizabeth Honey, one of my favourites as well as the James Moloney sequel to ‘The Book of Lies’, ‘Master of the Books’. It’s helping with the pain of finishing Harry Potter.

Now I will go to bed early and read!

‘the best thing’ by Margo Lanagan

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First Impressions
‘the best thing’ by Margo Lanagan was a very interesting read. About half way through I nearly abandoned it, finding it mundane and sad and too real to be readable. I’m glad I hung in there.
Mothering
I loved the way Margo Lanagan describes the passage of pregnancy and childbirth and the early days of mothering. Her protagonist is a young woman, yet I found it a description that closely resembled the feelings I had when I was a slightly older young mother.
Margo Lanagan’s Writing
I discussed Margo Lanagan’s writing today with a colleague and we both agreed it wasn’t always easy to read, not that it was difficult to understand, it was emotionally confronting. I always find her writing rewarding though precisely because it is confronting.
Short Story vs Novel
When I started the novel, I wondered if I didn’t prefer Lanagan’s writing in short story form as I had loved the three anthologies of short stories I had read ‘Red Spikes‘, ‘Black Juice’ and ‘White Time’. At the conclusion of this novel, I find that I love her writing in both forms. She cuts to the heart of what’s really important and describes it beautifully. It is truly a vibrant and triumphant tale that is gutsy in it’s subject choice as well as the depth it delves into.

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