Title: Me, Oliver Bright
Author: Megan de Kantzow
Illustrator: Sally Rippin
Publisher: Omnibus Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-86291-715-6

Presented as a school project, this is the story of Oliver Bright and his family. Comparing Oliver’s life with the experiences of his father and grandfather growing up, Me, Oliver Bright shows just how much life in Australia has changed over the past three generations and also compares the country childhood of Oliver’s grandfather and father with his own life in the city.

The appearance of this book is very appealing. It has all the features of a primary school project – pictures that seem to be attached with sticky-tape, corrected misspellings, crayon drawings, and rainbow colours in the handwritten text. I especially like the way Oliver writes his address: Sydney, Australia, the World, the galaxy, the Universe. I can remember writing something similar in the notebook myself as a child.

This is a lovely book for kids. It’s bright, fun and appealing as well as being a great summary of some of the lifestyle changes in Australia over the past 50 – 60 years.

I was excited to receive Me, Oliver Bright for review. I met Megan de Kantzow years ago when we were both living in the same country town. At the time, I didn’t realise that she was an author and I was delighted several years later to find her name on the cover of a children’s picture book, Just you Wait, at my local library.

Although Just you Wait didn’t appeal to me particularly, it was a CBC Notable Book for 2005 and is included in both the NSW and SA Premier’s Reading Challenge. I have found Me, Oliver Bright to be a much more interesting and engaging story and I look forward to this book receiving similar recognition.

Related Links:
Megan de Kantzow author website

Title: A Child’s Garden – A Story of Hope
Author/Illustrator: Michael Foreman
Publisher: Walker Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4063-1207-2

Story Summary
A young boy lives among the rubble of destroyed buildings, enclosed in a wall of barbed wire. His world is grey and bleak, but he discovers a bright green shoot which he tends and nurtures, establishing a point of colour and life. As the plant grows, more and more colour enters the scene as birds and insects are attracted to the plant and the children come to play nearby.

One day soldiers come and destroy the plant, casting it into a ditch and breaking the young boy’s heart. The boy endures the winter and in the spring is surprised to discover a small green shoot growing out of the ditch and then further surprised to find more shoots on his side of the wire.

As the plants grow towards each other and the colour once more returns to the illustrations, readers are offered an uplifting message about the ability of the human spirit to endure and overcome adversity.

Comments
We live in troubled times and it is almost impossible to shelter children from the stories of death and destruction that seem to constantly fill the news reports. It seems to be equally difficult at times to find a way to balance these news reports with a message of hope and encouragement that children can understand. 

A Child’s Garden is a beautifully written and illustrated story that manages to convey both the serious nature of the challenges facing some communities while also offering children a strong message about the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

This story offers a very direct message for children and would be ideal for class reading times and/or as a starting point for discussions about the impact of war and the value of hope. The sparing use of colour in the illustrations creates a powerful impact that perfectly matches the significant themes of the story.

Title: Gina the Dancing Queen

Author/Illustrator: Marisa Alo

Publisher: Windy Hollow Books, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-92113-654-2

Gina the giraffe loves music and dancing, but she remains a wallflower at the local dance because everyone knows she is too uncoordinated to dance well.

Gina decides to follow her dream despite the lack of support from others and enrols at a local dancing school. As she tries different dancing styles, Gina is awkward at first but gradually finds that she can dance well when she relaxes and listens to the music.

When the time for the New Years dance arrives, Gina has conquered both her fear and her lack of coordination. She has finally become the dancing queen she always dreamed she could be.

Written and illustrated by Marisa Alo, a freelance illustrator and passionate dancer, Gina the Dancing Queen is an encouraging story about having the determination to work hard and follow your dreams.

The text is reasonably simple with repetition of certain phrases to assist younger readers. The illustrations are bright and appealing and the story is an encouraging one that is most likely to appeal to young girls. A variety of animals fill the pages as the dance instructors and other dancers. My favourite is the hippo teaching belly dancing.

Rebecca at Lost in Books recently posted about book snobbery – believing that certain genres and types of book are superior to others in some way.

Her post got me thinking. I’m as guilty of literary elitism as the next person. There are books that make me roll my eyes and other genres that I routinely overlook on visits to the local library or bookshop.

Despite these rather misplaced feelings of intellectual superiority, I do have a guilty little reading secret. When life gets too busy or I feel like I’m about to head into mental overload, I have been known to pick up a… trashy romance novel.

That’s right. My name is Susan and I read Thrills and Swoon romances.

I’m talking tacky bodice rippers here. One hour reads full of overworked plot contrivances and predictable characters. To be completely honest, I read them because I can temporarily disengage my brain when I read them and because they make me laugh.

I don’t tend to confess my romance novel indulgence in public. It seems far too trivial a genre to boast about, but Rebecca has inspired me to confess my book snobbery and come out of the paperback romance closet.

