My Brother’s War by David Hill is a finalist in the Junior Fiction category of the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. This was one of the books that I hadn’t read at the time it was released, but I read it recently as part of my challenge to read all of the 2013 finalists.
My Dear Mother,
Well, I’ve gone and done it. I’ve joined the Army!
Don’t be angry at me, Mother dear. I know you were glad when I wasn’t chosen in the ballot. But some of my friends were, and since they will be fighting for King and Country, I want to do the same.
It’s New Zealand, 1914, and the biggest war the world has known has just broken out in Europe.
William eagerly enlists for the army but his younger brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector and refuses to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested.
Both brothers will end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there are very different. And what they experience at the front line will challenge the beliefs that led them there.
My Brother’s War is a compelling story about two brothers who have very different opinions and experiences of the First World War. William feels very strongly that he needs to play his part in the war and so he enlists in the army. The people in his town commend him for being brave and doing his part. He believes he is doing what is right to protect his country and the people he loves. He can’t understand his brother and thinks that his refusal to enlist is ‘wrong and stupid.’ His brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector who believes it is wrong to go to war and kill other people. The story switches between their two points-of-view so you see the huge differences in their experience of war. The story is mainly told in the third person, but each of the characters write letters to their mother which gives more of an insight into their thoughts and feelings.
You experience the build up to the fighting and the horrible conditions of the battlefield through William’s story, but it was Edmund’s story that shocked me. I knew a little about conscientious objectors before reading this book but Edmund’s story really opened my eyes to how horribly they were treated. Conscientious objectors like Edmund were labeled cowards and treated like second-class citizens. Edmund constantly refuses to obey army orders, but in the end really has no choice. He’s put on a boat and taken to France where he is forced on to the battlefields. In the training camps he is locked away with little food and water, and he also faces excruciating punishment for not following orders. Edmund is incredibly strong-willed though and stands by his principles.
A quote from Edmund towards the end of the book sums up war perfectly , ‘I never knew some men could do such dreadful things to one another, and I never knew some men could be so kind and brave.’
I promised I would tell you a bit more about some of the fabulous children’s writers who appeared at Word Café with me. But before I do that, I have to put right a terrible oversight…
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and realised I had forgotten to mention something, or rather someone very important in my last post. Can you guess who?
Winnie the Pooh of course! Now the Winnie the Pooh story’s not about poo at all, but Pooh Bear himself has got to be the all-time most famous poo of all, and terribly lovable and funny to boot, so I was sorry that I had forgotten him.
But now that I’ve remembered him, I might just reread his story, and his second story The House at Pooh Corner, and also some of his poems, my favourite of which goes:
Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
“Where are you going today?” says Pooh:
“Well, that’s very odd ‘cos I was too.
Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he.
“Let’s go together,” says Pooh.
Do you know it? It’s called ‘Us Two’ and it’s from A.A. Milne’s book Now We Are Six. A.A. Milne is the author of all of the Winnie the Pooh books, but the stories will always belong to Pooh.
Speaking of authors, I had the good luck at the Word café festival to present a workshop with a very talented author called Andre Ngapo who also lives in Raglan, like me. Andre won the Sunday Star Short Story Competition in 2008 for his story ‘Te Pou’. The story isn’t a children’s story as such, but it is about a child. After that, Learning Media contacted Andre and he has been writing stories for the School Journal ever since. Keep an eye out for him. He has a story out this month, and several more in the pipeline.
I also did a reading with another clever Raglan local, Margery Fern. Although she was reading her books, Margery is the illustrator, rather than the author. The author is her sister Jennifer Somervell who lives in Oxford in Canterbury (they’re the ladies in the picture: Margery is on the left). Together they produce a series of picture books, called Tales From the Farmabout their amazing childhood growing up on a farm in the Hawkes Bay.
There’s a funny one about their father blowing up the cowshed with gelignite (a true story) and another about an old truck that they had in shed, which is now the only working truck of its kind in the world. Their next one, Josephine, is about an amorous pig (I hate to think) and then they have a book planned about an eel hunt. Now I happen to love eeling (I don’t kill them; I just haul them up on a piece of string to get a closer look at them), so I’m really looking forward to that.
The last children’s author who was there was Tui Allen. Tui doesn’t live in Raglan, but she lives in Te Pahu at the foot of Mount Pirongia, which is close by. Tui’s written lots of books for children, but her best known is probably Captain Clancy and the Flying Clothesline, about a city clothesline that escapes its city existence to live on a tropical island. Although Tui published it nearly 20 years ago, the story is still a favourite on National Radio’s story time.
