Spent yesterday at the Auckland Museum. It’s long been one of my favourites, as its collection contains some real treasures of Oceanic art, and the Pacific Masterpieces room is one of my favourite rooms in any museum in the world. Sensational fish-hooks.
Also they have good swords.
But at present they have Vikings – the same exhibition as seen recently in Sydney at the National Maritime Museum, my spiritual home, although it seems a little smaller here.
But anyway weeks ago I had sketched out the plot for the new Viking book, which is the second in a new timeslip series – not much detail and really just knew how it fitted in with the overall narrative. Research so far had been sporadic, mostly because I start from what I already know and then research in bursts as required.
I stared intently at all the Viking displays, took a million notes, had a coffee and then wandered up to look at the swords in the Armoury. It’s not the Tower, but it’s a smart, small collection.
Stood gazing at something utterly unrelated (the detail on the guard of an 18th century infantry officer’s sword) and then came the flash and clunk of a brain cranking slowly into gear.
By the time I got home from the museum I had the entire book clear in my mind and had started drafting.
Gone a-Viking.

Have you looked at Google maps? You can see your house from the air. And anything else, for that matter. People standing outside St Paul’s or walking along the Embankment. The trees in the courtyards at Topkapi. Malta looks rather blurry, but London is crystal clear.
I can see the rapids in the river below my house in Melbourne. Seagulls on Onetangi beach (OK, I’m exaggerating now, but you get the idea).
But I’m supposed to be writing about recent kidlit I’ve read. First, some newish books:
I, Coriander (Sally Gardner) starts well, set in Civil War London and great on historical detail and atmosphere. But it’s half fairy story and I’m not much interested in fairy stories so my eyes glazed over for a bit. Still, it’s nicely written and paced, and I’m sure young readers without my prejudices will enjoy it.
Josie Under Fire is Ann Turnbull’s contribution to the Historical House series. This is a great concept: take one house in London and use it as the setting for three separate stories about girls in different eras. Clumsy historical download in the first chapters (see below) but the themes of bullying and difference are explored without any of that moral high-ground nonsense you often get in books set in World War 2. (I do, though, prefer Linda Newbery’s chapter, Polly’s March).
Now a couple of classics:
I read about The Sprig of Broom by Barbara Willard in an essay in Solander, the journal of the Historical Novel Society, that traced the development of historical fiction for children. I’d never heard of it before then, I’m sorry to say, because it’s very much in the Geoffrey Trease mode (it’s a kind of post-script to the Mantlemass books, I think). Feisty girl, smart and brave boy, well-written drama, and a little Plantaganet intrigue. What more could one want?
Dragon Slayer is Rosemary Sutcliff’s version of Beowulf for children. What a rip-snorter. She manages to capture the spirit if not the language of the time and the songs and poems of the oral tradition, while keeping it at the level of spirited adventure. It’s been criticised, I know, but I think the old girl’s got it right. Any kid who liked LOTR will find it appealling – and it’s almost the real thing.
Had to read it for my course, and I’m very glad I did – I don’t have very fond memories of reading the original many years ago, even though I normally love a good saga. I mean that in the Viking sense, not the Days of Our Lives sense. Must read Beowulf again.
Speaking of which, I’m off to the museum tomorrow to see the Viking exhibition – I whizzed around it when it was in Sydney in May, but tomorrow I’ll take my time, and take notes, and get all inspired for the next project which is, inevitably, a Viking book.

