(Or, to put into context – Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels was a Printz Honor Book at the ALA Awards. Here is her acceptance speech. We seem to have been waiting forever to see it, even though we have been able to read it for a while.)

Dig deeper

The author

• Book website
• UK website
• Entry on Contemporary Writers site with bibliography and list of awards and prizes
• Biography (from L-Space web, an excellent Discworld resource)
• Wikipedia entry
• Terry Pratchett on twitter

The text

• Read an extract online (better for glimpsing the maps than reading the text, however)
• Read an extract – Chapter One
• Terry Pratchett reads from Nation (video)
• Terry Pratchett on the writing of Nation
• The US cover
• Nation book discussion wiki
• The Telegraph’s Book of the Month (October 2009) – summary and reading notes
• As part of a UK competition, readers are being asked to make a three-minute film for YouTube. Here, Terry Pratchett shares his favourite piece from the book as inspiration.
• Adaptation for the National Theatre
• Advice on adapations for the theatre from Michael Morpurgo and Philip Pullman
• Wikipedia entry – with an urgent plea from the editors to improve it!

Reviews

• Fiction Focus
• The Guardian
• Times Online
• The Independent
• The New York Times
• Washington Post
• Boing Boing
• SF Signal
• Read Plus

Articles and interviews

• Meeting Mr Pratchett – The Age (15 February 2007) in which he anticipates Nation
• Interview about Nation in School Library Journal (24/8/2009)
• Terry Pratchett and Mark Ravenhill on the stage adaptation Nation (video)
• Mark Ravenhill on why Nation is being adapted for the stage
• An interview with Terry Pratchett about Nation (video)
• Q & A with Terry Pratchett in Publishers Weekly (4/9/2008)
• Terry Pratchett speaks in The Times about living with Alzheimer’s Disease (25/1/2009)
• And in The Independent: Nation – the one that’s just come out – that’s a book for kids. And people will say: ‘Well it covers very adult subjects …’ Yeah, that’s why it’s a book for kids. Because you want kids to grow up to be adults, not just bigger kids.”

Awards

• Boston Globe Horn Book Award 2009 – Fiction and Poetry.
• Terry Pratchett’s acceptance speech for winning the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, Part One and Part Two, read by his US editor Anne Hoppe (videos).
• Shortlist Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2009
• Honor Book Michael L. Printz Award 2009 (video acceptance speech here)
• Los Angeles Times Book Award 2008 – Young Adult Fiction
• School Library Journal Best Books of 2008 list
• Kirkus Review Best YA  Books 2008 List
• Publishers Weekly Best Books 2008 (Children’s Fiction) List
• Horn Book Fanfare Best Books of  2008 (Fiction)
• Bulletin Blue Ribbon – Best Books of 2008 (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books)

Read more disaster fiction

• A list from the CMIS database
  

• 26 February-1 March: Perth. Perth Writers Festival
• 28 February –5 March: Adelaide. Writers Week
• 6-8 March: Dublin. Dublin Book Festival
• 12-14 March: Tucson, AZ, USA. Tucson Festival of Books
• 15-19 March: Mudgeeraba, Queensland. Somerset Celebration of Literature
• 17-19 March: Bullcreek, WA. All Saints Lit Fest of Young Adult and Children’s Literature
• 20-21 March: Faulconbridge, NSW. Norman Lindsay Festival of Children’s Literature
• 1-5 April. Perth. Swancon : WA Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention
• 14-16 May: Darwin. Wordstorm 2010
• 12-16 May: Auckland. Auckland Writers and Readers Festival
• 17-23 May: Sydney. Sydney Writers Festival
• 21-30 May: Melbourne. Emerging Writers Festival
• 15-18 July: Mildura, Victoria. Mildura Writers Festival
• 6-8 August: Byron Bay, NSW. Byron Bay Writers Festival
• 14-30 August: Edinburgh. Edinburgh Book Festival
• 1-5 September. Brisbane. Brisbane Writers Festival
• 2-6 September: Melbourne. AussieCon4 – World Science Fiction Convention
• 8-12 September. Santiago de Compostela, Spain. IBBY 32 Congress
• 27 September-1 October. Brisbane. SLAQ/IASL Conference, with a literature strand
• late October. Dates to be confirmed. Waiheke Island, Auckland NZ. Words on a Small Island. Read about the inaugural festival.
• 6-10 October. Ubud, Bali. Ubud Writers Festival

Please note that not all of the above websites contain 2010 content, although the dates are correct at the time of publication.