For Word Café we asked all three of these wonderful storytellers what their advice was for aspiring writers and illustrators (that may be you). Here’s what they said:
Andre
Write from your experience, from what you know, where you’ve been — not necessarily physically — cover the emotional landscapes you’ve traversed. Write from the heart.
Margery
Practise, practise, practise! Team up with a writer, trial create a book together and just give it a go!
Tui
Find a great critique group. Either in the flesh or online. Make full use of it. Do your share of critiquing and develop trust within the group. Listen to them, especially their criticisms. The most important thing you want to hear is what’s wrong with your work – not what’s right with it.
What a fantastic time I had at the Word Café Raglan writers and readers festival at the weekend. Books are so much fun! And so interesting. And so are the people who read and write them.
Around 35 people came along to the workshop that Andre Ngapo and I ran on getting started in writing for children. (Andre’s in the picture, doing his stuff on the day: I’ll tell you more about him in my next post.) That’s 35 avid writers and readers of children’s fiction all in one room. It was electric.
We had a wonderful discussion about what makes a great children’s book. It reminded me why I love them so much (and also of all the things I should be doing in my stories to make them even better). Everyone agreed that there needed to be:
lots of humour – kids (and the adults reading with them) love to laugh
a great story – that’s a beginning, a middle and an end, with lots of twists and turns in between
plenty of action – whizz, pow, bang, uh-oh, ah-ha, ahhhhhhh…that sort of thing
fabulous characters – no dull and boring please
not too many messages – the aim is to entertain
a pinch of amazing – that special something that makes a story zing.
Can you think of anymore?
Personally, I think there is one, and it’s a bit of a magic ingredient when it comes to stories. That something is poo.
In the 20-ish years that I have been writing stories, I have noticed that, along with humour, kids love poo. Look at all the books that have been written about it.
For starters, there’s Baa Baa Smart Sheep by talented New Zealand author and illustrator duo Mark and Rowan Sommerset, about a bored sheep that tricks his mates into eating, you guessed it, poo.
Then there’s the hilarious Poo Bum by Stephanie Blake (she’s not a new Zealand author, but her publisher Gecko Press is from here) about a little rabbit who will only say one thing: “Poo bum”. That is, until he gets eaten by a wolf, at which point he changes his tune to…read it and find out.
Then there’s Captain Underpants by Dave Pilky about all things to do with undies, wedgies and toilets (that’s got to count poo). And the all-time poo-topping favourite, The Little Mole who Knew it was None of his Business by Werner Holzwarth, about a mole that is poo-ed on (it lands on his head) and runs around trying to find the culprit (and encountering many and varied poos along the way). It even has a plop-up version!
That’s just off the top of my head (the list that is, not the poo). There’s no denying poo is popular.
So at the moment I am busy writing my own story about poo. I can’t give too much away, except to say that it’s a picture book and it’s about a dung beetle who spends his nights rolling endless little balls of poo (well dung, but it’s the same thing). Until one day he looks up and discovers…
I am busy this week getting ready for Word Café, Raglan’s first ever writers’ and readers’ festival. It is happening this weekend (10 and 11 May) and there is going to be an amazing line-up of writers.
I have been helping to organise the event, and am also presenting a workshop and reading some of my stories. I’m really looking forward to it, but am also a bit nervous. Like a lot of writers, although I love words, I am more comfortable writing them, than speaking them!
Still, getting out and promoting yourself seems to be part of a writer’s job description these days. And I do find that going along to writing festivals, workshops, readings and other bookish events is really good for my own writing.
Hearing other writers talk is very inspirational and gives you a real creativity boost. I always find that my mind is humming with ideas for new stories and ways to improve my old ones after I’ve listened to someone else talking about their work.
There is an American writer, Julia Cameron, who writes books for artists and writers about how to access and boost your creativity. One of her ideas is that you have to pamper your inner-writer (the place where your ideas comes from), so that it remains happy and creative. You have to give it treats and take it for days out to fun places: like writer’s festivals.
I like this idea, especially as the treats can involve fancy stationery (which I love) and chocolate (no comment needed).
I also think it’s important to go along to writing workshops and events, if you can, so you can improve the craft side of your writing. Part of writing is inspiration, but a much larger part is craft (learning how to make and structure a story, the best words to use, how and when etc).
You can learn this, just like any other skill. One way is practice. The other is by seeking out and learning all there is to know, so that when you sit down to write your story, your writing toolbox is full.
