Almost at the end of my Melbourne stint, and I’ve lost count of the number of school groups I’ve met.
I’ve been reading a bit, talking about pirates a lot. We’re all pirate mad at present. In every school there seem to be several pirate experts who can hotly debate the exact shape of a scimitar or the symbols on Blackbeard’s flag. We are past the age of the dinosaur experts who scoff if you don’t know your diplosaurus from your T Rex.
I have even met the great-great-great-many-greats-nephew of Calico Jack Rackham.
I usually say “people tell me that girls couldn’t be pirates” and then go on to explain that there were really women pirates. I love it when a whole class roars back: “Girls can so!”
I love looking up and seeing fifty spellbound faces, wide eyes, and intense concentration. I love the gruesome questions about various pirate methods of destruction (I’m not sure if the teachers like that so much). I love it when the kids laugh at my jokes. I love it when they make me laugh.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to read at my old school. The biggest thing I remember happening when I was there was the moon landing. The whole school sat out on the cold lino in the corridor, staring at one old black-and-white telly. There were regular bushfires. And snakes lurking beyond the oval. We didn’t even have a library then – we had a cupboard off the hallway. I wonder if it’s changed?
I never knew it would all be this much fun. First, I just get to write stuff. Then, somebody actually publishes it. And then I get to read and talk to kids about stuff they find fascinating.
How cool is that?

I’m going home this afternoon. Melbourne. Soul of the South.
Will try to blog from there.
I’m reading at several schools, including my old school, and on 23 July, I’ll be at the Chatterbooks Adventure Afternoon. Christine Harris, author of the Spy Girl series, and David Harris, author of the Cliffhangers books, will be there too, for an afternoon of “swashbuckling, espionage and thrill seeking”.
Chatterbooks is run by the Eltham Bookshop, and offers “a chance to talk about your favourite books and authors, and let us introduce you to the most exciting and readable books. Don’t forget that we also run writing and storytelling workshops and close encounters with acclaimed authors. Especially for 8-13 year olds and their families.”
It’s from 2 to 3.30pm at Eltham Library, Panther Place, Eltham.
For more information or to book in, phone 03 9439 8700 or email elthambookshop@bigpond.com.

“Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.”
~ Daphne Du Maurier

(And I bet you thought her best line was “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”)

Children’s author (Which Witch) Eva Ibbotson recalls her adopted local library, peaceful moments in a childhood marked by Nazism:

I came across a building with an open door. I went inside. The room was very quiet and full of books. At a desk sat a woman with fair hair and I waited for her to tell me to go away. But she only smiled at me. Then she said: ‘Would you like to join the library?’
My English was still poor but I understood her. In particular, I understood the word ‘join’ which seemed to me to be a word of unsurpassed beauty.

Lovely story. Read on here.

…Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

– From Philip Larkin’s High Windows, 1974.

I love Stephen Fry.
Having been Oscar Wilde, sorted out poetry with The Ode Less Travelled, directed movies, saved pandas or sloths or some such thing, he’s now made his mark on history.
Here’s his marvellous speech launching the History Matters campaign, on which I grandstanded a few days ago (or maybe it was more a soapbox):

We haven’t arrived at our own moral and ethical imperatives by each of us working them out from first principles; we have inherited them and they were born out of blood and suffering, as all human things and human beings are. This does not stop us from admiring and praising the progressive heroes who got there early and risked their lives to advance causes that we now take for granted.
In the end, I suppose history is all about imagination rather than facts. … Knowing is not enough…
History is not the story of strangers, aliens from another realm; it is the story of us had we been born a little earlier. History is memory; we have to remember what it is like to be a Roman, or a Jacobite or a Chartist or even – if we dare, and we should dare – a Nazi. History is not abstraction, it is the enemy of abstraction.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m getting heartily sick of pirates.
Not my pirates, mind you.
But if I see another “True Story of Blackbeard” documentary or another dull buccaneers book, I’ll make someone walk the plank. Everywhere I look there are pirates. Cliched pirates in red coats and back hats. Grinning pirates. Caribbean pirates.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the pirates’ fault. And I’m sure it’s good for book sales, even if it’s all a marvellous coincidence – although it does mean there are an awful lot of pirate books about.
But really. These people were horrible. They were truly amongst the most appalling creatures ever to sail the seas. Colourful, yes. But revolting. And all they did was sail about the tropics (hardly a chore, except during a hurricane) and blow one another up.
Give me the Mediterranean any day.
I haven’t gone off the nautical life altogether – far from it. I’m having a bachelor’s weekend, and recovering from flu, so on Friday I watched two episodes of Hornblower on DVD and then got so interested I sat on the couch all day yesterday and read three Hornblower books one after another. Endlessly fascinating, even on the second, or third, or perhaps it’s fifth reading. Even when he ventures near the Caribbean.
Here you have the great powers of Europe in turmoil, shifting and changing. The early books (and indeed my books) are set against one of most interesting periods of history, when the world seemed to be changing shape before people’s eyes. Revolution, republicanism, feminism, nationalism; the clear flame of Enlightenment giving way to the dash and drama of Romanticism; astonishing men and women and one man – Bonaparte – like no other; great empires like Spain, Holland and Portugal crumbling; Britain ruling the waves and much of the planet; France ruling Europe and on the road to Moscow; mass emigration to upstart colonies like America; the great Rebellion in Ireland; new plants, new ideas, new worlds. Intrigue, espionage, great battles. Honour, duty, drama.
All much more interesting than a pack of drunken retrobates with bad teeth and no dress sense.
Anyway, speaking of pirates, today I’m proof-reading the galleys of Swashbuckler book 2, before it goes off to the printer – this week we got final artwork for books 2 & 3 covers, and gorgeous things they are too.
I just hope everyone else doesn’t get sick of pirates in the meantime.

(I haven’t yet seen the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, as I’m saving it to watch with my nephew in Melbourne next week. I will make an exception for that.)

The Guardian last week ran a fascinating profile of Shirley Hazzard, the vaguely Australian writer who for decades has lived mostly in New York and Capri. She is, like the heroines of her books, “good with words”:

Mal Peet has won the UK’s prestigious Carnegie Medal for Tamar, a “fictionalised exploration of history and its impact on the present which focuses on the untold story of the resistance movement in Holland towards the end of World War Two.”
In his acceptance statement, Mr Peet said:

“Tamar was a story I particularly wanted to tell. I believe it’s so important for young people to grasp the connections between their own lives and the past. Our understanding of history is in danger of becoming hopelessly partial and fragmented; the sense of continuity, cause and effect, is in danger of getting lost. If young people don’t make those connections, what hope is there for us to learn from our mistakes rather than repeat them!”

Hoorah!
The judges reckon he nailed it:

“Tamar is a powerful and moving story that cleverly connects the present with the past. Peet’s is a broad canvas; his writing is beautifully controlled as he unravels the complex historical and personal aspects of the story of sixty years ago and today. He has an assured lightness of touch and his book is rich with imagery, simile and strong characterisation, all of which are the hallmarks of quality in writing for children and young people. Dark and moving, it is a compelling read that ultimately offers a sense of optimism.”

And again we cry, hoorah!
And it’s only his second book, too. He was so sure he wouldn’t win, he didn’t attend the awards. I don’t suppose you would, either. He was on the shortlist with David Almond, Frank Cottrell Boyce (last year’s winner), Jan Mark (twice a winner), and Geraldine McCaughrean.
Emily Gravett took out the Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK’s oldest and most prestigious award for children’s book illustration, for her first book, Wolves.

Flu. Or something. Too ill to …