The CBCA Shortlist 2013

The theme this year is "Read Across The Universe".

And here it is, this year's short list. Congratulations to those on the list. 

Here is a link to this year's Notables:

http://cbca.org.au/Notables2013.htm

Sorry, but I couldn't get those copied and pasted and some of them were on the short list anyway. I am very pleased to say that Ford Street's anthology Trust Me Too, in which I have a story, got a Notable in the Younger Readers category, though I personally would have put it under Older Readers. It's very disappointing that two of the Ford Street titles entered, Ships In The Field and In The Beech Forest, both reviewed on this blog, didn't even get a Notable. In The Beech Forest is illustrated by Den Scheer, a young woman who is going to become very well known, and one day she will mention in an interview that her first book didn't get into the Crichton Awards for new illustrators. Well, Animalia did make it to the short list but didn't win; the book that did is long forgotten, while Graeme Base continues to rake in the sales, for this and others that have been published since then. Sorry, judges, I know you worked hard and read hundreds of books, but IMO, you got it wrong in this! Perhaps, as I have heard, it was a matter of one vote - and I don't think the Crichtons have a Notable section.  There were some wonderful books that missed out, but that happens in every competition.

I will have to buy at least the Older and Younger Reader books for my library. We have Sea Hearts and Friday Brown in the Older Readers and Pennies For Hitler and After in the Youngers. I've read Sea Hearts, of course, am still reading Friday Brown,  and have After on my iPad. That's a beautiful book, like all the others in that series that began with Once, and our students have been borrowing all of them enthusiastically, from Year 7 students who read the others in primary school, to Year 10 boys who read and loved Once for English Literature Circles in my Year 8 class.

Some of the short listed folk are friends (hi Doug!) or Twitter buddies (hi Vikki, Margo!). And Vikki came to my school once, with the State Library's Teen Booktalkers. She gave a very interesting talk about how she put together her first novel, All I Ever Wanted, and it helped that she has art talent as well as writing!

Interesting to note that three of the five Eve Pownall non fiction books were published by a non-publisher - Art gallery, museum, National Library. Alas, very few regular publishers are buying non-fiction for children these days; it's very hard to sell these books in bookshops, which have no idea how to present them in such a way that buyers will find anything in particular. Allen and Unwin tried, very hard, twice, with True Stories and the It's True! series. They were wonderful books and my school is trying, right now, to get as many of them as possible for our literacy program, but they're out of print, although you can still get some of the books, such as my own Your Cat Could Be A Spy, as POD. I wrote the only non-fiction book for Ford Street, on commission, but it hasn't earned back its advance due to some stuff-ups that happened between distributor and bookshops and then, once it did get to the bookshops, it was put in the adult section. Yet kids LOVE non-fiction. Only recently, two Grade 6 children visiting my school made my day when they approached me to say how much they had enjoyed Crime Time. 

I will have to get students, perhaps book clubbers, to help me read the short listed books and perhaps blog about them or interview the authors.

Book of the Year: Older Readers

These books are for mature readers

Grant, Neil  The Ink Bridge Allen & Unwin 9781742376691

Lanagan, Margo  Sea Hearts Allen & Unwin 9781742375052

MacLeod, Doug   The Shiny Guys  Penguin Group 9780143565307

Touchell, Dianne  Creepy & Maud  Fremantle Press 9781921888953

Wakefield, Vikki  Friday Brown Text Publishing 9781921922701

Zail, Suzy  The Wrong Boy  Black Dog Books, Walker Books Australia 9781742031651

Book of the Year: Younger Readers

French, Jackie  Pennies for Hitler Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins 9780732292096

French, Simon  Other Brother Walker Books Australia 9781921720833

Gleitzman, Morris After Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia) 9780670075447

Hartnett, Sonya Children of the King Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia) 9780670076130

Herrick, Steven Pookie Aleera is Not my Boyfriend University of Queensland Press 9780702249280

Millard, Glenda Ill. Stephen Michael King The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk HarperCollins

9780733329838

Book of the Year: Early Childhood

Allen, Emma Ill. Freya Blackwood	The Terrible Suitcase	Scholastic Press, Omnibus Books	9.78186E+12
Cox, Tania Ill. Karen Blair	With Nan	Windy Hollow Books	9.78192E+12
DeGennaro, Sue	The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog	Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia	9.78174E+12
Dubosarsky, Ursula Ill. Andrew Joyner	Too Many Elephants in This House	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)	9.78067E+12
Harris, Christine Ill. Ann James	It's a Miroocool!	Little Hare Books, Hardie Grant Egmont	9.78192E+12
Walker, Anna	Peggy	Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia	9.78174E+12
Intended for children in the pre-reading to early reading stages.