This weekend, I am going to be working alongside and listening to some very inspirational children’s writers at Word Café; I’ll tell you a bit more about them next week. After that, the next writing event I’m going to is the Golden Yarns: Children’s Writers and Readers Hui 2013, which is happening down with you, in Christchurch, at the beginning of June. I can’t wait! I wonder when I’ll find time to write?
Our magnificent May Star Author is New Zealand author, Sarah Johnson. Sarah is the author of Ella and Ob and the winner of the 2011 Joy Cowley Award, Wooden Arms. Sarah has also written books and stories for grown-ups. She loves stories and poems and books, anything to do with words.
Thanks for joining us Sarah! We look forward to hearing all about your writing and your books.
New Zealand author, Maria Gill, has written some fantastic non-fiction books for kids. One of her most recent books is the New Zealand Hall of Fame: 50 Remarkable Kiwis, which was recently named a 2013 Storylines Notable Book.
Maria needs your help. She wants to know which sports person would you want to see in her new book, the New Zealand Hall of Fame: Sports Edition. All you need to do is vote for your favourite option in the poll below and this will help Maria decide who to put in the book. Get voting!
I’ve spent quite a lot of time this week working on TWO novels. Does that sound impressive??
First, I’ve been going over the page proofs of a novel that’s coming out in June, called Brave Company. It’s about a teenage NZ seaman, who is on a NZ frigate during battles in the Korean War of the 1950s. Page Proofs are the final stage before the novel is actually published. Everything is set out exactly as it will be on the pages of the book, numbers and illustrations and all, and the author has to go – very carefully – through them, seeing if any mistakes have been made. There hardly ever are any; editors are a very efficient lot. But a final check is always a good idea.
The page proofs come after a series of stages in the making of a book. First, the author writes it. (Easy! Simple!) Then, if the publisher likes it and agrees to publish – and this often doesn’t happen; please don’t think that everything I write gets published – the editor will make suggestions on how to improve the book (add details here; cut bits out there; stop describing so much; stop the feeble jokes, etc) and author/editor work on these till they agree. This part can take weeks. After that, the designers make suggestions about cover, set-out, illsutrations / maps / diagrams, etc. And then come the page proofs.
The second book I’ve been working on is one I wrote over the winter / spring / summer. It’s about a NZ teenager in the 1970s who somehow gets involved in French nuclear tests in the Pacific. How? You’ll have to read the book – if it ever gets published. If that does happen, it won’t be till next year. I researched it, I wrote the first draft. I wrote the second draft. I wrote the third….. And now I’m going over and over it, taking out a sentence on Monday, putting half of it back on Tuesday, getting the book as good as I can before I submit it.
So that’s what the author’s life can be like. It can also be full of pleasure. When you write anything – a book, a story, a poem, a letter – you make something that never existed in the world before. It’s special. It’s unique. And that’s something that nobody can ever take away from you. So the very best of luck with your own writing and reading.
I took a day off during the week. Yes, authors are allowed to take time off, especially when they’re as lazy as I am. My wife Beth and I (I write about my dear wife a lot in my short stories for adults; I also write about my kids and grandkids in my children’s stories – but I always change details so they don’t recognise themselves and beat me up.)
I’ve lost track of where that paragraph was going……Yes, my wife and I rode a golf-cart along a railway line for 120 km. You know those funny little motorised carts that you sometimes see golfers trundling around golf courses in? A tourism business in Taranaki where I live has converted some so they run – very slowly – on railway lines, clattering along past farms and through tunnels. We rode in one from Stratford to Whangamomona and back. Isn’t “Whangamomona” a brilliant name? It’s right in the middle of inland Taranaki; it has no shops; one hotel, a population of about 20 people, 200 dogs and 2000 sheep. I may write a travel article about it.
I’ve also been trying to write a story about when I was learning to ride a bike for the first time, years and years (and more years) ago.
I’m a great fan of writing about your embarrassments and disasters and mistakes. Other people always enjoy reading about them, and you always feel much better after you’ve turned them into a story or poem or play. So I’m writing about how I could never stay upright on the bike; how I’d manage to pedal for a few metres only, then I’d start wobbling or leaning over to one side till I fell off. I just couldn’t seem to learn how to keep moving and stay on the seat. To make it worse, there was a guy who lived along the road from us, who was really good at sports and anything that involved being fit and confident. He could ride a bike and do no-hands tricks on it, and stuff like that. Every time he saw me trying to ride, he’d sneer and yell sarcastic comments.