I go through phases, like everyone. For years I read little but travel writing and history, and very happily too. I’ve never quite emerged from that phase. I can admit to a 1980s feminist fantasy phase, a brief flirtation with sci-fi, a metaphorical affair with crime, and even my interest in contemporary fiction comes and goes (but then, so does contemporary fiction). I’m also one of those odd people who read poems – like, for fun.
On a plane I’ll read almost anything. Even The Da Vinci Code.
Although I write historical fiction, I don’t read it much because it’s often awful – perhaps I hang about the intersection of histfic and literary fiction.
But at present I’m reading a great deal of kids’ historical fiction, to see how it’s done – in case I haven’t got it right – to see what everyone else is doing, and to recapture the joy it brought me when I was 10 or so and hung out at the Nunawading Library every Thursday evening (Fridays we had fish and chips – not sure which was best).
Oh and also I bought a stack of out-of-print books at a school fair in Napier and it’s taking a long time to work my way through them: you’d be surprised how many of those lovely slender Puffins you can fit in a box – or three.
Why bother writing about history for young readers?
In the latest Literary Review, Andrew Roberts rants about the teaching of history in the UK, and with reason. “In recent surveys,” he tells us, “nearly three-quarters of 11- to 18-year-olds did not know that Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar was Victory [this in the middle of the anniversary celebrations]… Fewer than half of 16-24-year-olds knew that Sir Francis Drake was involved in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, with 13 percent thinking it was beaten by Horatio Hornblower.”
That Horn, eh? He can do anything.
More worryingly, only 45 percent of Britons “associate anything at all with the word Auschwitz”.
This brings me to me latest reading list, because when I re-read books such as Cue for Treason that I read when I was ten or so, it is blindingly obvious that we no longer have access to the assumptions that an older generation could safely make about the historical knowledge of their readers.
When I read to kids in schools, we talk a lot about pirates and the sea and history. In some schools, the kids have no idea where the Mediterranean is, that Italy looks like a boot, what on earth a Napoleon Bonaparte might be. I should say that in Australian schools, with so many Italian and Maltese kids and almost everyone learning Italian, the geography is more familiar – but not necessarily the history.
Now, I’m not one of those people who decry modern teaching methods, and I’m perfectly aware that there might be more urgent things kids have to learn that Napoleon’s life story.
The point is that when we write historical fiction now we have to spell out every little thing, or give background impressions where once the background existed clearly in the readers’ minds. I find it sad. And spelling out every little thing can be the death of historical fiction. I hate wading through potted histories of the world wars or suffragettes in the first chapter, and I’m sure kids do too.
It’s the same with language, although for a different reason. It’s clear when you read fiction for kids written before, say, 1980, that there’s a quite specific assumed readership of middle-class children – especially in British fiction – where the author can rely on a certain level and type of education. The rest of us just had to keep up.
Perhaps now we write books that are more accessible to more kids, but there’s a fine line between that and dumbing down, which has the effect of treating every child like a moron.
I’ve just read two books by Penelope Lively, with sprightly crisp writing, a fine English humour and wonderful characterisation. I remember reading A Stitch in Time when I was a kid: last week I read the Carnegie-winning The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and The House in Norham Gardens, both a breath of fresh air and both happily still in print.
The House in Norham Gardens, when published in 1974, was aimed at readers 11 to 14. Now, thirty years later, it would probably be pitched at Young Adult. It’s a complex, sophisticated coming of age story in which nothing much happens except inside the protagonist’s head. That’s where the history lies, too. She slips into second person point of view and out again, slips through time and across cultures and through delicately shaded states of mind.
And also there are lots of spears and a New Guinea shield, which is always a good thing:

“In no other house, thought Clare, in absolutely no other house, could you open an old trunk and be confronted with a large bundle of bows and arrows…
Clare, putting the tray down on the table by the sofa, thought: I am the only person I know who has spears on their walls instead of pictures.”

Some of them even have poisoned tips.
One of the other houses in the world with spears and bows and Highland shields is mine. It started with a bundle of poisoned arrows, went on to adzes and eel traps and it hasn’t finished yet, although it’s all bundled up in storage in Melbourne at present, because I didn’t have the stomach to try to get them through NZ Customs when I moved here.
So I grew very fond of Clare and her elderly aunts in our brief acquaintance, and increasingly fond of Penelope Lively and her sharp mind and flawless prose.
Oh now I’ve gone on too long. Boring, sorry. I’ll have to discuss the other books later.

Look out Tony Blair. Not only has Paris Hilton never heard of you, but now you’re really up against it. Traditional verse activists have launched a political offensive in the UK. Their aim? Compulsory rhymes in all contemporary poems. Or perhaps Downing Street will have to issue press releases in couplets.
Ruth Padel runs through a potted history of potty poets, as therapy after being heckled at a conference by vociferous versifiers:

I can see the bumper stickers now:
I rhyme and I vote.
Honk if you love Walter De La Mare.

Right then. Time for some shameless self-promotion.
The Pirate’s Revenge, book two of the Swashbuckler trilogy, is out in Australia and NZ on October 6. For those desperate to know what happens next, here’s the blurb:

Once a pirate slave, Lily Swann is navigator on the Mermaid, running the French blockade of Malta, when she learns her long-lost father may still be alive.
But before she can follow up her discovery, Lily clashes with the vile Captain Diablo, who forces her to show him the way to the famed Golden Grotto. Furious when he is unable to locate its fabled wealth, he abandons her to die in the darkness. As she battles her way out, Lily discovers the true treasure of the grotto, and her silver sword is soon put to the test.
But after another confrontation with Diablo, Lily is cast adrift with her old adversary, Hussein Reis, in a tiny boat without oars, sails, food or water – the pirate’s revenge.

But then what? If you need to know what happens after that, you’ll have to read book three, The Silver Swan.
You can download a larger version of the cover here.

Been writing all day, with breaks for coffee, walking about staring into mid-air, checking on the passage – or otherwise – of John Howard’s pathetic refugee legislation, writing some more, researching online, Brand New Heavies on the headphones (I know that dates me, but so does all my working music), talking out loud to myself, poring over texts, and now cooking risotto.
Mostly I’m in Venice, in the Ghetto. Lost in memories of the ironwork around windows, empty squares, sea mist, dark churches, saints’ bones, smells of fish and seaweed, onions and coffee in the air. Except I’m there in the 17th century, in a sunlit printing workshop, with a young character called Isabella.
Writing is freedom, too, you see.