Picture Book Short List 2013 (arranged by illustrator)
Author	Title	Publisher	ISBN
Brooks, Ron Text: Julie Hunt	The Coat	Allen & Unwin	9.78174E+12
Goodman, Vivienne Text: Margaret Wild	Tanglewood	Omnibus Books Scholastic Press	9.78186E+12
Gordon, Gus	Herman and Rosie	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)	9.78067E+12
Lester, Alison	Sophie Scott Goes South	Viking Books, Penguin Group (Australia)	9.78067E+12
Mullins, Patricia Text: Glenda Millard	Lightning Jack	Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia	9.78174E+12
Wilson, Mark Text: Jackie French	A Day to Remember	Angus & Robertson, Harper Collins	9.78073E+12
Intended for an audience ranging from birth to 18 years range (Some books may be for mature readers).

Top

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books Short List 2013
Author	Title	Publisher	ISBN
Cheng, Christopher & Jackson, Mark	Python	Walker Books, Australia	9.78192E+12
Kerin, Jackie Ill. Gouldthorpe, Peter	Lyrebird! A True Story	Museum Victoria	9.78192E+12
Murray, Kirsty	Topsy-turvy World: How Australian Animals Puzzled Early Explorers	National Library of Australia	9.78064E+12
Queensland Art Gallery	Portrait of Spain for Kids	Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art	9.78192E+12
Weidenbach, Kristin Ill. Ide, Timothy	Tom the Outback Mailman	Lothian Children’s Books, Hachette Australia	9.78073E+12

Crichton Short List 2012

Illustrator	Title	Publisher
Acton, Sara	Ben & Duck	Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia
Battersby Katherine	Squish Rabbit	University of Queensland Press
Bowen, Dean Written by Jennifer Castles	A Song for Lorkie	Allen & Unwin
Goh, Heidi	York's Universe	Windy Hollow Books
Okalyi, Sandy Written by Doug MacLeod	Mozzie and Midgie	Working Title Press
Streich, Michel	Grumpy Little King	Allen & Unwin

So, anyone got any thoughts on this list? Please do share!

Free Peggy Bright Books Sampler

Here's the link to a post I did on the ASIM blog yesterday, which gives yet another link to the PBB web site: http://andromedaspaceways.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/light-touch-paper-stand-clear-free.html

If you want to know why Light Touch Paper Stand Clear is on this year's Ditmars list or even if you just want a free sample before deciding whether to invest time in reading it, you can download it in PDF, mobi or ePub.

Fascinating Stuff About The Language!

If you want to know some interesting mediaeval origins of words like "boozing" and "fed-up" and "cadging", wander over to the History Girls web site for this post: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/boozing-with-old-codger-by-karen.html

I love word origins. I do an assignment on Shakespeare with my Year 8 classes - just an introduction - and start with "words and expressions first heard in Shakespeare". It's lovely to hear them gasp when they see how many there are, words they use every day without knowing they came from the plays of a man they assumed had nothing to offer them.  I never let them see the grin on my face, of course. One of our other English teachers makes his Year 9 students look up word meanings and origins. Some hate it, others find it fascinating, but I bet they're all very popular at Trivia nights afterwards! And can spell the words.

I remember an ESL class I was teaching one day. A student asked, quite seriously, if the word "pornography" was about pictures. And I said that all too often it was, but that the word itself had a base "grapho" meaning, "I write".

And immediately, this African boy, who had been in the country for about a year, made an association: "Graffiti!" he exclaimed.

