Neil wins the Hugo!

As most you, my Gentle Readers, know, I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan. He just won the Hugo for The Graveyard Book. He won! The Guardian book site has this lovely post about Neil's win, here, entitled "The Myth-Making Genius of Neil" . Here is the actual Guardian article on the win, "Neil Gaiman wins Hugo", here. Link to Neil's own post on his blog about the win, here.

I need to find some Sandman to try! Everyone raves about it, including the writer of the myth-making genius of Neil article. I might be the very last person on the planet to find a Sandman to try!! My children have seen Coraline the movie, my daughter loving it and my youngest son talking about the mother with the button eyes: "there was a mother with BUTTON EYES" and then insisting he never saw the movie. A very good friend watched it alone and had to keep stopping it and doing something else for a bit, before coming back to the movie. I still haven't seen it. I think the book is one of the scariest, one of the most deliciously frightening books with the bravest heroine ever. I'm not sure why, but The Graveyard Book wasn't as scary to me (except the beginning part, which is truly frightening in any book) as Coraline was. It was more melancholic, and really lingers in mind still, a year after reading it. The Dance Macabre, the living in the cemetary, the various ghosts he met, and Silas his guardian - they are all memorable, and The Graveyard Book is like no other. I'm awed that it won the Hugo, and very very happy it did. Congratulations to Mr Gaiman. My children thank him too.

Here is the link to the Hugo site and all the award winners this year: here.

Also found on the Guardian Book site, a lovely quiz about summer holidays in children's books, here. I scored 9 out of 11. It pays to read Enid Blyton! She is not in the same league as Gaiman, but still; my love of mysteries I can attibute in part to the Adventurous Four, Famous Five and Secret Seven.....

Congratulations to Neil.....and support your local library challenge

Hurray!!! The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Award!! When I saw this, I gave a little jump of glee. Strangely enough, on the weekend I found myself wondering why Coraline made my list of best reads of 2008, and The Graveyard Book didn't. Coraline scared me. Plain and simple. It's a book for children, yes, but something about it is adult, it's for the child in all of us, who wanted to leave our families - run away - even if only for a moment or half a day - Coraline is about what the world is really like, that every child knows. Those button eyes still creep me out.

And yet, there is magic in The Graveyard Book. The longer I am away from it, the more I remember how he opens with that truly frightening scene, and how he makes life in the graveyard as poetic and haunting as it must be, if one were to live in a graveyard. I think I didn't like that he didn't get to keep his little friend, the only one who could see him, the girl. In my happy-ending world, they do stay friends! but it's a quibble, and doesn't detract from the overall beauty of the book. So, even though it's after the list, I'm officially adding The Graveyard Book to my list of best reads of 2008. Alongside Coraline. I really can hardly wait for my children to be old enough for me to read both books to them. Isn't it wonderful that a book about death, and life after death, and spirits, and love, can be a Newbery Award winner? A children's book award winner? Both Becky , and also here, and Chris also mention the Newbery Award winner.

This has been the coldest January we have had in several years. Once again most of the day we were barely above -20 c. Not until 4 did we get -14c. With our buses still being on strike - day 48 was today - my world has shrunk to the carpool from home to work and back, and then to the nearby tiny mall that houses a grocery store. I haven't been out of the house apart from work and groceries since we arrived Jan 5 from England. I'm beginning to feel like a pioneer wife in old days - as the snow fell deeper and deeper, the houses in the countryside would be shut off from the world and each other. So I'm very thankful for the electronic age, which keeps me connected to the world even if I can't really get out! I am considering getting a driving license, finally. I hate being unable to get out and go where I want to go. And I really hate the January cold. I like the sun, and warm temperatures. This is like a mini-version of hell! I can't get out for my daily walks because it's so cold, so now my clothes are getting tighter....

