Little Owl by Phillip Gwynne

Little Owl is the age old story of a lost child in search of mother.

Gwynne uses a simple repetitive text as baby owl asks various forest animals

"whooo? whooo? whooo am I?"

The illustrations by Sandy Okalyi are bold and colourful acrylic paint on board.

They take us on a 24 hour journey through the Australian bush.
We see sugar gliders, bats, a koala, dragonflies, a cockatoo, emu, echidna & frog as little owl tries to find home.

Little Owl is a belonging and identity story.
It's also a lovely example of Australian animals and their habitats to share with 2+ readers .

Bob Graham: A Retrospective

During a recent trip to Canberra I had the opportunity to attend the Bob Graham exhibition, A Bird in the Hand!
at the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery in Civic. 

Graham started with a timeline of important life events.

 He also provided a wonderful glimpse into his working world.

I love the photograph of Graham outside his window and all the toy pups around his desk.

It was also very generous of Graham to let us sneak a peek at his latest work in progress - Ice Cream.

Three of Graham's CBCA medals.

The wall was dotted with quotes and comments from Graham about his work and ideas.

"It was not until I survived the diabolical lottery, and missed the draft to Vietnam, that I started to question the concept of social justice. And to think that it might depend which side of the fence you were on. And to question how the stories we read when we are young might just influence our outlook on life."

Pete & Roland was based on a real life family story.

"As well as cosy home grown certainties...through books, children can imagine what it might be like to be in someone else's shoes. This is surely where empathy starts...and who knows? Then maybe they may have a world with some fear taken out of it."

"I made Greetings From Sandy Beach after a trip to Wilson's Prom where Carolyn and I sat on a lonely beach imagining we could have been the only people on earth and a whole class of school kids dropped out of the sky on us followed by a very apologetic teacher."

 "Up until Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten I had my feet firmly planted on the ground in a reality which echoed my own. When Rose and her family appeared, the story needed them to be watching the sun coming up. My editor in London went for caution when she saw my rough sketches. 'Wouldn't they be safer and better off watching the sunrise from their front step?' she asked.

Sometimes you have to go for it. I not only put the family on the roof (it made a much better picture) but I put a sheep up there for good measure...Suddenly I thought my stories could go anywhere."

  

"In 1994 we moved to Somerset. We lived in an old stone house built in 1690. It had a door, 4 windows in front and a chimney with smoke coming out, and flowers on the windowsill. Just like a house that children would draw. These houses were perfect for Queenie the Bantam."

 I loved seeing the original drawing of the dapper duck that Graham's granddaughter drew that inspired Silver Buttons.

"Way beyond any awards or achievements that my books have been fortunate to receive was when I was told that my book How To heal A Broken Wing was to be published in Hebrew (Israel), and Farsi (Iran, I think in the same year. I can't think of anything more fulfilling that has happened to me in my publishing life. Iran saw fit to lengthen the skirts, but if they needed to do that then it was OK. It didn't alter the story."

Before Graham was a well-renown author and illustrator of children's books, he illustrated a book with his brother-in-law, Peter Smith. 

It was never published...until 2012.

The exhibition showed the original and current editions of Monsieur Albert Rides To Glory.

It was fascinating seeing how Graham's illustrations evolved with time. 

The book also changed from one with rather adult leanings to a more child friendly version.

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey into Graham's world. 

Like his books, I was left with a feeling of inclusion; I felt embraced, respected & cosy. 

There is a warmth and humanity that not only emanates from Graham's work, but from his life story as well. 

You have until August 24 to see this heart-warming exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery.

My Country by Dorothea MacKellar

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar


The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

Capertee Valley, NSW


I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

Broome coastline, WA


A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

North Haven, NSW


Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Mudgee, NSW


Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

The Olga's, NT


An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Weethalie, NSW


The poem is Dorothea Mackellar's; the photo's all mine!

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar was born July 1st 1885 in Point Piper, Sydney.

