David Maybury | Blog

I didn’t really make a big noise about Breaking Dawn, Stephanie Meyer’s new book, when it arrived a few weeks ago… So to make up for that, and because movie goers the world over are due some good news:

The Twilight movie adaptation has been moved three weeks forward as a result of the opening left by the Harry Potter schedule change. That’s right sports fans - Twilight should be hitting the silver screen a few weeks sooner than expected. November 21 to be exact.

Also something worth clicking: The UK Times had a piece on Vampire movies a few weeks ago - beginning and ending with Twilight.

Jamila Gavin got a nice review in the UK Times last week. I haven’t picked it up yet but if Nicolette Jones is to be believed The Robber Baron’s Daughter is:

It is a story about opposites: innocence and experience, privilege and poverty, upstairs and downstairs, outsiders and insiders, integrity and corruption, and truth and lies.

Read the full review here.

Two bits of good news for Cartoon Saloon - not too long ago (a week or three) the company landed a 52-episode deal with everyone’s favourite network for cartoons, Cartoon Network.

But it gets better….

This years illustration for the Children’s Books Festival is out - and guess who’s name is on the bottom? Tomm Moore of Cartoon Saloon. The poster looks great - the monsters, Dracula being my favourite, is frighteningly frightened.

If you aren’t one of the lucky 100 winners from movies.ie, or you want to double your chances of winning, Children’s Books Ireland have a competition to win one of 5 family passes to a special advanced screening in Dublin (8 September) as well as a signed copy of the book.

It couldn’t be easier - all you have to do is answer the question:

To be with a chance of winning one of these fantastic prizes simply answer the following question correctly:

Who is the author of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS?
A) Derek Landy
B) JK Rowling
C) John Boyne

Send your answer along with your name and a contact telephone number to [email protected]This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with ‘STRIPED PYJAMAS Competition’ as the subject line. Closing date 3pm Wednesday 3rd September.

And in case you’re not sure - have a look at the author’s blog for a clue.

I’m off galavanting in Sligo today and with long trips across country comes long hours of trawling through newspapers. A couple of highlights from 4 hours of sitting on a bus:

> Anthony Horowitz appears in the Irish Indepdent - interesting read and good interview by Julia Moloney.

> Alan Garner encourages the habtit of reading outside your age bracket in the Times (UK) - comes ahead of the The Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group Conference next week.

> Louise Tucker investigates the phenomenon of boys reading Shakespeare as a graphic novel but not in text on the Guardian Blog.

Mobile broadband… it even works on a bus trekking through the middle of nowhere in west coast Ireland.

A few quick links from last weeks newspapers to brighten up a Sunday morning -

Derek Draper takes a look at Meghan McCain’s picture book My Dad - about her Dad, US presidential candidate John McCain. (Aged 5-10) Read more in the Guardian.

Nicolette Jones reviews David Macaulay’s Angelo, likening it to a new retelling of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince  - without the living statues… (Aged 5+) Read more in the Sunday Times.

Nicola Smyth tests out a heap of picture books on her four year old daughter - with the outright favourite being William Bee’s Beware of the Frog. Read more in the UK Independent.

It’s not just Tintin and Batman who are getting a rough deal with censorship this week - Jacqueline Wilson’s book My Sister Jodie has been at the stinging end of a conservative language kerfuffle too. Random House have agreed to change the word ‘twat’ to ‘twit’ in the best-selling book after receiving three complaints.

More than 150,000 copies have already been sold and according to Random House only three people have complained. The UK retailer Asda received one of those complaints and have decided to remove it from their shelves until the reprint is released.

Michael Rosen comments about it on the Guardian blog

No one is going to be corrupted by it (as if!), no one is going to suffer because of it, no one is going to be emotionally damaged by it. The word in common British-English usage has come to mean something not much different from “twit” or “stupid person” and if you want to represent the speech of young people today, then that is one stroke of the writer’s paintbrush that is available to you.

