You, Me and the Big Green Dinosaur...

Spot the difference? Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick's excellent picturebook in hand, we visited the 'real' Galway Caulander, aka the Asgard, in the National Museum at Collin's Barracks recently. We saw no whales, but there was a sighting of a squishy T-Rex (which subsequently went AWOL)*. This is books coming to life at its best!

*(Anybody who may encounter the beast is asked to exercise extreme caution and to let us know, as this particular carnivore is sorely missed by both his saurian and human friends)

Terenure, we were there...

What a lovely day for a lovely school and a lovely bunch of ladies!
Sadie and I met the whole 1st class in Presentation Primary in Terenure on Wednesday to talk about the writer-illustrator relationship, how to turn words into pictures and more.
We were extremely impressed with the quality of the artwork produced, from composition to colours and shadows and expressions.
So, a huge thanks to the 7 ladies with French mums (seven!), the lady with a cat called Romeo and a cat called Juliet, the lady from Azerbadjian, the lady who explained so well what a publisher is, the lady with the Rabbit jumper (a lady of taste!), the lady with the Mad Cap hair, the singing ladies from Ms Coghlan's class, the giggling ladies from Ms Green's room and the suitably impressed ladies from Ms Donnelly's group.
Oh, and thanks to Sadie for the bit of opera singing.
Yes, that's right, opera. (Sadie has more pics here, but no sound bite, sadly).

A bit of guided reading...

I'm busy, busy, crazy busy. I don't even have time to list all the things I'm working on (and supposed to be working on) at the minute. But one thing that has captured a lot of my attention lately (besides dinosaurs) (and teething) are books in translation. I was in Paris recently and I made sure to visit La Sardine à Lire, a very deadly children's books bookshop. There I stocked up on a few titles that I can't find over here because they're in the 'wrong' language.
Those included novels translated from the German and Norwegian and they were brilliant! A pity those we can only read English can't access them. Oh well, more on that later.
Meanwhile, I was delighted to discover these reading guides published (in English) by the good people over at the Astrid Lindgren Award, dedicated to 10 previous recipients of the prize (here):

The reading guides contain an introduction of the author, description of the contents, a suggested interpretation and topics for discussions. The guides are based on the following books: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Maikäfer, flieg! (Fly Away Home) by Christine Nöstlinger, O Meu Amigo Pintor (My Friend the Painter) by Lygia Bojunga, Northen Lights by Philip Pullman, Basu ni Notte by Ryôji Arai, The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson, The Ghost’s Child by Sonya Hartnett, The Devil Latch by Sonya Hartnett, Alors? by Kitty Crowther, Lénfant Racine by Kitty Crowther, The Arrival by Shaun Tan and Het Boek Van Alle Dingen(The Book of Everything) by Guus Kuijer. 

You're in for a treat!

Dream come true: The Calvin and Hobbes search engine

This is the kind of things that happen when you type "Christmas" in the Calvin and Hobbes search engine:


No, you're not hallucinating. There is such a thing as the Calvin and Hobbes search engine. Type in any word and see all the relevant strips come up. *_*
Beware: it's ridiculously addictive!

Feeling Christmassy yet? The Laureate video

Just watch this!

Rachel Von Kooij in Dublin

It was a very international evening: a Dutch author writing in German and living in Austria came to Dublin to celebrate the release of the translation into English of her novel set in Spain.
The launch took place at the Residence of the Austrian Embassy and, although there was no mulled wine or anything christmassy on account of it being still November, it was a warm and lovely event with lots of familiar faces as well as some new ones and some in between faces too (they're the faces of people you've been chatting to for weeks via email but have actually never met).
Rachel Von Kooij read from Bartolomé, The Infanta's Pet in Siobhán Parkinson's translation for Little Island, before answering Marian Keyes' questions together with Siobhán.

Bartolomé is the story of a crippled boy in 16th-century Spain who gets spotted by the Infanta who wants him to become her human pet. When asked if she had considered watering down the cruelty and the occasional violence apparent in some of the scenes, Rachel replied:
"No. Not at all. With children, you can do violence and cruelty with words, because the images that the words will conjure up are images that the child can cope with. If you tell the tale of Hansel and Gretel, the child will come up with an image of the witch and an image of the oven that he or she can cope with. But it doesn't work with film, where you impose an adult-made image on the child viewer."
You can read the first chapter of Bartolomé here and a review over there.

Launched!

There were heroes and monsters, cats and rabbits, zombies and sellotape, and sure it was great!
Madness was had by all at the Little Island launch last Saturday in Smock Alley Theatre, including yours truly...

More can be seen at Sadie's too, including the aforementioned zombies.