Do you have a secret reading pleasure? Maybe you’re a nuclear physicist who enjoys the occasional picture book, or a brain surgeon who has a stash of comic books hidden away in the closet. Perhaps you’re a lecturer in Shakespearean literature who secretly writes romance novels in your spare time (much like romance novelist Eloise James).

You’re among friends here and they say confession is good for the soul, so speak up and let us all know what you read when no-one is looking. What genre do you try to hide amongst more worthy tomes at the bookstore or library checkout counter? We promise we won’t tell anyone, so don’t be shy.

Related Article: Review of The Desperate Duchess series by Eloise James at Suite101.

Meredith and I have only recently joined the thriving community of book bloggers and have to admit that we didn’t quite realise that it was quite so diverse, extensive or active.

I’ve probably entered into the book blogging community a little more actively than Meredith, who is keeping the home fires burning at Oh the Thinks you Can Think while I nurse our fledging book blog into existence.

Now that I have had time to have a little look around at the amazingly diverse world of book blogs, I am starting to get a feel for what kinds of sites most appeal to me and, based on this, what direction I would like this blog to take.

Deep, deep down, there is part of me that would love Reading Upside Down to be a serious literature/book review blog. I’d love for readers to regularly visit, drawn to the incredibly intellectual insights and commentary I offer on a wide array of titles, marvelling at my exhaustive knowledge of literature both classic and modern.

Unfortunately, the truth is that these aren’t the blogs that I enjoy visiting myself. In the past couple of months, I have been drawn to blogs that combine personality with well-written reviews by well-read readers of books, not dry analytic commentaries by professional “qualified” literary critics. Not that these serious critiques don’t have a place, it’s just that they aren’t the sites I have bookmarked in my full to overflowing reader.

The blogs I am drawn to are the clever, witty, amusing, knowledgeable and interesting network of (mostly) women that have offered me the opportunity to expand not only my knowledge of what books are out there, but also to enlarge my capacity to enjoy books and reading. I’ve laughed, I’ve sighed, and I’ve come away from posts with insightful thoughts and morsels of philosophical debate wandering through my mind for days after I’ve read the post that inspired them.

So, what kind of blog do I want Reading Upside Down to be? I guess the answer is I want it to be somewhere where people come to find out about great books, discuss books and reading and just hang-out with friends. I want it to be, as my new favourite book blogs are, a blog about books with wit and personality and a splash of fun.

Which book blogs inspire you? What are you looking for in a blog – do you prefer serious and academic, chatty, 100% reviews or a combination of reviews, chat, serious topics and fun?

Well, it’s been an interesting weekend. There have been quite a few distractions over the past 48 or so hours and I haven’t had the time to do as many things as I would like to, but I’ve had lots of fun at the Bloggiesta and have put in almost 10 hours since 8pm Friday night.

I won’t repeat my To Do list here, since I didn’t manage to achieve many of the things on the list. Instead, in the interest of thinking positive, I will list what I did achieve:

I completed several mini-challenges hosted by some great book bloggers:

• Wrote an opinion post to be published at a later date (Beth @ Beth Fish Reads)
• Approached two other book bloggers about becoming book blog buddies (Amy @ My Friend Amy)
• Wrote my book blog elevator pitch (Deborah @ Books, Movies and Chinese Food)
• Revised my anchor text skills (Michelle @ GalleySmith)
• Checked that I had Google Alerts in place (Emily @ Emily’s Reading Room)

I have partly completed other challenges and will be trying to complete them all over the course of this week.

Other tasks I accomplished:

• Organised my books waiting for review
• Updated my Good Reads account – added books, tags and reviews
• Updated my book review spreadsheet

I’ve also come away from the Bloggiesta with some great ideas for improvements and additions to my blog to implement in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Well, it’s getting late and I’m all partied out. Thanks to everyone who participated this weekend, I’ve had a great time visiting other blogs and I’ve picked up some great tips to improve my own blog. Special thanks to Natasha at Maw Books, who inspired us all this weekend.

There are so many great book blogs out there – I love visiting blogs by other readers not only to pick up the titles of some great new and classic books, but also to join in the chat about book-related topics. There really is a sense of community and I have enjoyed slowly becoming a part of the existing book blogger circle of friends.

Inspired by the Bloggiesta mini-challenge organised by Jill of Fizzy Thoughts, I’ve tried to visit some new blogs and stretch my book blog wings even further. The Bloggiesta really has created a kind of party atmosphere and visiting the other blogs has felt a little bit like mingling at a party meeting other guests.

In the interest of sharing some of my great new blog finds with others, here are the Bloggiesta guests I’ve chatted with today:

• Louise at Lous_Pages
• Wendy at CaribousMom
• Kristin at KCBooks
• Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books
• Drea at Book Blather
• Jenn at Jenn’s Bookshelf
• Marg at Reading Adventures
• Undine at Upside Down Duck
• Jackie at The Orange Room
• Amy at Haiku Amy
• Liyana at LiyanaLand

Did you discover any great new blogs this weekend during the Bloggiesta festivities? What was your favourite?

