Armchair BEA (day 5): Children's Literature- Reppin' Australia

Sorry for my absence yesterday folks, I had a full up schedule and didn't get a chance to write about non-fiction and ethics but wowzers you all did really well covering it all, so I don't know that I could have actually added anything new anyway!

So children's literature! I LOVE children's lit and it's such an important genre because 9 times out of 10 it's the writing that informs whether someone becomes a reader or not. I was a reader from a young age (I doubt there are many of you who don't share that claim) and I always loved fairytales. I had these two huge compediums of fairytales and nursery rhymes. Both were filled will really beautiful and detailed illustrations to accompany the stories and rhymes from the 16th to the 19th centuries and both are now locked away awaiting the birth of my children, whenever that will be. I loved pouring over the story of Rose Red and the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme was my absolute favourite. A couple of years later I was given a book of stories about British and Irish sprites and fairies and pixies. I'd like to say it was this book that lead to me loving to research the subject of my reads and to examining the subtext that is hidden to all but those of us obsessive enough to dig a little deeper.

But the most wonderful books I read as a kid were all Australian. When it comes to Australian children's lit my mum is a book-pusher, I read my fair share of Hungry Caterpillers and Baby-Sitter's Clubs, but it was the books written by Australian authors set (mostly) in our very own country that I read the most often and loved the hardest. And since I know there aren't a huge selection of Australians taking part here I figured I'd introduce you all to some BRILLIANT reads. There are classics stories written by our bush poets (Mulga Bill's Bicycle), books which challenged gender stereotypes at a time when that was unheard of (Seven Little Australians), series that forced ordinary Australian teens to become guerilla fighters (Tomorrow when the War Began) and series which were just delighfully absurd (collections by Paul Jennings). It's an absolute pleasure to present you with my lists of favourite picture, children's and YA Australian books.

Get reading!

Picture Books 
My selection is perhaps a little dated since I don't have anyone to buy picture books for, but I know for a fact that most of these books are still just as popular today as they were when I was a little gal. All are uniquely Australian, and though not listed you should also hunt out the many, many picture books which tell the dream-time stories of the Indigenous Australians.

Wombat Stew by Marcia Kay Vaughn
Mulga Bill's Bicycle by Banjo Paterson, Deborah and Kilmeny Niland
Possum Magic by Mem Fox
Animalia by Graeme Base
The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks

Children's Books 
Since this is an Australian list I can't really include Roald Dahl, but I'm going to pimp him out anyway because ALL of his books should be read, Matilda, George's Marvellous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, The Magic Finger, The Witches....so on and so forth. Similarly if you don't read The Magic Faraway Tree or The Wishing Chair, both series by Enid Blyton, to your kids then I consider you to have failed in your parental responsibilities. But on to the Aussie contemporaries and classics!

Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park
Unreal/Unbelievable/Quirky Tales (or any other short story collection) by Paul Jennings
Two Weeks With the Queen by Morris Gleitzman
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs
Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda (a series)
Storm Boy by Colin Theile

Young Adult
If you've run out of Harry Potter, Hunger Games or Divergent books to read then why not turn to Australian YA? This is the bracket I have the least to suggest, but head to this Goodreads list if you're interested in the many, many YA Australian books and series I haven't read. These should be enough to get started though!

The Infernal Optimist by Linda Jaivin
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Tomorrow when the War Began by John Marsden (a series)
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
Deadly Unna by Phillip Gwynne

Armchair BEA (day 3) Literary Fiction

So I really hope my genre fiction post yesterday didn't give anyone the idea that I don't like literary fiction, or that I don't recognise the brilliance that can be found between the covers of a literary fiction novel. he broad definition of literary fiction is a book that's serious in tone and holds literary merit.  If you take that as fact it's pretty clear that the two genres are not mutually exclusive, there's a definite muddiness in the line between the two, it's just the critics who like to try and make it sharper from time to time.

Anyway.

