sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Pemberthy in Busselton

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‘Granma‘ left a comment to let me know that Pemberthy is a much loved resident at her house in Busselton. Wonderful news. Busselton is a nice beach-side town in the the South-West, a place I visit often.

The map now looks like this, with the new dot the orange one on the South West coast.

Have you seen my beautiful picture book, Pemberthy Bear? I’m tracking his progress around the country – you can see my original post here. As you can see from the map, Pemberthy is a well-travelled bear.

Poetic Pemberthy

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Pemberthy, the singing, blogging bear has written another poem. This time he’s been quite adventurous and written a triolet. This is a French poetic form with eight lines, and the challenge of repeating lines, but Pemberthy likes challenges. You can read his new composition here.

Youtube Funnies

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A writer friend sent me a link to a You-tube video today, which had me laughing more than I’d done in ages. It has some rude words in it, so I’m not going to post it here because this is a kid-friendly blog, but if you’re old enough and have ever had problems with proofreading, then click here to see why I’m laughing.

The guy’s name is Taylor Mali and he’s an American teacher, poet and comedian. I enjoyed the first one so much I watched two other clips featuring him, and the one titled What a Teacher Makes is probably my favourite, being a teacher myself, though I don’t profess to be as wonderful a teacher as he sounds.

If you’ve enjoyed those two, there’s a third one here, which is also very good – and very true.

Enjoy!

Sometimes a good laugh keeps you going.

Pemberthy Sightings

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With no new Pemberthy sightings for a while, I’ve done some more online digging and found him at more libraries. I love thinking of Pemberthy being available at libraries, where kids can discover him and take him home for a week or two. Anyway, Pemberthy can be found at the Woolgoola and Coff’s Harbour libraries (though the latter is on loan) – these are the burgundy and lime green maps in the north of NSW. In Melbourne, the Bentleigh and Caulfield libraries each have one copy whilst the Carnegie Library has two. These four dots have been added to Melbourne, which is getting nearly as dotty as Brisbane!

And, for the first time, I’ve found Pemberthy in the Northern Territory. In Darwin, he’s in the Casuarina and City libraries, and he’s also in the Palmerston and Katherine libraries. Those are the four new dots in the Northern Territory – that’s the state in the middle of the map in the north.

So, with the ten new dots added, the map now looks like this:

I’d love to see more and more dots showing where Pemberthy can be found, so if YOU have seen Pemberthy – in your home, your local library or in a bookstore, be sure to let me know and I’ll add a dot!

Aussiereviews Update

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Have just added 11 new reviews to Aussiereviews, again all children’s and young adult titles. Though I didn’t review it, one of my favourites in this batch is Night of the Fifth Moon, a new fantasy title by Anna Ciddor. I didn’t review it for Aussiereveiws because I’ve recently done so for Reading Time magazine. Anyway, this is a wonderful fantasy offering.

For younger readers my favourite from the batch is The Aussie A to Z, a fun picture book by Heath McKenzie. There are so many Aussie icons on every page. I see something new every time I read it to Murphlet 6, who loves it, too.

Anyway, enjoy!

SCBWI, Matt Ottley and Harry

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I spent three days in Perth over the weekend, partly doing family stuff, but I also attended a meeting of the Western Australian branch of SCBWI (The Society of Children’s Book Writer and Illustrators). It’s always wonderful to connect with other authors and illustrators – both the well established and the aspiring. We were lucky enough to have Matt Ottley speak to us about his latest book, Requiem for a Beast, which is an incredible offering – part graphic novel, part multimedia performance, it really defies categorisation. If you get a chance, check it out, but don’t be fooled by its picture book size – this one is really for young adults and would be a wonderful classroom tool.

Among other things, the meeting discussed the upcoming SCBWI state conference, planned for February 17 2008, which will be a wonderful opportunity for West Aussie authors and illustrators to meet with publishers and with each other to learn and to network and for fellowship. I can’t wait!

After the meeting, I took the new Harry Potter back to my children. Murphlet three grabbed it and read it in one gulp. I took a little longer, but had finished it my midnight Saturday. Am still digesting it, really, but I think I liked it.

As always, it was nice to come home and back to my desk and my home comforts. Lots of writing and reviewing to do this week.

sallymurphy.com.au