Then one day I could ride. Just like that. My Dad had taken me down to a rugby field where nobody was playing, and he’d walked along beside me, holding the bike while I tried to pedal. Suddenly his voice sounded distant, and I realised he WASN’T holding the bike any longer. I was riding by myself.
I still fell off a few times, but I’d learned the trick. And a couple of days later I was riding (very carefully) along our street and met that other guy. I’ll never forget the amazed look he gave me. So that’s what I’m trying to write a short story about, and I think that in the story, I’ll make him so amazed that he falls off his bike into a hedge. That’s another thing I sometimes enjoy writing about: getting revenge on people…..
I’m one of those authors who likes to try different types of writing, and I’ve been spending part of this week writing a long (1750 word) book review of some YA novels. They’re all by New Zealanders, and the are all GOOD.
So do try David Hair’s Ghost’s of Parihaka, a funny and frightening story of modern kids who keep being pulled back into the past where scary things are happening. And Anna MacKenzie’s Cattra’s Legacy, her novel of a young girl in a lost kingdom who has to save her people from a dark, advancing enemy. And Des Hunt’s Phantom of Terawhiti, in which the paw prints of a strange beast are found on the coast near Wellington. And R L Stedman’s A Necklace of Souls, the first novel by this Christchurch writer, in which a girl of high birth and a boy from the humblest of backgrounds unite to face a frightening foe.
I’ve also been away for a day – flying up to Auckland to visit St Kentigern College, where I was teaching a writing workshop and talking to some of the classes who have read my books or stories (poor things). I had to get up at 5 am – not good – to catch the plane, but it was brilliant watching the west coast of the North island crawling along below us, with the low morning light making long, dark shadows across the land. The waves on the coastline looked as if someone was lifting up the edge of a duvet to show its white underside.
In the writing workshop, I suggested that the best way to become a writer is to STEAL: to watch and listen, to get ideas from what people say and do; from what you read. We talked about topics, and the very nice kids tried a piece of writing about “A Moment You’d Like To Go Back To” – a moment in sport or performance, or with an animal, or at a special place, that was so brilliant, you’d like to relive it. OR that was so embarrassing or disastrous, you’d like to go back and change it, or stop it from happening. They came up with some terrific ideas.
I’ve finished the story that I mentioned in my last blog, about the kid who likes making terrible jokes, though I’ll probably go back and add some more jokes later. And I’m waiting for the page proofs of my newest novel to arrive from the publisher, so I can check them one last time. It’s called BRAVE COMPANY, about a teenage NZ sailor in the Korean War of the 1950s. It’ll be in the shops about…..May or June. I hope.
It is 1988, and twelve-year-old Amy’s boat-mad parents are going on a sailing trip from Vanuatu back to New Zealand. Amy is most unimpressed, especially when her mother and father decide to send her to stay at her great-aunt and uncle’s home in Gisborne. Reluctantly she leaves for Gisborne, anticipating a boring stay at a farm; she couldn’t be more wrong.
Uncle Jim and Aunty June are both kind, charming people. Amy has fun exploring the vineyard they own, and begins to enjoy country life, even liking the nearby school that she attends. However, her stay is ruined by the stressful news that a cyclone is coming dangerously close to Vanuatu. Amy is concerned for her parents’ safety, and desperately tries to contact them. It doesn’t hit her that the cyclone could reach New Zealand until it is upon them.
Amy can only watch as the quiet countryside is transformed. The cyclone is destroying the land and putting lives in danger as fierce wind and rain attack Gisborne. As Amy, her uncle and aunt try to survive the storm, she wonders; when will it end? Will she see her parents again? The answers are uncertain; everyone’s fates are in the hands of the merciless cyclone.
Cyclone Bola is a fascinating read; one of the latest book in the My New Zealand Story series. It’s a wonderful book to read for a project, as it has plenty of useful information on the topic of Cyclone Bola, and keeps you turning pages as Amy’s exciting tale unfolds. At the back of the book there are photographs of damage, to give readers an idea of just how destructive the cyclone really was. If you want to learn about the devastating Cyclone Bola- part of New Zealand’s history, then this is the book for you!
I guess the main event for me during the first week of April has been that I’ve been lucky enough to be short-listed for the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards. My novel My Brother’s War is in the Junior Fiction section, so you all have to rush straight out and vote for me!
Authors are always asked “Where do your ideas come from?” and the idea for My Brother’s War came from my Uncle Fred.
