52 Mondays: Book Launch!

This morning I went to Reading’s in Hawthorn for the launch of 52 Mondays, by Anna Ciddor. I’ve already read and reviewed it, here. Anna was there with her family, daughter, daughter-in-law, grandchildren and her husband, Gary, with whom I once went to school. Gary was pleased to see me and we had a chat. We discussed the research Anna had to do for her last book, The Family With Teo Front Doors, which was set in a Jewish community in pre-war Poland. He said there had been some interesting problems with talking to ultra-Orthodox Jews, because there are so many different groups, all of whom do things differently. In the end, there were some things she just had to make up and hope she got them right.

 Her granddaughter Amalie was handing out party squeakers for everyone to blow when the book was officially launched. Because it’s a children’s book and has a birthday party in it, the bookshop was set up as a children’s party, with little party cups of sweets, Twisties, fairy bread, and Fanta to drink. There were balloons up too.

When the launch began, there was an intro by her publisher, Susannah Chambers, and a teacher librarian from MLC, the private girls’ school up the road(she read “telegrams” by students who had read and loved the book). Then Anna got up to do her part.

She invited everyone to think of where they had had breakfast this morning, what they had eaten and how breakfast was prepared... then spoke of a breakfast scene in the book and described, in great detail, what breakfast in the 1960s would have been like, equipment not as good as today’s, milk delivered by horse and cart and birds picking through the foil lids to get at the cream!

When she finished, inviting us all to have some of the party stuff they had taken such trouble to set up, everyone blew their squeakers. It was a cheery launch and there were more children than I usually  see at these events. When I lined up to get my book signed, a lady approached me to say she went to school with me. Amazing how many people from my school years remember my face! We talked a bit and she expressed interest in my book Crime Time for one of her younger family members. I did tell her she would have to order it in, as bookshops didn’t stock it these days. She asked carefully about just how gruesome it was. I said, “This is a children’s book!” Which it is. It’s just gruesome enough for kids to say happily, “Oh, yuk!” but not enough to give them bad dreams.

I got my book signed - the usual “Thanks for your support!” I get from every single writer who knows me, and whose work I have reviewed - and said my farewells before departing. It was a warm day today - despite the season chang, it still feels like summer!