Exeter, Inkheart, Quercus, Siblings

As Leonie said, the FCBG conference at Exeter was brilliant - many congratulations to all the organisers, and thanks for having us as a part of it. The UBG seminar which Leonie and Susan ran was very well attended and full of people eager to share their own experiences, learn from each other's ideas, etc. (And I just sat quietly in a corner and resisted the temptation to interfere, and did very well, I thought...) And I then chaired an event with four lovely writers - Justin Somper, Julia Golding, Ally Kennen and David Gilman. Always a bit tricky with that many people trying to be part of a single conversation, but it was fun, I thought, and good to see Justin (as ever) and to meet the other three. And on top of that there was the UFBG cake (picture to follow, I hope - it was quite something), and other events with great writers and illustrators such as the lovely David Roberts (mentioned by Leonie below) and many others...

Since then the finishing touches have been put onto the manuscript for the revised UBG for 8-12s, including the final selection of final last absolutely final books for inclusion; the PA children's books supplement has gone out with the Guardian including our picture-book recommendations and a UBG read-on map; and the National Year of Reading sampler has come out too, meaning that now any young person in the country joining a library (the next 250,000 of them, at least) will be given a free mini-UBG. So as Leonie said, a busy couple of weeks... And tomorrow we start commissioning for the updated teen guide...

I finally managed to get time to return to Inkheart, which reluctantly I had had to put aside mid-read a few weeks ago when I just didn't have the time, but delighted to have been able to sit down with it properly now and finished it over the weekend. Very highly recommended. What a thrilling imagination Cornelia Funke has, and such a good story-teller (with the assistance of her translator, the great Anthea Bell); a book I hesitated to pick up (it's long, it's fantasy, and all sorts of other prejudices against it...) but I'm very pleased I did, and the characters and setting have really stayed me in the days since I finished. I'm holding off reading the second book in the series, but only because the third isn't out yet and I want to pace myself so I don't have too long to wait for that - Inkspell is no. 2, and Inkdeath the third, published in October.

Just noticed, incidentally, having mentioned Anthea Bell, that The UBG doesn't credit translators, which is very bad indeed - don't know how we/I let that happen. We have to fix that.

Started Hazel's Phantasmagoria, by Leander Deeny, also this weekend, which made me laugh out loud several times in the opening three or four pages; I'm going to enjoy this one. It comes from a publisher - Quercus - who're launching a new children's list; and while I'm a little bitter because I can't get them to answer my mail, I'm pleased to have found such a strong debut in their launch list - bodes very well.

Incidentally, looking for good books to give to two/three year olds about to be afflicted with a new baby in the family. I've just read Minty and Tink, which is one possibility; any other thoughts, anyone? Help!

D.

phew!

Well, it's been a mad two weeks - and I've been to Devon twice! The FCBG conference went really well. The organisers did a fabulous job and I can say, from what I saw and heard, that everyone had a really good time! The sessions that Susan, Danny and I were involved in seemed to go well and I thoroughly enjoyed all the talks etc. that I went along to listen to. Andy Stanton? Wow! He has to be one of the most hilarious speakers around. Mal Peet? Articulate, intelligent, funny - love him! Oh, and David Roberts - who can draw, speak AND have great hair, all at the same time... what's not to love?

There were so many other speakers, both on and off stage, who entertained, enlightened and generally made the whole trip more than worthwhile. The only downside was the weather, as it poured and poured all weekend, so we couldn't make the most of the university's gorgeous grounds. Maybe next time?

Since then I've been back to Devon for a week's holiday... and this time the weather was on our side, and I spent many a happy hour sitting on a bench in the garden, listening to the birds and reading. Best of the bunch? M.G. Harris's The Joshua Files, Invisible City, which is a fast-paced adventure that rips you from Oxford to the Mexican jungle and scarcely lets you take breath!

See - Previously...

Or you could all tell Susan in person (presuming you all know what sort of user you are...) at the FCBG conference at Exeter Uni this weekend! We'll all be there, either in a panel of our own (Susan and Leonie), chairing one (Danny) or eating UBG cake at the Ultimate Book Guide tea!