The book is a story of two NZ brothers in World War 1. William can’t wait to enlist in the Army, and experience the thrilling adventure of war. Edmund however is a Conscientious Objector: he believes that all war is wrong, and he refuses to enlist. So he’s arrested and sent to prison. In different ways, the two brothers are sent to the terrible battlefields in France. What happens to them? You’ll have to read the book to find out, heh, heh.
Anyway, my Uncle Fred was my father’s eldest brother, much older than my Dad. He was a gentle, white-haired farmer, always shy and quiet. I never took much notice of him. Then Dad began telling me about him – how he’d been in WW1; how he’d fought in France and been badly wounded by shell fragments; how he had nightmares for years afterwards, and ended up totally opposed to war. So the book really began because I wanted to honour someone who mattered to me. A lot of what I write starts that way.
I don’t expect to win in the Awards, by the way. There are wonderful books by other authors. Do read Kate de Goldi’s The ABC with Honora Lee, or Mandy Hager’s The Nature of Ash, or…or ANY of the other finalists.
Anyway, I’ve also been writing during this week. I sit at my untidy desk, in a little room between the kitchen and the back porch, in a small side street in new Plymouth, and I mumble to myself and scribble and scratch on the paper. I’ve been writing some book reviews, plus a small story about a kid at a new school who wants to seem special, so makes up all sorts of stuff about herself, and gets into a real tangle. It’s full of terrible jokes. I like writing terrible jokes……
The finalists in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards were announced this morning. There is a great selection of books this year, by some of our best authors and illustrators. I think that the picture book and junior fiction categories are particularly strong and the judges have got a huge job ahead of them. I’m aiming to read all of the finalists before the week of the Festival this year so I’ll be sharing my thoughts on each book here.
Have you read any that you really love?
Picture Book
A Great Cake, written and illustrated by Tina Matthews
Melu, written by Kyle Mewburn and illustrated by Ali Teo and John O’Reilly
Mister Whistler, written by Margaret Mahy and illustrated by Gavin Bishop
Mr Bear Branches and the Cloud Conundrum, written and illustrated by Terri Rose Baynton
Remember that November, written by Jennifer Beck and illustrated by Lindy Fisher
Junior Fiction
The ACB with Honora Lee, written by Kate De Goldi and illustrated by Gregory O’Brien
The Queen and the Nobody Boy by Barbara Else
My Brother’s War by David Hill
Red Rocks by Rachael King
Uncle Trev and His Whistling Bull by Jack Lasenby
Young Adult Fiction
Earth Dragon, Fire Hare by Ken Catran
Into the River by Ted Dawe
The Nature of Ash by Mandy Hager
Reach by Hugh Brown
Snakes and Ladders by Mary-anne Scott
Non Fiction
100 Amazing Tales from Aotearoa by Simon Morton and Riria Hotere
At the Beach: Explore and discover the New Zealand seashore by Ned Barraud and Gillian Chandler
Kiwi: the real story by Annemarie Florian and Heather Hunt
Taketakerau, The Millenium Tree by Marnie Anstis, Patricia Howitt and Kelly Spencer
It’s practically the end of the month and I have just squeaked in my fourth book by a New Zealand author, which means I have reached my NZ Book Month reading target! Released in print only last week, the final book on my list is a high fantasy tale called Guardians of the Shimmer: DreamTime and is the first of a new trilogy by Tauranga writer Garth Lawless. Garth works in computers, but he’s not your typical office worker: I once saw him out and about in Tauranga dressed in a cape. So definitely someone with an penchant for fantasy! I wonder if he spends a lot of time daydreaming?
In any case, Garth tells me that releasing Guardians of the Shimmer has been a dream of his, and the enthusiastic reaction he has received from readers has been a dream too. Garth says, “I was inspired to write from all the reading I had been doing and thinking ‘I’ve got a story to tell that I’d like others to read, too.’ And I like writing for the 10-14 age group as they have really have great imaginations. And they like adventure, excitement and action in their stories, just like the ones I like to read.” Garth’s story includes all of those things. It’s a young adult novel featuring Cole and Lily Fletcher, a couple of Kiwi kids who are on their way home from a camping trip with their parents when an accident catapults them into DreamTime, the place where people’s dreams exist. As if that isn’t enough of a shock, they then discover that their parents are part of the Blue Ghost, long time Guardians of the shimmery barrier that separates reality from dreams. The Guardians serve to protect sleepers, ensuring that they return safely to their RealTime selves. The only problem is the VELI, dark and sinister monsters of nightmare, who are no longer prepared to dwell in the shadows. Well, that, and the fact that nobody seems to want to tell Cole and Lily what’s going on! An atmospheric story which hurtles along, this is a wonderful debut and a great read for fans of fantasy. Why not ask your librarian to reserve you a copy?
