This is the second to last post of the book week ones I planned. I should do a Non-fiction Book post but actually non fiction is my least favourite and I'm writing it, so tough!This post is onto big kids books.... and I was going to go all Kiwi but then I just couldn't...
Margaret Mahy (and here)- I love, love, love Memory, The Changeover, The Tricksters, The Haunting and The Catalogue of the Universe, so much so that I am going to go grab them and start reading as soon as I have finished this post.... and then I can tell you why I have such fond memories! No seriously, finding novels as a 9+ year old was always a hit or miss affair... trust me I know because seriously I started at A and went right through to Z in the Dunedin Public Library and the good authors that I found number less than 20 I'd say. That's what make Margaret Mahy gold, I'd be willing to bet that you could pick up any one of her books and find it to be a genuinely well written and interesting story. My favourite back then would have been The Changeover because there was romance. But now I'd say Memory because it deals with stuff that you don't normally come across in kids books like old age and it's just such a good story. In the process of writing this I can see Mahy has written a bunch more 'senior fiction' that I should go read, you should to and tell me what you like the best. Library, Wheelers here I come! Parents notes; There's some maturity required to read these books, they were fine for me at 10 but I'd say that Kieran is a few years off of most of them and I expect I'd get Merenia to wait till she was at least 12/13.
Roald Dahl. I really shouldn't have to say anything about Roald Dahl and I'm not going to say much at all. If you have never heard of him which rock did you just crawl from?? And if you've never read him then call CYPS on your parents, give yourself a swift kick and get on to it. Read; George's Marvelous Medicine, The Twits, Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, The Bfg, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda then go find some more and read them too! Do it I tell ya... any age... it doesn't matter, there are no limits! 7 year olds...read it aloud there's nothing like a good chapter book to dig into night after night. The only bad thing about Dahl is that he already died so there's nothing more coming from him. What are you waiting for...
Maurice Gee.
My all time favourite New Zealand author and that is a bold statement coming from someone who has trouble making her mind up. I just learned he shares his birthday with Merenia. Favourite books; The Halfmen of O, The Priests of Ferris, and Motherstone. Also love; Under the Mountain, The Fire Raiser and The World around the Corner. Am about to read Salt (I'll let you know). Things to know; The Champion, The Fire Raiser and Under The Mountain were all made into TV programmes back in the 80's and Under The Mountain has just been released on DVD... kind of excited about that!
Other things to know Gee also write adults fiction so watch what you get for your kiddos. I have very vivid memories of reading the 'O' books when I was younger and I was listening to New Order at the time it was a instrumental pieces and the main character (a girl heroine gotta love that!) was walking across the desert with a blood cat as company... seriously awesome pictures in my head... I have a crap memory from my teen years and I think it's cause I was in books... because I can remember all the pictures from my head in brilliant colour.
Daniel Manus Pinkwater. I can't believe that I had to read all the way to 'P' in the DPL to find this guy... oh my goodness he's completely weird and I absolutely LOVE his books. Borgel (aka Uncle Borgle) would have to be my favourite. I also loved Lizard Music and The Last Guru. The latter had a character called Gypsy... how often does that happen?... not that often I tell ya! I sent him a letter I loved him so and I got the coolest postcard back....
I kept it for so long... I didn't throw it away either so I guess it must now be lost. If you go look at some of the titles he has on Amazon you'll get a feel for the funky good weirdness of his writing. Favourite Pinkwater Moment; Borgel is telling Melvin the story of his childhood in 'the old country'.... not a direct quote but something like this...
"We were so poor that we had a peach pit for a pet we called it Lance and we loved that peach pit but then we had to sell it to the kids next door and we would walk past and see them playing with our Peach pit. When you were 18 it was time to leave home and go in search of your fortune. I was lucky because I soon found a skunk that had been squashed by a plow. I traded the Skunk for a pickle, I traded the pickle for a tissue and I traded the tissue for a Hat that I could wear on Thursdays. You see it was too expensive to own a hat that you could wear everyday so you took turns with other to wear the hat. Eventually I made so many good trades I had a hat all of my very own" Melvin interupts "You're making this up aren't you?" Borgel replies: "Yeah why? You're enjoying it aren't you?"
Oh I don't know maybe you have to be there... it's just so quirky I love it!
Start young with Pinkwater he's great and then they books can be read again and again and new stuff get picked up... He's american so you won't see too many of his books in NZ so try your library and if you get addicted do a search on Alibris and import your own!
This has got very long and I still have 3 more authors for this post so I am splitting it in two and will hopefully get to the other half sooner rather than later!
Before I go a note about Harry Potter... I've never read them... no not a one. In fact although I have purchased all of them and we have them all in our house I haven't even read a sentence. So here's my personal disclaimer... Harry Potter might be great, I just don't know.
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