Kids’ books
I took advantage of Borders and their 3 for 2 sale yesterday. I got The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek, Possum Magic, and Animalia! Very exciting. They’re not entirely for me, of course… at least one of them will go as a present to the Nankervis clan on Wednesday since I didn’t send a present when Aidan was born (like a year ago or something). However, it is a great deal of fun to read them. And of course I also bought Avocado Baby ages ago… that was a good purchase; no one is getting that one as a present any time soon.
On a completely different note, I think I might have misplaced my Bowie CD.
Later: they forgot to take a book! I’ll have to send them one now.
Also: this is what I like; talking via comments on the blog, rather than email or some other media.
The Lost Kingdom of Lantia
Picked this up for $5; I knew it was going to be a kids’ book, but that’s partly why I got it – I’m realising I should teen fiction so that I can genuinely recommend books – current ones – to my students. Anyway; it’s by Maggie Hamilton, and I actually thought it was set in Melbourne, until at the end I read she’s based in Sydney so I guess it’s actually set there, although there was no mention of a bridge or Opera House which I thought was odd in a book about kids on holidays.
Overall I guess it was OK; as I read it I thought using the name Lantia was a bit dumb since it was quite obviously about Atlantis (magical kingdom destroyed by volcano) – at the end she does indeed say the book was inspired by her fascination by Atlantis, so I’m relieved the name wasn’t just a really poor way of covering it up. The writing was all right; I found it a bit basic, but I am well out of the target audience. The one thing I found incredibly annoying was her use of rhetorical questions all the time, and in italics. Why did she feel the need to do this? (Ha ha). It really, really got on my nerves.
I think I would recommend it to a kid; one who wasn’t a totally avid reader, but was looking for something fairly engaging and possibly a bit challenging, for younger teens.
Randomly Yours, Alex 