And if you haven’t made your four target books yet, there are still a couple of days left in March and the Easter break is here, so it’s not too late to get cracking. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you extending your NZ Book Month reading into April and beyond; there are so many great Kiwi writers to choose from.
What a busy weekend I had with lots of ‘writerly’ activities going on. On Friday evening I was thrilled to attend the Oceanbooks New Zealand Book Month event, Celebrate!, which included the launch of Beyond This Age, a collection of speculative fiction written by intermediate school students, edited by ME and my colleague Piper Mejia (that’s her hiding behind me in the photo below).
It was fun to meet some of our student contributors, many of whom were having stories published for the very first time, a cause for great excitement. Believe me, no matter how old you are, it’s still a thrill to hold a book in your hand knowing that you have played a part in its creation, and especially to see your name in print.
Our competition winners, Ashleigh (right) and Helena (left) received flowers from the very glamorous Susan Brocker, one of Tauranga’s best-loved writers for children. The author of titles like Restless Spirit and Saving Sam, Susan was one of the Beyond This Age competition judges, who helped behind the scenes to select the winning stories, as well as those which would go into the anthology.
Apart from our intermediate school writers, a number of other writers were also there to launch their first book in print, including Kathy Berger Sewell who launched Hāere Ra Harry, a picture book beautifully illustrated by artist Andria Brice, and Garth Lawless, a new talent on the fantasy scene, who released Guardians of the Shimmer, the first of a trilogy.
Also attending was Des Hunt, well-known New Zealand author of favourites like Cry of the Taniwha, The Crocodile’s Nest and Crown Park. Des delighted guests with books he had enjoyed as a boy and imparted an important message about the need for quality New Zealand literature to educate, inform and inspire our young people, a significant theme, I think, for New Zealand Book Month.
And then on Saturday, I met with the central branch of the Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand. Just like sports practice, writers’ groups are great for keeping writers motivated, helping us learn new techniques, and providing new information about books and publishing. It was also a great day to sit on the deck and eat chocolate cake!
Because I have always had a vivid imagination, and when I was small I was a real chatterbox with lots of ideas to share. Writing is sort of like talking a lot on paper.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
I can put my ideas into a story and they will reach heaps and heaps of people I may never even meet! My words might make someone laugh or cry, they might even teach them something or change the way they look at the world. That’s pretty amazing.
What’s your favourite New Zealand book?
Under the Mountain.
What do you love most about New Zealand?
Oh I can’t just love one thing, I need at least two, so I’m going to cheat here. I love our beaches, and being able to swim or walk by the sea every day. I also love our own unique culture, and how much more Te Reo Maori and Maori expressions have become part of everyone’s culture.
What do you love most about libraries?
I love being able to read lots and lots and lots of books. Is it weird to say I also love the bookish smell of libraries, yum, all those words wiggling around in their books and making their own special smell.
Melanie Drewery is an author, illustrator and artist who writes primarily for children. Koro’s Medicine was a finalist in the Picture Book Category of the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults, and the Maori translation of this title, by Kararaina Uatuku, won the 2005 Te Kura Pounamu Award. Melanie won the Picture Book section of the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for her book Tahi: One Lucky Kiwi.
Stories are one of my favourite things in the whole world (as are books), so it made sense to me that I would enjoy writing them, and I do. I have carried the stories I read as a child with me into adulthood, and as I got older I read stories that I considered so incredibly beautiful (or moving, or sometimes funny) they were like sunsets or landscapes or other natural wonders. That’s a pretty amazing impact to have, and I wanted to give it a try. Imagine being able to create something that had that effect on another person! I haven’t managed it yet, but I’m still trying.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Writing stories. Entering, and dwelling in, the fabulous zone they come from. Playing with the words (endlessly) until they make patterns and poems on the page.
What’s your favourite New Zealand book?
Oh, hard. For children, it’s probably Peter and the Pig by Simon Grant, because every single time I read it, I laugh. I wish I could write something that funny! For adults, anything by Patricia Grace, but then she writes wonderfully for children too.
What do you love most about New Zealand?
The colour and clarity of the light, the emptiness of the sky, the smell and the air of the bush. I lived in Scotland for a while and these were the things I missed. They were in my bones and they sung to me while I was away.
What do you love most about libraries?
How excited I feel every time I enter one. All that interest, all those stories, all that knowledge, sitting on a shelf waiting for me to find it. And knowing that I’m going to walk out the door with a book in my hand and a new possibility in my life. Libraries are portals. They should house them in a tardis.