So I thought I'd talk about what I'm going to do when the buses come back - please let it be before April. How can we be the capital city of Canada and not be able to resolve a transit dispute? So among the many things I will be grateful for when the buses come back, before I get my driver's license (it will be a year before I can drive on my own anyway), is that I can go to the library. I've decided to join the library challenge, in part to ease up on my wallet, and to get back to reading books that I don't necessarily want to buy, especially mystery and fantasy series that I want to try first.


J. Kaye is hosting the 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge, go here to sign up. The rules are easy:

** The first is to read 12 books from your local library in 2009.
** The second is to read 25 books from your local library in 2009.
** The third is to read 50 books from your local library in 2009.

You decide which one of the three challenges is best for you.

Here are the guidelines:

1) You can join anytime as long as you don’t start reading your books prior to 2009.

2) This challenge is for 2009 only. The last day to have all your books read is December 31, 2009.

3) You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.

I'm joining the second one, 25 books from my local library.

I don't have any library books out yet, so the list will be on my sidebar below the button for the challenge.

I love our library, and have spent many long afternoons just going from shelf to shelf, picking up books at random, or running in for a book on hold, or looking at the paperback shelves to see what was new. We have a decent library, with interesting books in different areas, so I find the coolest books to read! My children all had their library card before their first birthday. Our library allows adults to take out adult books on the children's cards!!! lol you know what this means, instead of my 25 books, I can take out more at once! and they can be renewed for up to three times straight, unless there is a request for it. Yes, I think the library is an excellent resource, and worthy to keep open. Let's hope the bus strike is over soon!!

I love this quote from Ursula Le Guin's essay, "Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?":

What, then, are the uses of imagination?
You see, I think we have a terrible thing here: a hardworking, upright, responsible citizen, a full grown-up, educated person, who is afraid of dragons, and afraid of hobbits, and scared to death of fairies. It's funny, but it's also terrible. Something has gone very wrong. I don't know what to do about it but to try and give an honest answer to that person's question, even though he often asks it in an aggressive and contemptuous tone of voice. "What the good of it all?" he says. "Dragons and hobbits and little green men - what's the use of it?"
The truest answer, unfortunately, he won't even listen to. He won't hear it. The truest answer is, "The use of it is to give you pleasure and delight."

Isn't that a beautiful reason why we read? For pleasure and delight.

And a lovely explanation for why we treasure books so - they are our doorway to imagination.

Sunday Salon - It's all about Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things, Coraline, The Graveyard Book.

I've decided to do a post about one of my favourite authors, in honour of RIP3 challenge, AND that these three books fit this time of year, spooky and ghost-filled. I know that for many of you, my Gentle Readers, you also love Neil Gaiman. I thought I would try to show some of what I admire and love in his books, and his writing. Most of all, it's as if he pierces my heart, but instead of ripping it into shreds, he gently puts it back together with love and hope and faith.


Fragile Things

I read Fragile Things earlier this year. I didn't post on it because I got caught up in other things, but it never left the side of my computer where I pile the books I really want to review. I am in awe of this writer. Fairy tales, fantasy, gothic, and horror, all with a touch of melancholy about them. Even the poem about Bluebeard, The HIdden Chamber, isn't straightforward, instead mixed with doom - unlike the fluttering butterfly he (the writer) sets free, this is what will happen to his new love:
If you are wise you'll run into the night,
fluttering away into the cold
wearing perhaps the laciest of shifts.
The lane's hard flints
will cut your feet all bloody as you run,
so, if I wished, I could just follow you,
tasting the blood and oceans of your
tears. I'll wait instead,
here in my private place, and soon I'll put
a candle
in the window, love, to light your way back home.
The world flutters like insects. I think this
is how I shall remember you,
my head between the white swell of your breasts,
listening to the chambers of your heart.