I do love those, "Ah ha!" moments.

About My Ebooks - Working?

I see that I have had a nice number of hits on my ebook links, especially for my story sampler. If you've visited that area of the web site since my ebooks went up and clicked into the download, have you had any problems with it? Please comment below and let me know - did it open okay or did you have trouble? Nobody has said anything, so I assumed it was okay, but to be sure I asked an overseas friend with an iBook shelf to open it and she said she got the message "file unsupported". Mind you, I got a similar message first go and next try it worked fine, but I need to know, so I can fiddle again if necessary.

Also, Austin and Isabelle, did your PDF files open okay?

Saturday Morning And Yet Another List About to Hit

The other night I went to the Westgarth Cinema in Northcote, to see the opening night of Return To Nim's Island, loosely based on Wendy Orr's novel Nim At Sea. It was a charming film and the author was there signing. Wendy is a Twitter buddy and a fellow Ford Street writer. The place was filled with local children's and YA writers; I had a long conversation with Elizabeth Honey and briefly ran into Gabrielle Wang and another Twitter buddy, Mel Selemidis, both of whom had brought their own children. I ended up sitting with my friend and publisher Paul Collins and his children's writer partner Meredith Costain and joked that it was a bit like a party at his place: you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a children's writer!

Afterwards, I asked him if he had entered In The Beech Forest for this year's CBCA awards. He said he had, along with Ships In The Field which has done well. Mostly, he doesn't enter. Ford Street is a small press which he runs from home and it costs to enter, more than he can afford, and when he was entering he didn't even see on the CBCA short list books which had been on the short list for the Premier's Award.

But these two were special. I am keeping my fingers crossed that at least Den Scheer, the artist of In the Beech Forest, will be up for a Crichton Award, the one for new book illustrators. She deserves it.

Anyway, the list will be up at noon on Tuesday and I will pop it up here soon after that. I wonder how any I have on my shelves in the library? How many I have read? The thing is, I've read so much overseas stuff that some great local books may have slipped past me.

I invite my Aussie readers to speculate between now and Tuesday. Any thoughts on this?

High Interest Low Reading Level?

Today I'm putting on my teacher and librarian hat. Probably I should post this on my other blog, and maybe I will copy it on at some stage, but that one gets only a few hits a week and this is where most of my readers lurk.

And, as always, I'm frustrated by what gets published for kids. I am trying to sort out my messy living room and have unearthed some books I brought home to read for my students before starting Literature Circles in class. I teach English and run the library in a school where there are some wonderful kids and some very good readers, but also some who are not so good at reading. And while there's plenty for the former, there's very little written for the latter.

These two books, which I won't name here, are thin. The print is large. The story is simple - but the words aren't. "Patented". "Leisure". "Clawing". "Finale". Long sentences scattered among the short ones. They look simple, but I have students who are in their teens and reading at early primary school level. We're working on fixing that, but meanwhile, we need books that are on teenage themes and children's reading level, to help us fix it.

I really think many publishers just don't get it. They think if it's thin it's suitable. That's when they're making an effort, mind you. I remember bringing up this matter at a SCBWI conference where they were showing off very cute stuff for Grade 3 children. When I put up my hand and asked,"What are you publishing for teens who are reading at Grade 2or 3 level?" I got a shrug and an admission that they weren't, and had no plans to do so any time in the near future. They were publishing for primary children who were reading at the right level.

I asked a publisher some time later and the reply I got was,"Oh, we know there's a need, there just isn't a market." Really? That's news to me.

There has been great stuff published in the past. We have been collecting it lovingly from our library shelves; it's generally out of print. I'm still wading through web sites and finding the occasional gem. There just isn't enough. And what is there is mostly just a little too hard for teenagers who are reading at the levels some of ours are at.

I have had to write some stories myself, just to have something to take to class. These days I'm too exhausted to write anything in this area that would be publishable by a real publisher. It's stopgap stuff in which I use words from the word lists and write my students into the stories. They enjoy it, but it's only a small thing, not usable outside my school's classrooms.

We need something better and we need it published by big publishing houses - now!