I know that technically I should have started my personal Bloggiesta this morning at 8am, but it’s a bit hard to get in the mood when no-one else will arrive at the party for another 12 hours.

So, to help me feel a little less stranded at the bottom of the globe, I have started my Bloggiesta at 8pm Australian EST and will run through until 8pm Sunday night. Still not quite in synch with everyone else, but much better than it could be.

I’ve already listed my Bloggiesta goals when I signed up, so now all I have to do is overcome my time management hurdles for the weekend (family birthday lunch tomorrow, possible guests for dinner tomorrow night, church Sunday morning) and get stuck in to getting this blog into tip top shape.

I’m really excited about the mini-challenges that Natasha has lined up at different book blogs. I really do function better when given a specific task and deadline, so I’m hoping for some great progress this weekend.

I love that the Bloggiesta mascot has a name now too – PEDRO will remind us to Plan, Edit, Develop, Review and Organise.

So, I’m already over an hour into the Bloggiesta and I’m ready to get started (well, I will be as soon as I go and make myself a cup of tea). I notice that a few of the mini-challenges have already been posted, so I’m off to try to get a head-start.

Wish me luck!

Please add a comment if you have any suggestions about ways I can improve Reading Upside Down or just say Hi!

PS If you want more details about signing up to take part in Bloggiesta yourself, visit Natasha at Maw Books for all the details.

The fact that it has taken me three days to write this post is perhaps a sign of just how much I need to join in the work on-your-blog-and-stop-procrastinating Bloggiesta this weekend.

Inspired and hosted by Natasha at Maw Books, the Bloggiesta challenges book bloggers to catch up on their blog maintenance and other housekeeping tasks between 8am Friday 19th June and 8am Sunday 21st June. Full details of the challenge including how to sign up can be found here.

So, in the interest of public accountability, here is my Bloggiesta To Do List:

• Catch up on outstanding book reviews (namely the pile of books sitting next to my desk)
• Create an author index list for all my reviews
• Create a title index list for all my reviews
• Update my GoodReads reviews and links
• Update my blog roll
• Update my book review spreadsheet
• Update the About Us and Contact info
• Write a review policy
• Catch up on outstanding emails to publishers/authors
• Update tags

Since we actually have a family birthday to celebrate on the 20th, that list is probably more than long enough to keep me busy in what little free time I will have during the 48 hours of the challenge, but I am looking forward to the possibility of a deadline breaking me out of my current procrastination.

Bring on the Bloggiesta!

Alyce from At Home with Books has recently taken on the Banned or Challenged Books Challenge (try saying that 5 times fast) started by Rebecca at Lost in Books.

Since this is a perpetual challenge, I should be able to add it to the list and slip it by the watchful eye of Meredith (who is a party pooper and is trying to stop me from over committing myself to book challenges). It seems fitting that with such a book watchdog trying to ruin my fun, I should revel in the challenge of reading books that have been banned or challenged.

Here are a few sites with information about banned or challenged books:

• Banned Books Online
• Forbidden Library
• American Library Association Banned Book Week information
• Banned Books: How Schools Restrict the Reading of Young People

Rebecca’s instructions for the Challenge
For this challenge, all banned and challenged books you’ve ever read count. The point of it is to read 50 of them, not necessarily 50 new ones. But, of course, if you’d like to choose 50 new ones, then that is wonderful. This is a perpetual challenge and has no end date. If you’d like to join me in this particular challenge, just leave a comment (here at Lost in Books) saying you’d like to participate and then a link to where you will show your progress on the challenge. Book reviews are not required, but, of course, accepted. A few short lines on what the book was about and whether you found it worthy of reading in and of itself (as oppose to the singular fact it may be worthy of reading just because it is banned).

And here is my list (Books marked in bold once I have read them)

1. Ulysses – James Joyce
2. The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
3. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
4. The Arabian Nights
5. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
6. The Bible
7. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D H Lawrence
8. The Merchant of Venice – Shakespeare
9. 1984 – George Orwell
10. Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret – Judy Blume
11. Beloved – Toni Morrison
12. The Chocolate War – Robert Cormier
13. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
14. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
15. James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
16. Lord of the Flies – William Goldberg
17. The Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
18. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
19. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
20. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
21. The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
22. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
23. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
24. Catcher in the Rye – J D Salinger
25. Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
26. Animal Farm – George Orwell
27. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
28. Farenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
29. Lolita – Vladmir Nabokov
30. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
31. Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
32. Schinder’s List – Thomas Keneally
33. A Room with a View – E M Forster
34. Charlotte’s Web – E B White
35. Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
36. A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
37. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
38. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
39. The Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkein
40. The World According to Garp – John Irving
41. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
42. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L Frank Baum
44. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
45. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
46. Forever – Judy Blume
47. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
48. Harry Potter series – J K Rowling
49. Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry – Mildred D Taylor
50. Flowers in the Attic – V C Andrews

Meredith’s Note: You are a crazy crazy lady – but I’d just like to comment that I have already read  38 of your 50 selected books. Why was The Wind in the Willows banned???