2013 has not been much of a literary year for me. Aside from Room by Emma Donoghue my books have all been thoroughly genre fiction. With a PhD to work on I haven't really had the heart to explore dark and emotionally-wrought novels that will probably take me a month to finish. Or at least, the lighter more enjoyable books are just beckoning far louder on my bookshelves. But recommendations I do have, oh I have trucks full of them!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiiguro was my favourite book of 2011, really powerful and interesting and hard to put down. A must read for sure. Anything by Margaret Atwood is a sure-fire winner, there's (almost) always a strong feminist or dystopian thread running through her books and they will take the wind out of you. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is like a historical fiction/literary fiction cross and if you like history (specifically English history in this case) then her sharp, accurate and illuminating prose will rock your socks off. The sequel Bring Up The Bodies came out last year and I still don't own it, which is a serious problem I hope to rectify soon. I read my first essay collection by David Sedaris this year, and for the most part I really enjoyed his brutally frank, self-deprecating story-telling although I don't know how many collections I could read without it feeling derivative. It's perhaps not strictly literary fiction, but Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader is a fantastic novella and Cormac McCarthy's distopian novel The Road is filled with some of the most beautiful prose I've ever come across.

Armchair BEA: Introductions and Classics Talk

Hello everyone, I am super excited to take part in Armchair BEA this year! I've seen the posts around the blogosphere the last couple of years but this is the first time I've been organised to actually take part, and I'm psyched to meet some new people.

So I guess I should introduce myself;

Where in the world are you blogging from? Tell a random fact or something special about your current location.
I am in Brisbane, Australia and right now it is absolutely miserable. It's cold and wet but sitting on the couch with a cup of tea writing this post is life at its very best. I can't really think of anything too random or special right now, but we are blessed with pretty amazing weather here in Brisbane. We don't get the turbulent hot/cold/rain/snow/sun mess that Melbourne and Adelaide go through on a daily basis, but we're also southern enough that we don't get the epic tropical heat from the up north. As someone from the tippy top of Australia I can tell you with 100% clarity, tropical heat 70% of the year - it blows.

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013?
I am currently juggling about 6 different books, but my two favourite reads for 2013 would definitely be Attachments by Rainbow Rowell and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Those books are amazing, if you haven't read them yet I highly encourage you to seek them out.

Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
Hmmmm, I really love buying people presents, everything from the actual gift to the presentation of it. I love to make it personal and just right for that person. You won't catch me buying people socks or gift cards, no siree.

If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?
Ask me this in a week or a month and I'll probably have a completely different answer for you, but right now it'd have to be Beth and Jennifer from Attachments. They're just the lovliest ladies, I love how they care for each other, and how witty they are and how they bounce everything off each other. It would be hands down one of the most enjoyable experiences I could imagine.

What is your favorite part about the book blogging community?
Ugh, so much! The whole community/friend vibe that everyone sends out is pretty fabulous. Like, right now I'm taking part in a Harry Potter readalong hosted by the wonderful Alice of Reading Rambo and it's so great to see what everyone else is thinking as we go through the series, expressing emotions through epic amounts of gifs and having silly arguments and discussions about Sirius or Snape or the school's plumbing.
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Today, tell us all the reasons why you love classic literature. What are your favourite classics? If you could give a list of classics to someone who claims to hate them to make them change their mind, what would be on it? How would you convince them to give classics a try? And why do you keep coming back to those old favorites?

I love to read classics, they're such a fascinating view into how life used to be - which can also be quite confronting or alien at times. I tend to gravitate more towards contemporary classics, I loooove One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, short stories by H.P Lovecraft, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles and, of course, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde and co. Recently my classics reading has been a little spotty, a couple of books here and there, but since I finished my literature degree I think perhaps I burnt myself out a little. Regardless I still love to read a classic every now and again and it irks me no end when someone says "nah, I don't really like classics".

The thing is, classics are just like contemporary fiction - just older (I wish I could articulate that better!) You can get classic horror, classic sci-fi, classic romance, classic literary fiction, classic...you get the idea. So when someone tells me they don't like classics, my first step is usually to try to direct them towards a classic in their genre of choice. My second step is to go for more of a contemporary classic, so rather than throw them in the deep end, I edge them into it, maybe with a book from the 1950s or 1920s. Once they've gotten into them I can show them books from the 1800s or maybe even earlier depending on how they're finding it. Typically when someone says they don't like classics it's that the classics scare them a little, or they had to read the super dry ones in high school which turned them off. Of course, some people won't like them full stop but it never hurts to try!