Meanwhile, I will have to go to our literacy library and see what I can find for use in my Literature Circles classes. It won't be exciting stuff, but they'll be able to read it. Not a way to get kids excited about reading.

New Downloads

I have bought a novel called The King's Daughter by Barbara Kyle, who posted on a blog I follow, and won an ebook copy of At Drake's Command by David Wesley Hill, an adventure about Drake's second world circumnavigation as seen from the viewpoint of a young assistant cook on his ship - I think it's YA, but the author tells me his agent couldn't sell it as such because the hero is twenty and has a job. Looks like these publishers haven't come across much Australian YA fiction!

From Project Gutenberg I picked up some Jules Verne which I should have read long ago, From The Earth To The Moon, which I wanted because of an idea I have for a Steampunk anthology being put out by Ticonderoga Press. Never done Steampunk before, though I love it, and this is Steampunk ROMANCE! Oh, well, have to give it a go.

I also picked up Verne's In Search Of The Castaways, which I saw as a Disney movie when I was still at primary school - a recorder band excursion - yes, I played the recorder! Not very well, but I haul it out now and then, along with my ocarina. 

Great Raven Author Interviews Now Active

I have spent the evening putting together a CBB ebook of the interviews that were originally on Ebook Glue and parked the ePub version for you in Dropbox. All you need to do is follow the link and download, by opening the page on the side of this web site. If you want PDF, just ask. I intend to do another one when I have gathered some more - and there are some lovely folk out there waiting patiently to receive their interview questions from me. Now I'm on term break, I can do that.

There are some great interviewees already!  I speak of people such as Marianne De Pierres, Gabrielle Wang, Justin D'Ath, Juliet Marillier, Charlie Higson, Stephanie Campisi, Mark Walden... Go on, check it out, you know you want to!

And if you really couldn't be bothered to scroll down the page for the link, here it is:

http://db.tt/OGYJ3PUI

The Ditmars - What I've Read

As other people, such as Sean Wright the Blogonaut, are commenting on this year's Ditmars short list, I thought I might talk about those titles I have read. Sean has read a LOT more than I have, even though I bought some, but just didn't get around to reading them.

However, for what it's worth, here's my thoughts on what I have read:

Best Novel:

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan, published by Allen And Unwin

A wonderful novel about selkies, with powerful characters, where you can sympathise with the anti-heroine, Miskaella. It's also short listed for the Stella Awards for women's writing and an Aurealis.  I have reviewed it here.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth, published by Random House Australia.

An amazingly wonderful historical fantasy, centred around the fairy tale Rapunzel, intertwined with the story of the author of the French version, a young woman who lived in the seventeenth century, and the story of the witch who imprisoned the Rapunzel character.  Alas, I never got around to reviewing this one, but trust me, it's a fabulous read. It, too, is on the Aurealis short list.

It's a hard choice between these two and I'm betting that the prize ends up going to one of the small-press publications, which, oddly, more fans might have read.

If you haven't read either of these, by all means get them now, but you may not have the time to give them that they deserve if all you want is to make a decision about the Ditmars. I have read them and even I had a struggle as to which I should vote for!

Best Novella/Novelette:

Um, I have only read Flight 404 by Simon Petrie, published by Peggy Bright Books. And that was because I proofread it (yes! You can blame me if there are any typos left, but there were, as far as I could see, about two minor typos in the entire manuscript.)

It's a good piece of hard science fiction, which is a relief for anyone who has had enough of the sort of fantasy you read in fat fantasy trilogies. At the same time, it's about people, and the transgender heroine has a lot to think about while trying to find out what happened to her sister's spacecraft. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care how great the story is and how good the science is if I don't care about the characters as well.

I hope some of you downloaded it during the short period when it was available free on Amazon? If you didn't, it's still available on the PBB web site in ebook form for about the price of a cup of coffee, or you can get it in paperback.

Best Short Story:

Sorry,again I have only read one of the stories on a fairly short list, and that's Joanne Anderton's "The Bone Chime Song", which was published in Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, Peggy Bright Books, in which I also had a story. A nice, haunting piece of horror fiction with characters you can care about. This is one reason why I can't read horror fiction: if it's well written, nasty things happen to characters you care about. It seems to have been the favourite of most reviewers of the anthology.

