every day should be a susie day

Honestly? I am almost as excited to unveil this little beauty as I would be about a new book. You see, there are loads of brilliant individual children’s writer blogs out there. The Scattered Authors Society has been running a daily kidlit blog at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure for ages. There’s Crime Central, an author-run blog to celebrate crime fiction for teens. But lovely Jo Cotterill (who, as well as being a fellow Random House author, handily lives just down the road and thus I get to eat her cakes) thought one day, hang on: why isn’t there a group blog, aimed at readers, written by authors, just for girls?

And now there is.

Girls ♥ Books is for all girls aged 8-14 who love books – all kinds of books – and our roster of daily bloggers still blows my mind. Coming up are Cathy Cassidy, Karen McCombie, Cathy Hopkins, Joanna Nadin, Leila Rasheed, Fiona Dunbar, Keris Stainton, and many more. We’re going to introduce you to some brand-new authors too (one so brand-new she can’t even tell us the title of her debut novel yet!) – plus there’ll be quizzes, polls, and competitions to enter to win books and goodies.  I’m one of the first bloggers on the roster, so please do swing by Girls ♥ Books soon: you just might find a video of me, being all lispy and petrified cos I know I’m being filmed and it’ll be on the internet *ahem* I mean, of me being super-professional and articulate while giving you a guided tour of my writing desk…

By the way, if anyone in your vicinity gets sniffy about us using ‘heart’ as a verb, you have my permission to gently bonk them on the nose with the latest edition of the OED while shouting “OMG! it is a word, FYI, you tinfoil-hat-wearing heteronormative Rotterdammer!”

(You can find the full list of words they added last month here. I love new words, especially the ones that don’t seem new at all. The fact that it has taken until 2011 to get ‘stonewash’ in the dictionary boggles my rumble-de-thumps, I can tell you.)

PS: I hope you like how the Girls ♥ Books site looks. I did that bit.

PPS: Ooh, Australian book-blogger My Girl Friday made a Heidi-themed Polyvore for Girl Meets Cake! Adorable.

Elisabeth Sladen died yesterday, at 63, apparently after a long battle with cancer. It seems at best a bit daft to weep over someone you’ve only ever known via a fictional character, and my thoughts are with her husband, daughter and friends – but I clearly wasn’t the only old Whovian last night watching  Genesis of the Daleks with something in their eye.

Sarah Jane Smith was on telly the day I was born, wearing a woolly hat, orange wellies and a yellow pac-a-mac and getting tied up with string by Mr Potato Head.  My Doctor was that blond chap with the celery, so the first time I saw her in action was in The Five Doctors, where she zoomed gleefully about in Bessie with Jon Pertwee and made you not mind at all that Mr ‘teeth and curls’ had declined the invite. Lately, I’ve adored her on The Sarah Jane Adventures, where an older single woman and her adopted son define ‘family’ and get to save the world by being clever and brave and relying on each other. It’s the show that comes closest to the Doctor Who I watched as a kid, all cliffhangers and Lord Reith – and despite being set in Ealing, since it’s filmed in my old home town I know that attic is actually just round the corner from my old school, and with a little helpful time-travel, I could’ve been Rani or Maria.

Here’s her crowning moment in the original series, I think: reminds you what a wonderful performer she was.

I’ll give your love to Harry, and the Brigadier… *sniffs*

Yep, that is me blethering away there in the background.  (Even the Mycroft Christie bits.)  That’s my special ‘oh no, I’m talking to myself, let’s try to get this over and done with as quickly as possible’ voice.

MY INVISIBLE BOYFRIEND has now been read by lots of people who aren’t my Mum, including the lovely ABA, who’ve picked it for the Kids’ Indie Next List Summer 2010. (I’m rubbing shoulders with Diana Wynne Jones, David Almond, Mark Haddon, David Levithan… mind officially blown, tyvm.)

And here’s what some other people (who also aren’t my Mum, unless she’s been very busy) thought:

‘quirky, hilarious, and entertaining… Heidi is an unforgettable protagonist that will not fail to make readers laugh with her LOL-worthy shenanigans and escapades’ – The Undercover Book Lover

‘a strong first-person narrative voice that reminds me a little of Georgia in Louise Rennison’s series (Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging, etc.)… very funny’ – Book Aunt

‘one darlin’ book that I simply couldn’t get enough of’ – Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

‘very, very funny… Every single secondary character (Dai, Ludo, Teddy and Fili especially) comes to life on the page, and I want to be friends with all of them’ – Wondrous Reads (on GIRL MEETS CAKE, the UK/World edition)

‘I just really fell for Heidi and her friends… cute and entertaining, and if you like Brit humor the way I do, like fun romantic comedy-type stories, or like books with a funky and diverse cast of characters, you’ll really get a kick out of it’ – Forever Young

Just in case you were, you know, wondering if it was your cup of tea…    I think what’s really stuck out in all the reviews so far is how very British people have found it.  I’m still wondering exactly what that means.  Blog on the subject will ensue, once I’ve pondered some more…

I’m reading a book about faeries – and loving it to pieces (despite being a cynical git who tends to find straight fantasy and ‘magick’ a bit of a stretch) because it’s just that good.  It’s R.J. Anderson’s Knife (published in the US as Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter), which so far is reminding me of The Borrowers: an enticing doll’s house world of tiny furniture and monstrous humans (who might turn out to be allies, after all), and a tough bored girl who wants to see the big wide world.  The prose is glorious too.  Zippy clever stuff for 9+ girls.

