Take Off Your Running Shoes

Mothers and Daughters

Adele Geras and daughter, poet and thriller-writer Sophie Hannah were magnificent, I'm told, by a bevy of that critically-honed species, the thirteen year old girl. I regret so much missing this mother and daughter act at my girls' school this afternoon - no amount of blood can make up for it! Sophie is a curlier-haired version of Adele, apparently, and there was much maternal pride on display, much exclaiming by the older woman at the cleverness of the younger. Sophie read one of her poems, which the girls adored.

By all accounts, though, both authors will have gone home with some rip-roaring school-girl howlers. They of course will be much too lady-like to spill, but not of their ilk, I feel obliged to share just a couple of this afternoon's moments with you. Apparently, during question time, one hapless girl put up her hand to ask Adele whether the movie Troy was based on the Geras story of the same name. "Uh, no," answered a too polite Adele, "that'd be the Homer story that both are based on..."

Then later another schoolgirl said in the local patois, "do you, uh, you know, like, advertise your books?" In non-patois, this translates as, "do you advertise your books?" These girls are unable to complete a sentence without inserting the word 'like' into every phrase. Adele, a Mancunian, answered straightforwardly, "oh yes, I love publicising my books - it's my favourite bit."

Hurrah for Meg...

...Rosoff, whose latest teen book is chosen as one of the Observer's top ten reads (of all books out this autumn, adult and kids') here.

Junie B Jones

Think some of you might be interested in this because Junie B is coming this way - courtesy of the Chicken House publishers' (run by the man who gave J.K. Rowling her big break).

Teachers apparently complain about Jacqueline Wilson's grammar too, and if you read the school work of avid ten-year-old girl readers you do see lots of Wilsonisms - doesn't do any harm...but you might disagree...

This testing time...

No, not my testing time for a change, although I am just back from my latest visit to hospital to be re-stented yet again by the lovely doctor there (whose name I've gone beyond being able to ask exactly how it's spelt, but it sounds like Dr Van Stent, actually). This time I have a metal stent - it's bygone to plastics, so here's really hoping I can stop looking like Mrs Shrek very soon.

But in the meantime, it's our home tired-and-tested (meant tried and tested of course, but actually tired and tested works in this context...) selection of books for the examinees out there this exam period, here.
Catch the Tom Lehrer version of the Periodic Table, for which one of the comments on my piece gives the link.

Books for boys

...here

Who let the dogs out?

Meg Rosoff apparently, see here, her new-ish website. Meg, who mysteriously misspent her childhood surrounded by horses, is coming to Hendon any minute now to go horseriding in one of our numerous stables.

Whose dummy is it, anyhow?

Somewhat more fraught than usual yoga lesson. Read about it here.

p.s. hello Ayala! Namaste...

Bedtime habits

If you are reading this, then go here, sign in, and add your favourite bedtime for small kids read.

The good folk

Geraldine McCaughrean , despite being exhausted ("Everybody," she tells me, bemused at having been transformed from a writer into a product, "says, well they'll certainly get their money's worth from you") from this and numerous other launch events, including one she dreamed up herself - and for which she sewed the costumes this past year - at the Watermill Theatre, offers, without being asked or prompted in any way: "I will do an event for your fund-raising".

The children's authors are a seam through Take Off Your Party Dress. Philip Pullman was the first person to email me when I wrote about being diagnosed with cancer, and Adele Geras - who posts comments on this blog, hurrah!! - started emailing me when I was having treatment though we had never - at that point - met.

They are a community, the children's authors - and boy, do they bitch about each other, remind me to tell you the story some day about Michael Morpurgo on Anthony Horowitz being billetted to a less than five-star hotel - but, and I speak as someone who knows tight-knit communities, the children's authors are a community of good things.

Elon Roulette cont.

Elon's on a roll. The Getaway, by Ed Vere, about a mouse who steals cheese, and then makes his escape with lots of smart-aleck stage stuff out of the corner of his mouth, directly addressed to the child reading the book, is everything those slides at the Tate Modern are trying to be: fast, funny and visually stimulating.