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
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
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
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
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.
100 Books
I came across a blog I’d never visited before, and on it a meme regarding the 100 greatest books of all time as voted by the general public (I didn’t dig far enough to find out who this general public were – ie where the original survey as and what form it took, which would influence who voted). The idea is to read the list and identify which you’ve read and/or own. I consider myself widely read so was surprised by the number I hadn’t even heard of, but then when I added up I’d read 48 of the 100 which is nearly 50 percent, so figured that wasn’t a bad number. Instead of just identifying those I’d read, I also added a category for those I’d read more than once, though this list is a little skewed by my years of studying literature at school and university and my subsequent years a high school English teacher.
Anyway, here’s my list and you can see the blog entry which inspired me at Bubandpie’s blog, here.
Books I’ve Read More Than Once
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
34. 1984 (Orwell)37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
Books I’ve Read Once
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
45. The Bible 46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Books I’ve Never Read But Might One Day
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)4
7. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
Books I’ve Heard of But Don’t Plan on Reading
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Books I’ve Never Heard Of
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
42. Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
One of the things you’re supposed to do with memes is tag someone else to complete the meme in their blog, but I don’t like to dob people in. If you are interested, have a go and leave a comment here to let me know to check it out.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- …
- 197
- Next Page »