Her father was a noted doctor & parliamentarian.
They had family property in the Hunter region and around Gunnedah.

The Mackellar family travelled the world extensively and Dorothea became fluent in several languages (French, German, Spanish & Italian).

My Country was written during a visit to England when Dorothea was 19.
She was obviously feeling homesick.

Dorothea never married & died 14th January 1968.
Her ashes are buried in Waverley Cemetery.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I've read so many varied reviews of Olive Kitteridge over the years, that I knew that this was probably going to be a 'love it or hate it' kind of book.

Given my enjoyment of Strout's The Burgess Boys, I was expecting to love it.

Here was another story with all my favourite themes - belonging, yearning vs reality, hope vs reality, desire vs reality, truth and lies.

But in all the reviews I've read, no-one had ever told me that Olive Kitteridge could basically be read as a collection of short stories!

Each chapter is a snapshot in time for the people of Crosby, Maine.

Some of the chapters focus specifically on Olive or her husband, Henry.

But the bulk of the chapters follow the other inhabitants of small town Crosby as they go about their daily lives.
These lives intersect with Olive & Henry in various ways. They provide multiple viewpoints and assessments of Olive's character. Many of these views are not very positive.

And it is easy to see why.

Olive is one of those frustrating characters who has very little awareness of how her behaviour & words impact on others. She is completely bewildered by the loss of friends and the alienation of her only son. The only person who patiently stands by her side, constantly seeing the best in her, is gentle, loyal, optimistic Henry.

Olive Kitteridge is a force to be reckoned with. We all know a version of Olive.
Strout's genius is making Olive such a sympathetic, understandable character.

The writing is sublime, the pacing is subtle and the characterisations are observant & elegant. It's a simply told story full of the complexities & nuances of human nature.

I loved it.

(Olive also fulfills about 5 reading challenges for me.)

No Name by Wilkie Collins

No Name by Wilkie Collins was my lucky number 1 for the Classics Club Spin #6.

The official finish/posting date for this Spin is the 7th July and I can happily report that I finished this book with a month to spare! (Maybe I should put this 'spare' time to go use & finally finish Spin #5 - The Brothers Karamazov!!)

I read No Name with Melbourne on my Mind, who has not only finished the book, but also written her review. She makes a couple of fabulous character comments which made me laugh and nod my head in agreement. 

"Captain Wragge lives firmly in the grey zones between right and wrong. 

Frank Clare is a jerky mcjerkface and I really wish it was possible to punch fictional characters in the face, because that's what he deserves."

If you'd like to read the rest of her review please click on her name link above.

My edition of No Name, is prefaced by Wilkie with these words,

"Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known."

To that end, Magdalen is one of the most frustrating fictional characters I've read for quite some time.

She is drawn sympathetically by Wilkie.
In the first scene we see all her good points through the eyes of the other characters; we can't but help liking her. She's a little headstrong and foolish in a Jo March/Marianne Dashwood kind of way - charming but silly.

However when she falls in love with the weak-kneed, opportunistic, self-centred Frank Clare we all reach a turning point in trusting Magdalen to make good choices.

Throughout the remainder of the book we watch her make bad situations worse, by her poor choices.

Wilkie shows us another way of managing their plight in the example of her sister, Norah. Like the Dashwood sister's in Sense and Sensibility, we are shown two ways of coping with adversity.

Norah gets on with making a new life for herself, makes the best of the things and doesn't complain. She is stoic, patient & forgiving.

Magdalen is a drama queen. She is vengeful, scheming & single-minded.

Despite all this, we still like Magdalen and feel sorry for her. Even as we are left wondering if her happy ending was a little bit more than she actually deserved!

There is much more to Wilkie than Moonstone and Woman in White. He wrote 19 novels altogether - years of reading pleasure ahead of me!

No Name also fulfills my Back to the Classics reading challenge & Chunksters reading challenge.