There is a double edged sword with Wilson. She is former Children’s Laureate as well as a respected and renowned writer of bestsellers - something which Random House won’t want to jeopardize. If the book been written by a younger or unknown author would the call to reprint have been made?

Read more on the Guardian or The Telegraph

So why all the bald jokes? It was an immediate reaction to reading the news yesterday that Adrian Sudbury died on Wednesday. I came across Adrian’s site a while ago working in the UK as a journalist and have enjoyed reading about the amazing work he did since I came back to Dublin.

Plans are afoot to turn the contents of Baldy’s Blog into a book with all the proceeds going to the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust which Adrian worked tirelessly to promote.

Following on from the success of this year news of the World Book Day Quick Reads 2009 has been popping up around the interweb. John Boyne - I was going to make a ‘John Balde, see-what-I-did-there’ joke, but my heart wouldn’t have been in it - the Bookseller and the Guardian cover it. Apparently, according to Kate Mosse, the guidelines for writing one of the Quick Reads are quite demanding: ” very short sentences and no words longer than two syllables”.

John Balde, see-what-I-did-there*, features alongside Ian Rankin, Kate Mosse and Sherrie Hewson (the lady from Coronation Street).

The full list for 2009:

Ian Rankin - A Cool Head
Kate Mosse - The Cave
Catrin Collier - Black-Eyed Devils
John Boyne - The Dare
Jacqueline Rayner - Dr Who: The Sontaran Games
Sherrie Hewson - The Tannery
Gervase Phinn - All These Lonely People
Patience Thomson - 101 Ways To Get Your Child To Read
Lola Jaye - Reaching For The Stars
Evan Davis - Dragons’ Den

* No John’s were hurt in the making of this post. (I hope)

One week after this post. Camera pans across Dublin, the same route through the city as the week before. It is another overcast morning, a Thursday this time. Zoom in on the window of an apartment building - there is the same silhouette of a man. You can hear him wailing in agony now, his entire body shaking as he sobs. Finally he stops, his shoulders sag forward and he hangs his head. He is sitting at a desk using a computer. The camera enters through the window and you can see he is using a laptop. More books, pages and empty bottles of lucozade, maybe now a vodka too, clutter up the work space.

Move the camera over the man’s shoulder and focus on the laptop screen:

Couple that news with Diane Duane’s theory on why Harry Potter was moved and it could read as though Warner Brothers are preparing for a delay on Watchmen (court case dependent). More on the Guardian, the Guardian Film Blog and BBC.

Other news in the world of superheroes on the silver screen:
> Who are the next superheroes to appear on the silver screen? Independent UK has a look.
> DC’s Sleeper will be head up by Tom Cruise and produced by Spiderman’s Sam Raimi. RTE.ie had the good/bad news.

The Dark Knight has been getting a bit of a kicking from some conservative, and not-so-conservative viewers, even Anthony Horowitz gets in on the question… what is acceptable for children?

It is a strange, modern phenomenon that we worry about our children even as we collude in their undoing. Computer games are far bloodier and insidious than anything that can be seen in the cinema, and it’s worth noting that in their case an 18 certification is just about meaningless. Grand Theft Auto anyone? The Police Federation described it as “sick, deluded and beneath contempt”. All in all, I’m surprised they didn’t put such a glowing review on the box.

Read more of Horowitz’s article on the guardian site.

As seen elsewhere already, Mags and Sarah have both covered it, the Sindo have launched a new Book Festival to take place in Dublin this year - with celebrated names from all literary genres taking part. Specifically from the world of children’s books Marita Conlon-McKenna, Niamh Sharkey, PJ Lynch, Judi Curtin, Derek Landy and Anthony Horowitz will all be making whistle stop appearances on the first day of the festival.

On Saturday 6 September each writer will have 30 minutes in the Shaw Room of the National Gallery - not much time each so it will be interesting to see how it works logistically… but looking forward to hearing/seeing six great writers all in one room.

