Set in 1930s Mississippi, in the year that Cassie realises being black can be a liability, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor is one of my favourite children’s novels. It’s packed with Mighty people I’d love SBJ to get to know. Cassie is lucky to have been born into one of […]
Over Christmas, my Dad discovered Alex Archer. Following our family tradition of combing each other’s bookshelves for treasures to steal (in my case) or borrow (in his), he came across the first two books of the Alex Quartet. He chomped through them in a day or two and had to search out the next couple […]
Oh to be in England, now that it’s snowing in New Zealand. Oh hold on, we are! We have just arrived in Somerset for a spell with our family here. The last few weeks have included packing the house, moving our stuff into storage, marshalling help from many kind people in doing the above, travelling […]
It’s been a rough week in our house, for one reason and another. I’ve been unusually tired and low, though still vastly improved from the worst days. The good news is that I rediscovered some of my favourite childhood novels and have spent the week snatching time to read about the Tillerman family. Cynthia Voigt […]
She’s a Mighty Girl and Mighty Commenter and Alex is also one of the patron saints of music for SBJ. She very kindly put together a couple of compilations of songs for his christening in England last year, and they’ve been on high rotate in our house (though SBJ has now learned how to turn […]
I came across two good news stories today, and I thought I would share them, to balance out all the bad news that slurries around. Here are two people to be inspired by. I read today about Mighty Girl Tiana, who saved the lives of three babies in a house-fire last night: A 12-year-old bundled […]
I love a good list, and I’m a sucker for book competitions. So I was excited to see that the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Award finalists have been named. I was not excited to read some of the conclusions of the judging panel (Bernard Beckett, author of the very clever Genesis, Lynn Freeman from […]
If there were just one male role model I could pick for my boy, it might be Jean Valjean. (Who would yours be?) It’s kind of cheating, though, since Victor Hugo created Valjean to represent all humanity, how we relate to God and the people around us. His struggles are our struggles and how he […]
Many of my mentors are fictional. Characters in novels whom I not only like but also want to be like. I really like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and I’d even enjoy being her for a bit, apart from the lack of modern plumbing, medicine and feminism. But I don’t find myself thinking ‘now, this […]
The Girls-Can-Do-Anything 1980s seem to have melted into the Girls-Can-Be-Princesses 2010s. Is there any other costume option for girls in kids’ media? Pop culture has become a morass for parents of little girls. You have to sidestep sexualised clothing for 6-year-olds and billboards of unusually skinny women in their knickers before you even get to questions of […]