The horror, the real horror, is that even if she escapes, she will come back again. He - the writer, Bluebeard - understands the secret to a woman's heart, that even if she senses danger, she has to know all the secrets: "You'll see/the heartbreak linger in my eyes, and dream/of making me forget what came before you walked/into the hallway of this house."
And he is right! It's a play on Harlequin novels, gothics, that sense that the right woman will heal a man. Wise, and heart-breaking, the collection of stories and poems in this book are all like this. Some succeed more than others - in past posts, here and here, and here , I've referred to my favourites: October in the Chair, A Study in Emerald, The Problem of Susan , and my favourite poems of all: Instructions and Locks.

If you are looking for short stories to read before Hallowe'en, I highly recommend this book. It is magical and fantastical, creepy, unsettling, spooky, funny, everything that is good in fantasy and horror writing today. It should be in every serious reader's library.


Coraline

I read Coraline over the past three days, mostly because I kept getting interrupted. I finally finished it late last night. It has to be one of the scariest books for children I've read, and I really wish it had been around when I was a kid. I would have loved it! I would have read it over and over! My children are just a little bit too young for it - I think the 'other family' would confuse them, and the horrible button eyes and the other mother creating the world, is for children about 7-8 years old. I can hardly wait to read it to them, though! Coraline is the spunkiest, bravest heroine ever. I mean it, I'm not sure I could have survived the other world. I was possibly holding my breath during the last 50 pages of the book. It was awful, in the awe-inspiring sense that real terror can take. And beautiful, because she makes it right in the end, and the sense of relief was palpable to me, at least! I was able to get to sleep last night. I think if Coraline hadn't gotten out and back into her world, I would have nightmares about her being trapped, for a very long time. That is how real Neil makes his characters, and how real the story is. Especially as I live in a semi-detached house, though thankfully there are no doors between our houses, in the wall!!

I think one reason Neil Gaiman is so popular a horror/fantasy writer is because the underpinnings of his writing is love, and faith, and hope. This is what saves his characters. It is a real treat in today's world of endless bad SAW movies (I haven't seen one and never will) and stupid slash and gash horror movies where fatalism means no one escapes, that there are writers who deal with the mysteries, the ghostly and ghastly, with the emotions and characteristics that make us our best as humans. No matter the danger, or the eeriness, it all comes down to the heart. Whether Bluebeard's uncanny understanding, or Coraline's bravery, most of Neil's characters are on human journeys of finding love, recapturing love (several of his short stories deal with both these topics), or surviving love. He explores the dangerous pathways of the world, in myths (American Gods), folktales, children's stories, the underground literally in Neverwhere, horror in Coraline, and in my next book to review, The Graveyard Book, and in all of them, he never loses sight of what makes people human, good or bad, and he lets his heroes and heroines be brave. And if any of you have had to face real nightmares in the world, as I have, you know that bravery and courage are needed as much today as ever. He's writing to you, to me, to his children, to the world, telling us the stories we need to hear to survive. To me, Coraline is one of the best heroines for girls to ever be written. It's a truly good horror story for kids that deserves every award it received. And the illustrations are truly creepy and delightful and my kids will pore over them. They are the stuff of nightmares. Most excellent!


The Graveyard Book

I read this today. I couldn't put it down!! I love this story! I thought it could be good, the premise is certainly interesting - little boy raised in a graveyard by ghosts - and this story is everything I hoped for, and more. It is enchanting. How I can say that about a book that involves murder, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, witches and ghosts, is almost a mystery, but it's not - it's Neil, so it's heart-breaking even as it's beautiful and haunting and funny. It's a ghost story for families. In case you are one of the 10 readers left on the planet who haven't read the book yet, I am not going to give the plot away here - I'm just going to give you how I felt reading this book, and why I think everyone can read it. First of all, it's not scary, even the opening, even my most faint-hearted, sensitive Gentle Reader can be assured that no matter how it starts out, you will not have nightmares. Yes, it's scary in places. Have you ever spent a night in a cemetary? Me either. Nor do I want to. Why? Because the dead walk at night. I don't care what anyone says, they do. I love the melancholy beauty of graveyards, I think about the people gone before and try to imagine their lives as I read the headstone inscriptions, but I would not spend a night in a graveyard. Well, The Graveyard Book is about a boy who lives in one. And how he does, and how the ghosts help him, and what wonders befall him - make this book truly worth reading. It is a magical tour through the world of a graveyard. Not necessarily the land of the dead, mind, just the world here of the dead. And yes, I cried at the ending. I hate change, even though I know it's necessary, I hate loss of people, change in relationships, and the loss here in this book is inevitable, and piercing.