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily.
Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
~ Virginia Woolf

I really do find this remarkable. Here are Nielsen’s top ten children’s books in Australia for the last month:

1 Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince JK Rowling
2 Kylie the Carnival Fairy Daisy Meadows
3 Lauren the Puppy Fairy Daisy Meadows
4 Katie the Kitten Fairy Daisy Meadows
5 Penny the Pony Fairy Daisy Meadows
6 Pirates John Matthews
7 Bella the Bunny Fairy Daisy Meadows
8 Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy Daisy Meadows
9 Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix JK Rowling
10 Molly the Goldfish Fairy Daisy Meadows

Let me assure you that last month, before the release of Half-Blood Prince in paperback and the wonderful Pirates, the fairies really dominated.
Now, I know that those of you who haven’t yet seen the fairy books in all their shiny pink glory (a bit like fairy floss, really – or Barbie) will be stunned by these rankings, and your first thought will be: Daisy Meadows can’t possibly be a real name. Surely.
Of course not. It’s the alias of Sue Bentley, best known for the equally glittery Magic Kitten series.
And it works, clearly.
I accept the books are not my cup of tea and never would have been, no matter how young. With all due respect to Ms Bentley, if anyone had given me a book about a Guinea Pig Fairy even when I was a kid I would have laughed, thanked them politely, and gone back to Elephant Adventure. But I’m queer like that.
Still, it’s actually Kylie that gets me. Kylie the Carnival Fairy.
Let me just say that one last time.
Kylie.
I agree that Kylie Minogue made a wonderful absinthe fairy in Moulin Rouge, but I’m guessing that’s a cultural reference that will slip by most of her intended readers.
A Kylie ain’t a fairy. End of story.
Nor, for that matter, is a guinea pig.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.
If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
~ Maya Angelou

I’ve had a mantra in my head all weekend: Reading is freedom. That’s all. That’s everything.

Well, I’m happy.
Finished this month’s edition of the magazine (early). Got to the good old Women’s Bookshop and finally picked up Jeanette Winterson’s kids’ book, Tanglewreck, and Sarah Waters’ Night Watch, which I can claim is research since I’m now onto writing my second in the WW2/Blitz series.
I growled like a lion so loudly at little girl at the bus stop, I’ve nearly lost my voice. She laughed so much she fell over. I mustn’t have looked very fearsome.
Then went to the library for college-related reasons and they actually had the books I needed (miracle #1) and even allowed me to borrow them (miracle #2) so to celebrate I also got out an old Leon Garfield collection and Sally Gardner’s I Coriander, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages.
Now I have three weeks of blissful writing time stretching ahead of me. Three! (That’s miracle #3.) I’m going to get stuck into my Spanish Inquisition project. Or possibly Vikings.
And in a few hours time I will have finished all my course work – for this week, anyway. I’ll pretend to myself at least for a few days that there isn’t another great brain-sucking time-consuming slab of work lying just ahead.
And there’s a full moon. A harvest moon in winter. A Thomas Hardy moon. I saw it through a high window yesterday morning before I was properly awake. I saw it rise over the sea last night from the ferry.
O wondrous days.
I might just eat chocolate as well. Go crazy.

Relax. According to The Guardian, a survey of over 2,000 adults carried out in the UK has found that books play a crucial role in influencing our opinions of strangers. Well, sure, but:

Half of those asked admitted that they would look again or smile at someone on the basis of what they were reading.
And it gets better… A third of those surveyed said that they “would consider flirting with someone based on their choice of literature”.

My mind is utterly boggled at the idea of actually asking grown-up people these kinds of questions – and why – but let’s just put that to one side. In fact, let’s not think about that at all. Ever. Because what would we have to blog about if it wasn’t for the latest stupid survey findings? But I digress.
The really good news is this:

The genre most likely to help you pull – the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini of the books world – is the classics, followed by biography and modern literary fiction (think Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks, rather than Dan Brown and Martina Cole). Forget the gym: if you want to raise your dating game, head down to your local library and start borrowing.

Now, perhaps if you were an extrovert, it might occur to you to start chatting or possibly flirting, even though the person next to you is clearly engrossed in a book. For an introvert, such behaviour is unimaginable. But let’s face it, market researchers are extroverts and unlikely to consider any alternative scenarios, like someone scowling or blushing or losing her place on the page.
Most normal polite people only chat if you aren’t doing anything – except on long plane flights, when no amount of engrossed activity or even pretending to sleep will deter some.
I have to admit at this point that nobody ever talks or smiles at me when I’m reading anything vaguely of interest to me, and I would scowl at them if they interrupted anyway.
But when I had the misfortune to be stuck in an airport in the middle of the night with nothing but Dan bloody Brown, about a million people – well, men – came up and told me that Da Vinci Code was the best book they’d ever read. Until I innocently asked one what other books he had read and he couldn’t think of any.
I scowled.