#ccspin

Six Degrees of Separation

I love a good meme I can sink my teeth into and I've just discovered this new one being hosted by two Australian authors - Emma Chapman and Annabel Smith on their blogs.

The idea began with this post on the 29th March:

It is claimed that every person on this planet is linked to any other in six or fewer steps.
But what about books? Can we link them together too?

In 1929, Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story called ‘Chains’ in which he coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’.

Annabel Smith and I are excited to announce a new meme, based on the idea in Karinthy’s story. On the first Saturday of every month, we will be choosing a book, and then linking it to five other books to form a chain. We will also be inviting our readers and other bloggersto join us by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

The books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, given to you by a particular friend, that remind you of a particular time in your life, or that you read for a challenge.

The great thing about this meme is that each participant can make their own rules. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.

The rules are simple:

This month's starting book is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

For those of you who haven't read my review - I loved the beginning but by half way through I got 

tired of the coincidences and I gave up. As I was trying to work out which way to go with my first 

'degree of separation' - art and birds were on my mind, but as soon as I went 'art gallery', I knew what I had to do.

I've recently put Mr Books onto Amin Maalouf as he has expressed an interest in the Middle/Dark Ages and the Middle East. When I pulled out my old copy of Leo the African I saw that I had purchased it at the Art Gallery of NSW back in 1998 (I always inscribed my books with name, date and place of purchase).

Book 2 was an easy leap from Maalouf to Malouf. Reading The Great World was an epic undertaking. It was a dense, intricate huge saga about a man called Digger.

Digger allowed me to jump to 'what were the women doing during the great war?' and Thomas Keneally's wonderful story about two Australian nurses in Gallipoli, Daughters of Mars.

My 4th degree of separation took me to another WW1 literary nurse, Maisie Dobbs. She has become my comfort read. I love her working class nursing back story and her post-war private investigator life.

Whenever I think of England between the wars, I automatically think of Brideshead Revisited. An easy 5th degree. But, of course, one of Waugh's themes was the plight of England and the aristocracy and whether they would survive the post-war deprivations & realities.

Which leads me to my 6th degree of separation - post WW2 France as viewed through the eyes of a young American couple in The Chateau by Maxwell Williams.

Which is perfect as I was hoping to link this meme to my Paris in July month :-)

5 Years of Blogging

On the 5th July 2009, with very little idea about what I was doing or what I was letting myself in for, I wrote my first review on Brona's Books.

The book was Gone by Michael Grant and reflected that this blog started life as a review vehicle for teachers and parents about children's books.

For two years, I reviewed children's books, in fits and starts.
However I had very little interaction with the blogging community. I felt like I was writing into a great big unknown void.

It was during my summer holidays in January 2012 that I had a revelation.
I had read several fantastic adult books over the break and I was brimming with things to say about them...and I suddenly realised... I could blog about adult books too!

I also began to google and read stuff on how to be more interactive in the blogging world & how to get more comments and interested followers.

The brave new world of memes, blog hops and readalongs suddenly opened up before me!
I discovered The Classics Club and numerous Australian bloggers. I joined events, participated in memes & left hundreds of thoughtful comments in the blogosphere.

In fact, I found myself blogging about so many new and wonderful things, that I felt the need to start a second blog to cater for my photographic & travel writing urges!
In July 2012 Four Seasons was born.

Since then, I have learnt basic html, joined twitter and instagram and started a Brona's Books facebook page.

In the last 12 months I hosted my first events - AusReading Month in November and The Wharton Review in May.

To prove to the ever patient, always supportive Mr Books just how book nerdy & blog obsessive I really was, I spent a night tallying my reviews!