Of all the amazing characters that people this book, the one I love is the Lady on the Gray Horse. Much is made of Neil's remarks at the back of the book to Rudyard Kipling and The Jungle Book, how there is inspiration from that book in this one. I've never read The Jungle Book, but I have read John Keat's poem The Belle Dame Sans Merci, and seen the Pre-Rahaelite painting of the same name, and that is who the Lady on the Gray Horse reminds me of. When Bod Owens (the main character) first meets the Lady, this is his impression and what they end their conversation with:
"There was a woman riding on the horse's bare back, wearing a long grey dress that hung and gleamed beneath December Moon like cobwebs in the dew.
....."Can I ride him?" asked Bod.
"One day," she told him, and her cobweb skirts shimmered. "One day. Everybody does."
"Promise?"
"I promise."

Every time I read those lines, I get a lump in my throat. She is Lady Death, and isn't she a better figure to come carry us away, than the Grim Reaper Spectre with th scythe that we are more familiar with?

For a book about death and ghosts, it is filled with whimsical moments and ideas like this. So it's not a scary book. It's filled with love and humour, and ghosts and graveyards, and I think it is perfectly wonderful. As soon as my kids are old enough - I think sometime in the next year Holly-Anne at least will be able to listen to the story being read (albeit with 5,000 questions in between!) - I will be reading this to them. And the illustrations, of course - line drawings that leave the mind to fill in the gaps, setting the tone, and I've forgotten until I read Coraline and The Graveyard Book how much I enjoy drawings with my stories!

Recapturing childhood wonder, somehow that seems to be the essence I get from reading these two books. So I recommend them highly, as marvelous work that must be read. Come, take Neil's hand, and let him show you how to survive the night, and face the dawn, and live to tell the marvelous frightening tale.......

*sighs happily, contentedly*

I hope your ghostly reading is taking you to fantastic places today, too!

Other reviews:
Bart's Bookshelf
Nymeth
Stuff as Dreams are Made On

Stainless Steel Droppings (Carl)
Eva (A Striped Armchair)

Weekly Geeks # 19 ...where I reveal my secret shame

Well, it's been a long time since I did a weekly Geeks. I think we are up to #19 - we are, it's here. First, this week, your WG theme is to list your top books published in 2008.

Well, to my secret shame and my Cool Literary Inner Bookworm's disgust, I have not read one book published in 2008 - but wait! There is hope on the horizon....for those of us who compile our reading lists based on last year's best books in different genres, we're always behind. I am willing to take a big risk with.....The Graveyard Book! Sure to be a bestseller, and very likely a most excellent and interesting book to read...I'm saved! It just went on sale today!!!! My CLIB is going away to write angry poetry about me, but I don't care, The Graveyard Book is out! so if I buy it and hurry up and read it, I can still do this week's Weekly Geek! and read a book that I have been waiting for since reading the short story, "October in the Chair", in Fragile Things, which was a story that gave me little chills. That house, and what happened to the boy when he went in? Oh, please let me find the book quickly tomorrow!!

So now you know my secret shame, that I rarely read a book published that year unless it's by a mystery or fantasy series author I am following. I read the good ones published one year, the next year...yes, that means I let others do the work of reading through the piles of books published and sorting out what they think is good! I do have to say, as I said in my last post, that book bloggers are great for getting the word out about good books, no matter when they are published, too. So I am very curious to see which of us book lovers do read the current book lists, and which of us mosey around, picking a book from a decade here, a book from a century there. I'm definitely in the latter group!