warm reception to Lili's Scatterheart in the UK

Lili Wilkinson's Scatterheart just missed being shortlisted in the Waterstone's prize but got some fabulous comments from Waterstone's booksellers:


I loved this book!! I was lucky enough to be allowed to read it first in our store as I had forgotten my book. I loved the convict/Australian story was superb and really enjoyed the fantasy tale running all the way through it. I thought the characters were complex, no two-dimmensional disney baddies with twirly moustaches here!

I enjoyed this book so much, that as soon as I had finished I wanted to share it with someone else, but also went straight on-line to see if it was available to buy from anywhere now. Want my own copy!!

Loved it! I thought the way that the tale of Scatterheart ran alongside the main story was great, the parallels were not too obvious but it did give the story a nice 'fairy-tale' feel. Great characters, great story - definately one for the shortlist!

I actually really really liked it, ending was a bit short though, but I loved how it didn't shy away from some issues.

Definately one for the shortlist . I love Historical novels and this did not disappoint .The parts in Newgate Gaol and on board ship were the best bits for me.The stories about Scatterheart were also fascinating .

A gritty (Celia Reesish ?) teen novel that somehow manages to be both intensely real, moving and compelling - but also manages to be this year's North Child. Or should that be South Child?
Sheer'Quality'.

I really enjoyed this. The ending did feel a little flat but I loved the fairy tale and the story was so exciting that I started the first page and didn't put it down at all until I finished.
I loved this one too. I do understand some of the comments about the ending but I think it would have spoiled it if we had found out too much about what happened next.

A great read, has to be on the short list!

I loved this book, it really captured me.

One girl's adventure to find happiness, becomes a fairytale within a fairytale. A romantic story of love, power and elitism. Being a woman of quality isn't easy for 14 year old Hannah, however, making the right decisions in love is harder. after being made poor and put in jail, innocent though she is, she soon discovers a hardship that she never thought possible and would open her eyes to life and love.

With marvellous characters to love and hate and a capturing tale, this book will take you on a heartfelt journey.

This was wonderful!!!

Of what i have read so far to do with the prize this is my fave. adventure, love and characters you can't help but like.

I'll join in the praise! I thought it was a compelling read - especially on board the ship. I thought the characters were really well drawn and was terrified but fascinated by the way Hannah's life completely changed in a heartbeat. For me, 'Scatterheart' will be hard to beat!
Just found out Lili is the daughter of Carole Wilkinson who writes the Dragon Keeper series...
I really liked it, even though it's not something I'd normally choose to read, however the ending was a bit too brief

Was really not expecting to like this as it's not my usual kind of book, but I was thoroughly surprised by how much I took to it. Couldn't wait to keep reading it. So realistic and not at all shy about the grittier details of life. Only negative was the end which all seemed half-hearted and was a bit of a let down. But maybe that was the idea.

I absolutely loved this book! I couldn't put it down on my holiday last week. I can see where people are coming from with the ending, but I thought the rest of the book was so compelling that in a way it didn't matter. This one really deserves to be on the shortlist and I hope it makes it.

Love, love, loved it! A real journey in physical and emotional terms. I think the ending was spot on, I won't ruin it, but hopeful without being unrealistic. Definitely for fans of Celia Rees' wonderful Witch Child.

Rifling through the box, this was the book which first sparked my interest I waited a bit then launched into it. I will be very careful what I say because so far this book seems to have gathered a lot of admirers and there is nothing worse than having someone rubbish a book you love.

I didn't like Hannah at first but that was the point of her character development. She was much less self-centred and cold by the end

I'm gonna join the majority on this one too!
Thought it was fantastic and will definately put this on my shortlist choice.
It's well written, engaging, and gritty. I love reading stuff about Australian History (although I hated it when I was at school) Every other kids book I've ever read on this topic has skirted all the horrible nasty bits and I love that this didn't. This seems a very good contender.
This is another one taht I wanted to love, there is so little written about the convict trail to Australia that I thought I'd love it from the start.

