Today I attended Creating Picture Books and listened to Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley talk and present for five wonderful hours. Did I learn something? Lots. Did I enjoy it? Heaps. Would I recommend this course? YES. I don’t see the world with picture book eyes so I doubt that I am destined to be…
Today I am really busy with computer programming related things so don’t have much time for thinking and posting. So I’m going to cheat and reprint an interview I did with Michael Morpurgo when he came to Australia in 2007. Almost two years later, he remains one of my favourite children’s authors. Half an Hour…
I find character names really hard to choose. It should be easy for me – after all, I write historical adventure. My books are set in a specific time and place so it doesn’t take much effort to find a list of names on the Internet. But picking one of the list is still hard!…
At the moment I am reading The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen. I won’t comment on the book as I’ll be posting a review shortly. But I will say that Max Remy fans won’t be disappointed. I love the title of the book and I love the cover. Aurelie Bonhoffen is such a great name.…
As a book reviewer, I receive more books than I can possibly keep. In my small house with its choc-a-bloc bookshelves, if I keep a new book it means getting rid of an old one. Never easy to do! Most of the books I receive for review are eventually donated to school libraries. That suits…
Recently I read a new novel by Maurice Gee which really impressed me. Salt is the first book in the Salt trilogy and won the Young Adult fiction section of the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. What I really liked about this book was it was very different but…
I was surprised to discover it’s still International Polar Year (IPY), a large scientific programme focusing on the Arctic and the Antarctic. Australian research scientist Ian Allison is the leader of the Ice, Ocean, Atmosphere and Climate Programme. IPY is really two years – from March 2007 to March 2009. I found all this out…
I’ve tried to blog a number of times. Never managed to get it going. But now thanks to Adele at Persnickety Snark and Judith at Misrule, I think I might have worked out what I was doing wrong. I wasn’t talking about what I love to talk about. I was trying to be interesting and…
SANDY FUSSELL 