I have reviewed:

202 books by women authors
128 by men

138 of my 330 reviews were Australian titles

119 were adult books
80 teen/YA books
69 books for younger readers
57 were picture books

75 books were historical fiction
51 were contemporary stories
50 books were part of a series
39 were classics
28 were non-fiction books
27 books were fantasy
25 were dystopian/post apocalyptic books
23 were crime fiction
15 books were memoirs, biographies or autobiographies
12 featured a time-slip or time travel story line
7 books were short story collections
6 books were written in verse or poetry
6 were romance
5 were classified as humorous
1 was a play
1 graphic novel (& a partridge in a pear tree!)

I've loved every single minute of this five year journey (even the torturous first year of doubt and insecurity).

But the very best part of blogging has been all of you.

Yes, you - my readers, my followers & my regular commenters.
All of you who have shared readalongs, readathons, photos, spins & other book events with me, I thank you. I feel blessed to have met you all.
You have enriched my reading life no end.

Imagine a City by Elise Hurst

Imagine A City is a wonderful old style picture book for the imagination.

A mother and her two children share this delightful flight of fancy as they "imagine a train to take you away."

Each page becomes more fantastical and magical as they leave the world of what is possible to explore a world of what could be "where buses are fish and the fish fly the sky."

The illustrations, by Australian Elise Hurst, are traditional pen & ink black line drawings.
They invite you in to explore the details...and to find the rabbit on each spread.

This is magic realism for children.

It is a joyful book to share, to wonder and to indulge in the endless 'what if's' of life.

Where "the world is your teacher" and the "past carries on."

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Oh me oh my!

Big Little Lies was my very first Liane Moriarty. I didn't know what to expect.

I have to confess that I thought 'too light and fluffy for me.'

I have read & enjoyed a few of her sisters books (Jaclyn Moriarty).

I had also read several good reviews about Liane's last book, The Husband's Secret. But I was still doubtful.

So let me say, right here and now how much I thoroughly enjoyed Big Little Lies.

Set in a fictitious, but oh so familiar Sydney suburb, Liane perfectly & hilariously describes the local school playground abuzz with stay-at-home mums, career mums and the occasional dad.
There are second marriages, steps, halves and wholes, single mums and lots of very precious children.
And a very suspicious death at the school trivia night!

I found myself reading out sections to Mr Books as we recognised ourselves and our fellow playground & soccer sideline cohorts. I couldn't decide if Liane had written the perfect farce or a biting satire.

But then, all of a sudden, we're in the middle of a domestic violence drama!
And I hate to say it, still chuckling away at certain passages.

It's not easy to juggle black comedy, social commentary on the sexual enslavement of young girls and an exposé on domestic violence, but Liane does so beautifully.

By the end of Big Little Lies, I felt that these people were my best friends. I cared about them & what happened to them. And now that I've finished the book, I miss them.

Although you could see the end coming, the delight was in the anticipation and the set-up. I still cried out loud "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it" with satisfaction as all was revealed.

Liane has showed us how a very serious topic can be dealt with in a lighthearted way without taking away from the importance of the issue.

Big Little Lies is an August release through Macmillan Australia.

Paris in July

Bother!

I don't need another reading challenge, but I simply cannot resist one that allows me to indulge my Paris passion (okay, obsession)!

Tamara at Thyme for Tea & Karen at A Wondering Life have co-hosted Paris in July for five years now. This year, they has added four more co-hosts for more amour.

I know already that I will not succeed in reading all the books on my Paris pile, but I like to have options if something is not working for me!

In case you can't read the small print my 2014 pile includes:

Eugenie Grandet by Honore De Balzac
The Chateau by William Maxwell
French Children Don't Throw Food by Pamela Bruckerman
Chronicles of Old Paris: Exploring the Historic City of Lights by John Baxter
Delicious Days in Paris by Jane Peach
Emilie Du Chatelet: Daring Genius of the Enlightenment by Judith P. Zinsser
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris by Edmund White
Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love & France by Vivian Swift

To join in and to check out the month long events for Paris in July click here. I'm a little excited!

I also hope to cook up Julia Child's famous Boeuf Bourguignon recipe this month and watch Red, White & Blue again.

In the meantime...

Bonne lecture!