Still puttering away at the opening chapters of Exciting New Secret Book Thingy, juggling a few scenes around to get the best fit.  It’s like a jigsaw with a piece missing at the moment (sorry, peanut-butter-in-bra story I borrowed from Girl Scout camp, not sure you’re quite good enough) – but I’m itching to get to the next bit.  Plus coffee with agent, shop-talky dinner with an old mate who’s now commissioning teen lit for a living (small small world), and oceans of tea with awesome writer-buddy Sarah Mussi. That all counts as work, right?

Going out for dinner and ending up dancing to random 60s girl groups in an awesomely manky student nightclub; discovering that the Marylebone Oxfam Bookshop is where Scholastic mock-ups go to die (I found a Philip Pullman with a Big Woo cover, and an Ally Kennen which was Girl Meets Cake on the inside: utterly surreal); eating a lot of peas.  Mmm, peas.

The kidlit world is getting its undies in a right old knot over publishers’ plans to include age guidance on children’s books. Those against include, well, probably every children’s writer you’ve ever heard of. Except for Meg Rosoff who, in typical fashion, is swimming against the tide, and thinks it might be quite handy for the humble book-buying punter.

Me? I’m with Mighty Meg.

Books aren’t unpackaged and unmediated. They come with covers carefully designed to target a specific audience: cupcakes and faces for girlies, logos for boys, artsy graphics for ‘serious’. (Foil and shiny bits for everyone: we’re all magpies, apparently.) Even the author’s name is retooled for the market where possible. Betcha I wouldn’t be ‘Susie’ if I wrote action thrillers for 10-year-old boys.

But all of these are inexplicit devices, and on occasion quite subtle ones. (I’ve not heard it stated aloud, but I’m fairly sure the colour scheme of the US edition of serafina67 doesn’t quietly evoke Lauren Myracle’s ttyl by accident.) The No To Age Banding posse point out that kids study these tricks of the trade in school. True: I’ve taught that lesson (and it’s gold: nothing gets a book-deprived disinterested class engaged better than getting them to redesign The Hobbit, even if it might end up a bit gorier than you remember, with considerably more grenades and rocket launchers). But it’s not kids who hand over the cash in the bookshop. And as a grown-up who reads kidlit avidly, I still find myself at nephew-birthday time wondering if I’m about to cause family meltdown with a gift that includes oral sex under its Spiderman wrapping paper.

Let’s get this clear: no 9-year-old booknut is going to be arrested for possession of an 11+ rated novel. Alarms will not sound throughout the local library, sending masked men with AK47s to shoot dead gay Dumbledore out of Little Johnny’s hands. If we can credit young readers with understanding book covers as marketing devices, we can also grant them the wit to interpret age banding in exactly the same way: as information which serves a specific purpose, and can be ignored and discarded if you think you know better. Meanwhile us crumbly types can be reassured that by buying a book we aren’t effectively taking a 7-year-old to a 12A film, only to have to carry them out, sobbing uncontrollably, after the ninth beheading.

Timing means everything in literature. I firmly believe that every copy of The Catcher In The Rye should come stamped with ‘not to be read if over 18: may cause nausea’. Martin Amis’s early works should explode off one’s bookshelf after the age of 25 in case you’re tempted to revisit, and discover that what seemed ‘like totally postmodern man, whoa’ back in the day now feels a bit studenty and crap. No kid is going to be heinously scarred by reading outside what is designated ‘age-appropriate’ – but I fail to see how they’ll suffer from a little guidance. We’re in a second Golden Age of children’s writing. Magnificent new books get published every day. A little help finding the ones you’ll get the most out of is no bad thing.

The Last of the Warrior Kings, Sarah Mussi (YA, 12+, contemporary thriller). Regular readers will know Sarah is an old mate, who despite being an award-winning and nominated-for-more-award-winning author, still deigns to associate with the likes of me. Much as I’d love to annoy her with a bad review, the bloody woman continues to write such uniquely funny, brainy, pacy stuff that I’m stuck with the usual effusions of dribbly praise. If you’ve read her Door of No Return, you’ll know to expect movie-worthy action and thrills, bonkers plot twists, heartbreakingly accurate teenage characters, and a serious dose of education on African issues. Last of the Warrior Kings manages to revisit the same territory while feeling utterly fresh, largely thanks to hero Max, whose endearingly hapless efforts to save the day and win the unattainable girl (all while keeping his expensive trainers pristine) can’t help but draw you in. It seems cheeky to highlight the sillier side of a story that has genuine darkness at its heart: Sarah’s not naive about her own South London, and the harsh realities of gang warfare now are accompanied by the no less grim history of C19th British intervention in Nigeria. But this is a fundamentally uplifting book about finding a way to live your life well no matter what hand fate has dealt you, with plenty of daft gags along the way and an ending that will really linger in the mind. Quite infuriatingly good. Stop making the rest of us look inadequate, dammit!

Had a typically spectacular weekend with my writing group (the evil Mussi included), who kindly held my hand through a bit of Biscuits & Lies structural paranoia, and, as always, fed me till I was barrel-like. I’m now back to too much thinking and not enough typing. And the realisation that I now have three separate characters called Simon. This is going to be an interesting editing experience…

Mourning the loss of Lovely Lucinda from The Apprentice; finding new things to hate about Indy IV (while coveting Lego Indy); playing Prince of Persia on someone’s PS2 (this is what old-skool looks like now? gosh); staring, open-mouthed, at this…er…unusual cover version of Rihanna’s Umbrella (T: isn’t that Arbruzzi in a wig?).