You can book events through the festival’s website - bookevents.ie

> Paris Hilton has managed to put a super powered comic version of herself together, with the help of Marvel’s mastermind - and all round good guy - Stan Lee. Plans are afoot to see an animated Super Paris on the small screen soon. I wonder if the comic came before or after Hilton’s recent presidential campaign video? (More on examiner.ie)

> Dutch scientists believe they have come up with a video game that can help with cancer treatments for young patients from 13 - 29. The game is free to download and a little addictive… (More on irishtimes.com)

> Terry Pratchett talks candidly about living with alzheimer’s and what it means:

…if it wasn’t for my loss of typing ability, I might doubt the fact that I have Alzheimer’s. It’s now hunt and peck, and there will be a moment sometimes when the letter A just totally vanishes and I don’t quite know what happens. It’s as if the keyboard closes up and the letter A is not there anymore. Then I’ll blink a few times and then the letter A comes back.” (More on bbc.co.uk)

> Speaking of Mr Pratchett, he is reading/signing his new children’s novel Nation in Waterstones in London Piccadilly on 13 September. Might see you there… (More on waterstones.com)

> And last, but most certainly not least, Edward Gorey featured in last weeks Independent UK - or more precisely his The Gashlycrumb Tinies featured. If you haven’t read it, go and treat yourself to some eerie, witty and darkly comic reading/ogling.

*I couldn’t find anything that Paris Hilton and Edward Gorey had in common but I am sure Stan Lee has worked with them both…

A camera pans across Dublin city - a regular, overcast Friday morning. Zoom in on the window of an apartment building - there is a silhouette of a man. Audio of him sobbing, his shoulders sagged and head hanging. He is sitting at a desk using a computer. Enter through the window and see he is using a laptop. Books, pages and empty bottles of lucozade clutter up the work space.

Move the camera over the man’s shoulder and focus on the laptop screen:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince won’t be screened until July 2009. More on the delay over on BBC News. (Thanks to Catherine for spotting it)

The Observer’s graphic short story competition is back with an offering of £1000 and publication in the Observer Review. Check out last year’s winner, Catherine Brighton, for a start and then get the creative juices flowing. On the success of last year Brigthon had her first book published by MacMillan.

More info on the Guardian blog as well as a feature on Raymond Briggs - just to put it all into perspective I guess.

The artist/designer Pauline Baynes, the woman behind the original illustrations for Lord of the Rings trilogy and CS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia died last week aged 85. The Guardian and UK Independent have extensive obituaries.

Apparently she was working on 40 illustrations for a new edition of Aesop’s Fables which will hopefully be published next year.

And we’re back. Plenty to catch up on so expect a few link posts to follow for a few days. Managed to read Eoin Colfer’s new Artemis Fowl over the weekend - brilliant, paradoxically confusing and delivered with the usual one line humor that you have come to expect.

On to some links:

> Writers’ behaving badly? Not any more.
> The Irish Times Comic Con review.
> More Comic Con fun on the Guardian.
> Yet More Comic Con revelations. And even more here.
> Was the Dark Knight too old for its viewers? The Irish Independent thinks so.
> RTE’s The Buzz has a ‘How To Draw’ page. Something to do at lunch…
> Richard Kidd’s obituary from the Independent.
> Observer Round Up last week - Kate Thompson, Patricia McCormick, Valérie Zenatti and EL Konigsburg.
> Guillermo Del Toro gets his Hobbit hat on. Times UK.

And in case you missed it, like I did, Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn was launched last week too. Huzzah!

Heading offline for a day (or three) - but won’t be too far, you can follow the updates on twitter.

To keep you all busy - have a read of Sarah Webb’s review of Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox from Saturdays Independent. And if that wasn’t enough to look forward to - Eoin Colfer is heading to the Pavillion theatre in Dublin in September. Fun!

Right. Off into the world…

Two more smallies that I should have posted earlier. One to tag alongside the Harry Potter trailer - remember reading this story all the way back in 1997? Eleven years ago children’s books changed completely - little did anyone what was in store.

And the Sunday Tribune had a nice piece on what to read this summer with recommendations for ages 3-5, 5-9 and 10-14. Some interesting choices from June Edwards. Have a read through here.