As a teenager I know that I would have disliked the fairy tale element being mixed with the histoircal and would have wanted one or the other. I don't mind it so now but the book still left me feeling uncomfortable and to be honest a little grubby.

I'm from the exact area the book talks about. The representations are reasonably accurate - but we're talking fiction here so I'll let her off the hook with a few uh-ohs.

Spoiler alert: such a shame when Long Meg went - She was my favourite!

I liked the device of linking Hannah's story to Scatterheart's. I think Hannah's character was well and believably developed.

Loved Long Meg!

Just misses my top 9.

i loved it.
i liked the way that the characters developed for the reader when they developed for hannah: so i hated long meg first, then distrusted her then loved her. and james i thought was a bit of a saviour then he was a 1st class git. and thomas was beneath her then i knew she loved him and i loved how she grew and matured (earlier than her years, remember- if she'd stayed at home she'd have never learnt anything about anything!) i loved the interwoven fairytale (although, it meant nothing at all until she got on the ship and it started to unravel and keep her going through the rough bits). i thought that the captain was a nice man and that he knew she got full rations after the brig and he only had her head shaved so it didn't look like he favoured her. and james wasn't entirely bad, he just turned that way (rumour didn't help...) after hannah broke his heart.

ooh, and! i've read The Floating Brothel too (see acknowledgements) - it was ace, but full of naughty! (so i felt like i could fill in the gaps that naive hannah couldn't...)
shame The Hunger Games has to win, this could have been a contender.

I really enjoyed this book. The mixture of fairy tale and gritty history worked so well. I was enchanted by Hannah's journey all the way through (and polar bears are my favourite animal!) Definitely one for the shortlist.

This was a quality bit of storytelling and if anything is going to give 'Hunger Games' a run for its money - it's this. Proper period writing [literally], infectious characters [literally]...stop me someone please! Hey i just really enjoyed this and this has been another story set on a boat that's been great.

The Man behind "Keating"

Casey Bennetto is a genius. If the show " The History of the Speigeltent" ever returns  do make it a priority to make it along for typically excellent Bennetto entertainment. The song. "Show Don't Tell" should be compulsory listening for every writing course.

JK's take

There's been some, in my opinion, sanctimonious horror at JK Rowlings take of some 300 million dollars last year. I thought it was fantastic - a writer more than recognized for her work financially.

Fantasy

Will the coming hard economic times mean the end of the rise and rise of fantasy?

Schoolyard dialogue

I've been reading books and manuscript with schoolyard settings and I'm interested to note that so much of these books are driven by dialogue, more so than other YA books. I'm wondering whether historical fiction has more explanatory background - and less dialogue?

new clause in Random UK's author contract for children's books

Can an author then terminate a contract if a publisher chooses to publish a book or an author which damages by association the author's reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children?

The UK publishers seem to be determinedly on a course of irritating and aggravating children's authors.

entertainment law

The Age was entertaining in terms of publishing law this morning.

Harry Nicolaides is being held in remand in Bangkok for insulting the crown (the technical charge is the nicely old -fashioned, if not a little medieval, "Lese Majeste". In 2005 he wrote and published a novel Versimilitude in which he criticised the Thai crown prince. A warrant was issued in March this year but Nicolaides was unaware of it. Nicolaides said only 50 copies were printed and on seven were sold. There's a good amount of self-promotion on the web about the book, couched in breathlessly enthusiastic terms. If the Thai government wanted to promote the little known book and air its claims to a wide audience, arresting Nicolaides has achieved that.

RDR Books in Michigan lost its case to publisher the Harry Potter lexicon.
"The Lexicon contains a troubling amount of direct quotation or close paraphrasing of Rowling's original language. More often the original language is copied without quotation marks. Because the Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for it's purposes as a reference guide, a permanent injunction must be issued to prevent the possible proliferation of works that do the same." Judge Robert Patterson.