Oh for the Lotto life!

Image of The Bookman from The Gnome King of Oz (1927) used under Creative Commons licence

You might not be aware, however, that they are planning to screen Nadia Wheatley’s and Donna Rawlins’s much loved classic, My Place as a 13-part series.  And as this series commences on the opening day of the channel, it certainly augurs well for quality children’s television programming from the ABC.

My Place will screen in 13 half-hour episodes on weeknights at 8pm from 4 December. The story starts on Sorry Day 2008 and finishes in 1788.

There will soon be a dedicated website for My Place. Meanwhile, you can read about the series here and here.

A new Canadian television series, Empire of the Word, will be one to watch for on our screens.

Alberto Manguel will host the TVO series that is based on his History of Reading. The press release sounds enticing:

Empire of the Word explores how reading and writing were born; how we learn to read; who or what might prevent us from reading; and the future of reading. Eight years in the making and shot in 15 countries, the series journeys from prehistory to present day and beyond, illustrating how reading and writing are inextricably linked to human evolution and existence.

The fourth and final episode looks at the future of reading, with reference to the terrific interactive webiste Inanimate Alice.

Empire of the Word has an accompanying interactive mystery, Lehka’s Journey. The first two of eight episodes are already online along with some interactive word games.

The program airs in Canada at the end of this month. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long to see it here.

Manguel’s 2007 Massey lecture series, The City of Words, can be purchased from several sources as a CD, but does not seem to be available in mp3 format.

Earlier this year there was considerable debate about the future of this popular list, which, like the Carnegie Medal nominations (see previous post) provides a terrific source of titles for keen readers. It’s difficult to find the final decision without being a member of YALSA ; this post in response to the SLJ article suggests that none had been made, certainly at the time of writing, but this post refers to a proposed readers’ choice award, possibly taking BBYA’s place at some future date.

No matter for now. We have a 2009 list of nominations and we are delighted to see the following titles on it:

• Michelle Cooper – A Brief History of Montmaray
• Alison Goodman – Eon : Dragoneye Reborn (aka The Two Pearls of Wisdom)
• Steven Herrick – Cold Skin
• Simmone Howell – Everything Beautiful
• Catherine Jinks – The Reformed Vampire Support Group
• Justine Larbalestier – Liar
• Shaun Tan – Tales from Outer Suburbia

Selections for the final BBYA 2009 list will be made at the January 2010 YALSA Midwinter meeting to be held in Boston.

The lists are long, and keen readers will want to devour as much as they can get their hands on from the Carnegie list, Those who love illustration will savour the titles in the Greenaway list.

Eagle-eyed Judith Ridge alerted us to the nomination announcements via twitter, where she noted that the beautiful and poignant Harry and Hopper (a Margaret Wild / Freya Blackwood collaboration) was in the running for the Greenaway.

The shadowing site will be up and running soon, and worth keeping an eye on.

Image of Kate Greenaway used under Creative Commons licence.

This School Library Association publication complements previous free lists Boys into Books 5-11 and Boys into Books 11-14. All are part of the SLA Riveting Reads series.

The titles on the Everyone’s Reading list can also be browsed online in a searchable database on the dedicated website. UK schools can select 15 titles from the list as part of a gifting program.

Everyone’s Reading has recently started on twitter.

Patrick Ness, Kate De Goldi, Angie Sage, Morris Gleitzman, Garth Nix, Andy Griffiths and Mark Walden … some of the writers for young people we will enjoy at the 2010 Perth Writers Festival.

The full Arts Festival (PIAF) program was unveiled yesterday. Earmark Friday 26 February to Monday 1 March for the literature component, with the traditional free Family Fun Day taking place on Sunday 28 February. This is a long weekend in WA.

PIAF runs from 5 February to 1 March.

The award is open to works of fiction written in, or translated into, English and published within a specified period of time, and as usual there are plenty of Australians on the longlist.

Fiction Focus was planning to extrapolate all the Australian nominations, but being a bit slow to tackle this task, we are happy to see that Perry Middlemiss at the Matilda blog has already done the work.

It’s nice to see Kate De Goldi and Ursula Le Guin in this company, too.