Sarah Johnson is the author of Ella and Ob and the winner of the 2011 Joy Cowley Award, Wooden Arms. Sarah has also written books and stories for grown-ups
Today we’re joined by the wonderful Melinda Szymanik, author of the powerful new book, A Winter’s Day in 1939. Based on her father’s experiences during World War II, A Winter’s Day in 1939 is a story of family, the harsh realities of war, and the fight for survival against the odds. Melinda has written a really interesting post for us about why and how she wrote A Winter’s Day in 1939.
Why and How I wrote A Winter’s Day in 1939
When the Soviet soldiers come and order them out, Adam and his family have no idea where they are going or if they will ever come back. The Germans have attacked Poland and the world is at war. Boarding a cattle train Adam and his family embark on a journey that will cover thousands of miles and several years, and change all their lives forever. And mine too. Because Adam’s story, the story told in my new novel A Winter’s Day in 1939, is very much my Dad’s story.
I often heard fragments of this story from my dad when I was growing up. It was shocking, and sad, and amazing. My Dad’s family was forced out of their home and taken to a labour camp in Russia. It was freezing cold, and many people died from disease or starvation. Even when the Soviets finally let them go, they spent weeks travelling around the USSR , were made to work on Soviet farms and were still hungry and often sick, with no idea of where they might end up next. As a child growing up in a peaceful place like New Zealand it was hard to imagine the real dangers and terrible conditions my father experienced.
I didn’t get to know the full story until I was grown up with children of my own and was regularly writing stories for children. I wrote a short story, also called A Winter’s Day in 1939, based on a single event I knew fairly well from my Dad‘s childhood – when Soviet Soldiers first come to order them off their farm, the only home my father had known up till that point in his life. The story was published in The Australian School Magazine. I showed the short story to the publishers Scholastic who liked it too. They wondered if I could turn it in to a novel. This was a chance to tell my father’s story. By now I knew it was an important story that should be shared
Luckily my Dad had made notes about his life during World War Two; about twenty pages all typed up. However I know people’s real lives don’t always fit into the framework of a novel and I knew I would have to emphasize some things and maybe leave other things out.
I read and researched to add the right details to the story. And asked my parents lots of questions. How cold was it in Poland in January 1940? Who or what were the NKVD? What were the trains like? What are the symptoms of typhoid? How do you make your own skis? Some information was hard to find. Some of the places that existed in the 1940s aren’t there anymore. And people didn’t keep records about how many people were taken to the USSR from Poland or what happened to particular individuals. But what I wanted to give readers most of all was a sense of how it felt to live that life. So this then is the story of a twelve year old Polish boy in the USSR during World War 2 that all started on A Winter’s Day in 1939.
Taken from their home, forced to leave their country, put to work in labour camps, frozen and starved, Adam and his family doubt that they will ever make it out alive. Even if they were to get away, they might freeze to death, or starve, or the bears might get them. For the Polish refugees, the whole of the USSR becomes a prison from which there is seemingly no escape.
A Winter’s Day in 1939 is a story of family, the harsh realities of war, and the fight for survival against the odds. Adam and his family are ripped from their safe, comfortable life in Poland and transported to prison camps in Russia, in freezing conditions and with little to eat and drink. They get transported in dirty, stinking train carriages with a stove and a pipe as a toilet, live in cramped barracks with many other families, and are forced to work for the good of Russia. People die of exposure to the freezing conditions and disease is rife. In these conditions you need to have to will to survive, and for Adam and his family, this is what is keeping them going.
The story is narrated by Adam, so you see everything through his eyes. You feel how much he wants to survive and how important his family is to him. You get a real sense of how desperate their situation gets as time goes by, especially when it comes to food. When a clerk at one of the evacuation centers apologizes to Adam for the lack of food, Adam says ‘He sounded sorry about it but that was no help to us. You couldn’t eat ‘sorry.” You want so much for Adam and his family to survive the war and be able to return home, but you don’t know if their story will have a happy ending.
One of the things that stands out in Melinda’s story is the sense that Adam, his family, and the other refugees around them, hadn’t done anything wrong, yet they’re treated the way they are. Adam says this himself, ‘We were being punished but I hadn’t done anything wrong. None of us had.’ These people have been thrown out of their homes and sent to prison camps for no reason what so ever.
A Winter’s Day in 1939 is a war story that hasn’t been told before and it will have an affect on readers of all ages. Stories like Melinda’s help us to remember all those people who died during this horrific period of history and I’ll certainly remember Adam’s story for a long time.