PS the Booker shortlist:
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole (Australia)
Aravind Adig,a The White Tiger (India)
Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (india)
Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture (Ireland)
Linda Grant, The Clothes on Their Backs (Britain)
Phillip Hensher, The Northern Clemency (Britain)

Didgeridoo offence

Interesting and challenging.

And for a little more detail.

How accurate does historical fiction need to be?

new conservatism

If I'm hearing correctly, there is a rising new conservatism among librarians in schools (including government schools) with Islamic students about exposed flesh on book covers - and about sexual language between the covers.

More so than in the recent past, librarians seem not to be buying material that could offend for fear of parental complaint. And it's true of many schools, that explicitly declare themselves to be Christian.

The Jewel of Medina

Now that's interesting …

worth …

a read

police English

I found this excellent example of the oddly imprecise precision of police English in today's Age:

"When he saw the police he turned the gun on himself and he is now deceased."

Detective Senior Sergeant Stuart Bronson

The age-ranging debate is certainly an interesting one

I just can't see that age-banding on the backs of books will actually persuade people who don't buy books (for children) to go out and buy them.

From another English commenter:

From my years of sales experience at Walker Books I found all level of age banding on shelves, displays, removable stickers simply did not achieve a great result. The majority of booksellers in the large stores would run a mile to avoid 'that messy kids section'!

Which left me feeling that my sense that booksellers often undercook the kids section was absolutely right.

age ranging

I liked this age-ranging quote from Alan Garner:

Books are not shoes. They are not shirts. They have no sell-by, nor read-by dates. Their content is a unique creative interaction between text and reader. The evidence of my correspondence files going back nearly half a century show an age span of more than sixty years of people willing to engage and re-engage with the same titles. Whoever devised age banding knows how to sell detergents.

Statistics from a somewhat comparable country

Here's some snapshot Canadian publishing statistics from Statistics Canada.

From 2005 to 2006 operating revenues dropped 1.2% after a 3.2% in 2005. Expenses were up almost 1% and added all together the profit was down to 10.3% from 12.1%.

So up a little, down a little - just statistical noise for me.

The more interesting bit was that the export of books was up - and the Canadians seem to have been working hard on this, harder than the Australians and it seems to be paying off.

And even more interesting: while household were spending less on books, magazines and periodicals the trend has been for quite a bit more on books (average household spending on books rose from $86 in 1998 to $111 in 2005).

top publishers

The top 7 publishers in the world by 2007 revenue are:

1 Thomson

2 Pearson

3 Bertelsman

4 Reed Elsevier

5 Wolters Kluwer

6 Hachette Livre

7 Planeta + Editis

which to me shows the strength of educational (i.e. non-trade) publishing

Greenwash

There's a lot of greenwash slopping around (including a bit among publishers - the best contribution would in some cases just not to publish that unnecessary bit of consumer flummery that no-one really benefits from). The best example of greenwashing I've come across recently is the Marbig Enviro Box - just the same old cardboard box - it's just as recyclable as the Strong Archive Box and the Super Strong Archive Box, which are also in the Marbig lines,, and made from just as much recycled board (100%) -  but excitingly it's been given a new environmental friendly name.

back to paper

I had a drink with my an illustrator friend the other night, down at the Builder's Arms. He announced that having been down the electronic route but he'd returned to paper. He'd found that the micromovements of electronic rendering on a tablet could place an strain on very specific muscles in the arm. I've always associated muscle damage to Herculean physical efforts involving big weights - the thought of tiny little repetitious movements doing damage was a surprise.

He added that he was enjoying painting on paper, especially enjoying the textural feel of bristles crossing paper, the resistance the paper gave to a brush full of paint - and also, even more importantly, the little accidents that happen on paper that change the path of an illustration, which don't happen when working electronically.

I would like to quote from our forthcoming Monsieur Rat (August): "Even when you are sure of where you are going , you can still stumble and change direction."

I'm wonder how much of a back-to-paper trend there is. We doing more scan now than we were doing say a year ago.

PS

"Storyliners are the true heroes of any soap" quote from a Facebook group, quoted in the Green Guide.