Do come along and say hi - we only bite if asked.

Visitor demographics

Susan wants to know, but apparently is too shy to ask, how many of our blog visitors are turkeys, how many are giants and how many are some other kind og visitor. (Trust me - just don't ask.) If you fit one of those categories of visitor, do get in touch with her.

D.

Oxford CBG

To Oxford on Thursday night with Leonie and Rebecca, for an event with the Oxford Children's Book Group (part of the FCBG). Wasn't a huge turn-out, partly perhaps because it was the eve of the long weekend and it was a very, very cold (VERY COLD!) night, but it was a really good group of people. In some respects close to the perfect size for a proper discussion, actually - with twenty or so there it meant that everyone felt they could chip in and ask questions and challenge us on things right the way through, which would have been quite different in a bigger group, I think; so it was informal and fun. We were meant to be talking about the UFBG mainly, though drifted quite a lot onto Darren Shan and horror, onto age ranging, onto the lemming-like qualities of publishers (always a favourite), on how important it is to promote reading as a pleasurable thing and how frustrating that the government and those who draw up curricula seem not to have grasped this...

Anyway, the hour and a half flew by (at least, it did for me and Leonie, and we hope it did for the others). Thanks to Rebecca for sorting it out at our end and to the Oxford group for inviting us and looking after us there; and to the Botley Children's Centre and Nursery School (really nice!) for hosting it. Always hugely heartening to see people excited and passionate about the same things we are, working hard to promote the same things we're trying to promote, and the room was quite clearly full of people like that on Thursday night.

D.

Just been reading an astonishing new sci-fi/fantasy book called The Roar by Emma Clayton. It publishes this summer. I dislike much fantasy and nearly all sci-fi, so I don't know what made me start it. I made myself just open it and start reading, because I knew that if I read the back cover first I would be immediately put off and not give it a go.

Anyway, after a few pages I was intrigued, and after a few more I was hooked.

It's set in a dystopian future where an animal plague has forced human beings to retreat to a tiny area of the world. They hide behind a high wall, and the majority live in squalid, minute 'fold down' apartments which are so small that you have to fold away the kitchen in order to use the bedroom, and fold away the bed so you can then have dinner... Mika and his family live in one such place, and Mika's twin sister Ellie has mysteriously disappeared. Everyone but Mika believes that she's dead...

I think this is this author's first book, and it's a really superb piece of writing. It's so self-assured and doesn't feel first-novelish at all.

Back again

Apologies for the silence this week. It's not because of a lack of UBG-related activity, but quite the contrary - so much running around doing stuff, that there's not been a lot of time left to write about it. (Still less to sit around in a leisurely manner doing luxurious things like reading...)

We've all been going through the second submission version of our new UBG, preparing a title list for additions to the new edition of the UTBG (the teen guide - any suggestions?); Leonie and I are talking in Oxford tomorrow and St Alban's next week, and we're all doing events in Exeter next week too, and the week after there's the launch of the National Year of Reading book and the children's books supplement in the Guardian and I'm doing Oxford again, etc.

And we do all have quite a few day jobs too, of course...

So, excuses over. Now, one bit of reading highly recommended for anyone with very little time but fancying a quick dose of something lovely and interesting, is Hilary McKay's The Story of Bear, which somehow I must have missed last year and just found new in paperback yesterday. It's an early reader, so for those of you who are grown-ups it's a 10-minute read, but like everything by Hilary McKay it's warm and quirky and more than worthwhile for any age. (Her Casson family books are among my favourites of recent years.) This is a peculiar story full of odd side-steps that even adults will have to look at twice before you're quite sure what's going on, but she's such a delightful writer she can get away with practically anything, truth be told; she's one of those everything-she-touches-turns-to-gold writers, and you can tell just how good she is even in this funny little piece. Should mention I quite like the pictures too, by an illustator I'd not come across before called Serena Riglietti - will look out for her again.

D.