I’ve been writing since I was a small girl. Telling stories is just something I do and want to do and as a small child had to do. We didn’t have many books…we were poor (as many were way back then) so we wrote our own stories (and illustrated them!). We loved writing to the children’s page of the NZ Herald…and later as I grew I wrote stories for the local newspapers and various magazines.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
I think the greatest fun is finding a way to tell a story in a new way or to find a new and different character. I still love the story I wrote where one of the characters in the story talks to me the writer! She gets mad because she doesn’t want to say what I want her to say! So I threaten to write her out of the story…sadly the story has never been published!
What’s your favourite New Zealand book?
I always dislike this sort of question. I love many many books for many many different reasons. And there are SO many marvellous books written by New Zealanders.
What do you love most about New Zealand?
Again I have many reasons for loving NZ. I particularly love the outdoors…our beautiful wild coastline, the lush and glorious bush, rugged mountains and hills country and the growing interest in our ‘wildlife’. I also love that we have so so many opportunities for education, sport, the arts etc. and rejoice that we can have very full and interesting lives as well as helping the less advantaged.
What do you love most about libraries?
When I was much much younger I used to find libraries a little daunting…no longer. Libraries these days are so welcoming. The staff are wonderfully helpful and almost any book we would like to read a librarian can find it or order it for us. Libraries don’t just have books…there are CDs and now electronic readers. I have written a couple of historical fiction books and the archivists at the libraries I have visited have been wizards at finding me information. Libraries are busy friendly places. Make sure you get to know yours. The books are free as well!!
Kath Beattie is the author of two books in the My New Zealand Story series, Gumdigger and Cyclone Bola (released this month). Kath has also had her stories published in anthologies, including Dare and Double Dare and Mischief and Mayhem.
If you’re like me then you love to read, to get lost in a new world where you feel so close to the characters that they feel like old friends. Those are the sort of books that you want to tell your friends about, send them a link, show them where they are in the library, perhaps even lend out your own precious copy. “You should read this,” you’ll say. “It’s a great book. I really liked it. I couldn’t put it down.” But when your teacher asks you to keep a reading log and write reviews about books, even your favourite books, do you groan inwardly? Does analysing a book – summarising its good and bad points – make you shudder? I know for a lot of people, this is the case. Some say it spoils the reading experience for them, but not Paula Phillips. By day, my friend Paula is a softly-spoken bespectacled city librarian, but by night Paula turns into the Phantom Paragrapher, writing hundreds of book reviews every year and posting them to her blog, one of the most trusted book review blogs in the world. Good heavens! Does she even sleep? What makes her want to do this? Let’s ask her some questions about being a super hero.
Hi Paula. How many books have you reviewed this year? To the middle of March – 93 books reviewed this year.
Yikes! That is a lot. What sort of books do you review? A wide mixture of different genres from mysteries to romance, as well as children’s, tween’s and teen fiction, and the odd non-fiction book for all ages.
Why are book reviews even important? Book reviews are important as they not only help you, the reader, with your writing skills, but they give you the ability to read between the lines. Who reads them? Anyone who has a computer and loves to discover the titles of new books out there to read and buy.
What do you look for when analysing a book? What makes a 5-star review? The first thing is to decide whether I can read it or not as I hate books that are BORING, and this is decided if I can make it through the first couple of pages/chapters. If it succeeds, then it is all down to holding my attention. If a book manages to not only hold my attention but it turns out to be a book that I cannot wait to finish reading and finding out what happens – then more often than not that is my 5 star review. When reviewing books I look at:
the story – is it fast reading or are you finding yourself falling asleep?
the language – is it something that you can understand, free from all technical jargon?
the cover – is it an amazing cover and totally to die for?
then, I rate the story on how it makes me feel when I am reading it.
If I am I tempted to skip parts but don’t, then the book might get a 3-star rating. A “I finished the novel but I’m not jumping up and down” gets a 4-star. Five-stars is a really amazing read but it’s still missing something important, and then a 5-star plus a silver star means the book is like totes amaze-balls and I cannot stop raving to the world about it.
What’s your favourite thing about being a reviewer? My favourite thing is getting to read the new books that are being published before everyone else and meeting an awesome lot of friends through Facebook.
Some of our readers have book reviews to complete for their homework and we were just wondering, can you be bribed? Actually, yes! Sometimes people donate money to have me review their books, but it doesn’t change the rating I give the book, which depends on how much I enjoy the story.
My Dear Mother,