Best Collected Work:

Gulp! Again, only one of the short listed books! And that's because I had a story in it.  Sorry! she squeaked. I haven't reviewed the book, as I had a personal interest, but you can find a series of guest posts by most of the authors, the editors and the cover artist on this blog in July 2012, starting with the last day of June (it was June American time).

Personally, I'd go and read the book first. Again, it's something you can download from the Peggy Bright Books web site or buy as a paperback. It's a wonderful anthology, with hand-picked authors  - take a quick look at my guest posts to see who they are - and one of the stories, Joanne Anderton's "The Bone Chime Song", is on the short list, so you can kill two birds with one stone. ;-)

The theme was the title. I interpreted it as "Beginnings" but others came up with other ideas.

I will leave you to choose your own favourite artist and fan writer, though I think both the ASIM 56 cover, with that silly birthday cake on it, and Les Peterson's cover for LTP, both of which collections I own, were great, and I love both Sean Wright's blog and Tansy Rayner Roberts' delightful writing on media SF themes.

Again, pick your own William Atheling critic - I have only read some of the Tansy Rayner Roberts stuff.

Why have I read so little? Well, I tend to spend most of my time reading YA fiction, due to my job as a teacher-librarian and my work as a YA book blogger. And you know what? When the Children's Book Council short list comes out next week, I bet I won't have read too many of those either, because I keep being sent overseas stuff to read and review. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the wonderful picture book In The Beech Forest by Gary Crew and young artist Den Scheer will be on it. She is going to be the next Shaun Tan, I just know it!

But I'll worry about that next week and probably have to go shopping for books I don't have in the library, after the holidays.

What do I think should have been on the short list that wasn't? Plenty, but off the top of my head, I am sorry that there was nothing from Mythic Resonance, the one and only anthology put out by the now-sadly defunct Specusphere web site. I think it's at least as good as Light Touch Paper. Still, Satima Flavell, who edited my story in that, "Brothers", says her story "La Belle Dame" has been short listed for a Tin Duck, the WA awards; by now, the winners of that have been announced, but I don't know yet what they are. Still, it deserved its short listing and personally, I think it deserved a Ditmar listing too.

It would have been nice, too, to have a short listing for ASIM 56 itself, not just for the cover. It was the tenth anniversary issue of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and all the stories were carefully chosen for quality, and the art was great too. Still - some of those stories are on the Aurealis list and who knows? Perhaps more will be short listed for a Chronos Award. Fingers crossed!

Remaking My Ebooks

Right now, I'm copying and pasting the interviews that were in my Ebook Glue ebook into something I can park on Dropbox when ready. Then I will be able to put in a link for you. I still can't seem to work out how to put PDF there and I'm not sure I can; yesterday I tried posting an experimental PDF from Pages and it wasn't offered as an option on the "share". It WAS offered in CBB, but nothing happened. And, of course, CBB doesn't do Mobi at all. So you Kindle users or people without an ereader will just gave to keep requesting from me(email under "Contact Me"). At least till I find an app that will let me do these things, but will they go to Dropbox? No idea!

But it has been kind of fun going through all my old interviews. I've pulled up 13 so far, a baker's dozen of interviews with YA writers and children's writers and two wonderful CBCA judges and one that was strictly speaking a guest post, from Mary Victoria, but hey, she does interview her character, the World Tree!

It will be up soonish. I need a cover. I've gone through Wikimedia Commons but so far found nothing to suit me, so I will take my own photo, of my own books, as a cover. I've written an introduction.

When it's up, if you want to read the interviews without going to all the trouble of ploughing through my archives, you can simply head to the side of the page and download, or you can ask me for a PDF.

And I can have the ebook available for my students, especially those who did some of them!

Thanks to those who took up my offer and clicked into the sampler yesterday - I hope you enjoy the stories and if you want some more, there are the ASIM ones as well. Help yourselves!

Or I  could also offer an online version of some of them in my Pages section, if you're happy to just read it here, or links to the posts. What do you think?