I read Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (Fourth Estate, London 2007) which I’ve had on the reading pile since it came out. There are many elements that I perhaps don’t understand or see yet but the abiding reference is where Bina compares life to the cartoon characters running in the air whilst thinking [...]
Dave Eggers The Wild Things is a retelling of the Maurice Sendak book that dovetails and segues from the forthcoming Spike Jonze film. Rather than trying to retell a classic story, Eggers explores what the Wild Things are and how Max re-appraises his world.
Max is coming to terms with his parents’ divorce and their new [...]
Just a quick note but I’ve just finished Jesse Bullington’s The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart for review in Interzone. Although I don’t want to pre-empt what I’ve just written for the review before it appears, this is one of those books which more than makes the reader just think. It is one of [...]
The latest Children’s Literature and Youth Culture Colloquium (CLYCC) talk was given by Bill Gray on George MacDonald and the influence of English Romanticism on his writing, called “At the Back of George MacDonald: Romanticism, Fairy Tales and the ‘Redemptive Child’”. Most approaches, including my own, tend to be from the German Romantics whose agenda [...]
It has been a while since I’ve read any Anne Rice novels. I loved Interview with the Vampire and still think it is a masterpiece and a brilliant novel of faith, a crie de couer that worked through the death of a child and the resulting emotions. Despite flashes, such as Cry to Heaven and [...]
I went, partially, out of curiosity to the IBBY conference at Roehampton at yesterday which was themed around Graphic Novels and comics. I find it slightly odd going to these events as I’m not a professional scholar/researcher nor do I work as a librarian – I do it for fun since my day job is currently [...]
Just finished, at long last, the first draft of my first book. Now on to the second draft (after a short break)