Course start

…was last Saturday. I’ve been making contact with my students – 17 out of 21 have surfaced so far. And  8 out of my far-flung group were able to attend our first face-to-face tutorial.

I really enjoyed the tutorial,  and then, to add to my pleasure, when I wandered into Derby’s Oxfam shop I happened across the one set text I hadn’t been able to buy elsewhere  – Mortal Engines. I’d ordered via OU/Amazon but Amazon were unable to supply it.  Bizarre – is it temporarily out of print? Anyway, browsing around the Scholastic website I came across an  interview with the author, Philip Reeve. Here’s a comment relating to our Block 1 theme of what makes books ‘for adults’ or ‘for children’:

3. Did you write Mortal Engines specifically for children?

Not really. I wanted to capture something of the spirit of the books that I enjoyed reading when I was twelve or thirteen, but a lot of those were ‘adult’ science fiction stories rather than children’s books. However, I deliberately based the story around young characters and made the pace very fast in the hope of appealing to younger readers.

Death, jollity, and offal

I’ve been enjoying (re)discovering some little aspects of our set books.  Like Katherine, who commented on my last posting, I wonder how I’ll feel about some of these  ‘old friends’  by the end of this course.

But I would admit that for my part I’m not always the most mindful friend – as an avid but sometimes over-speedy reader I can miss, and certainly forget, a lot. It’s been a delight to notice more details on a re-reading.

It was a comment by Peter Hunt ( “there is even a death joke on the second page” , in our course reader) that sent me back to The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Then I noticed that we have an edition which highlights this ‘joke’ because it gives it an extra page all of its own, with a picture I’d never seen before. (A slightly disappointing one, I think – Potter’s people often aren’t as entrancing, to my eyes, as her other drawings.)

Surely I’d noticed before that Peter has a blue coat, while his more compliant siblings have the red ones of  ‘good little bunnies’? But I’ve only just noticed that the red coats are sensibly taken off  (p17)  for blackberrying.

I’d forgotten the obvious (child-focused?) humour of Harry Potter.  Dumbledore says “a few words” at the start of the new school year, and they are literally a few words: “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” (p92).

And in comparison with the magical feasts at Hogwarts, Lyra (the accomplished Liar) in Northern Lights relishes calves’ liver, sweetbreads,  rank dried reindeer meat and steaming raw kidney.

Are there any little details that strike you afresh?

Happy endings?

Anne Fine is reported in yesterday’s Times* as ‘[deploring the] ‘gritty realism’ of modern children’s books’:

In the Fifties, when a strong child was dealing with difficult circumstances, there was always a rescue at the end of the book and it was always a middle-class rescue.

The child would win a scholarship to Roedean or something, and go on to do very well. That was felt to be unrealistic and so there was a move away from that. Books for children became much more concerned with realism, or what we see as realism.

But where is the hope? How do we offer them hope within that? It may be that realism has gone too far in literature for children. I am not sure that we are opening doors for children who read these books, or helping them to develop their aspirations.

The article goes on, however :

Amanda Craig, who reviews children’s books for The Times, said…. that Fine was also capable of producing “utterly bleak” books such as Road of Bones, about a boy growing up in totalitarian Russia. The title of the book, which was shortlisted for a Carnegie Medal in 2007, refers to the bones of political dissidents who dared to oppose Stalin.

So just within the article there is evidence that Fine’s views are more nuanced than the reporting suggests. And a blogger who was also present at the Edinburgh book festival event where Anne Fine was speaking writes

I’m of the opinion that she spoke exactly those words that were quoted in the Times yesterday, but I didn’t feel then that she meant it quite as people are interpreting it. (Bookwitch)

Fine herself has written, on her website biography page:

I studied Politics and History at University, and the interest in political issues shows up in many of the books.

I don’t  believe that Fine’s views can be as simple as represented.

Mind you, I have An Interest. One of my favourite books is her Book of the Banshee (a breath of fresh air and sanity for anyone with teenage children). And I was thoroughly impressed by her when she turned up – years ago – at my tiny local library to give a talk.  She spoke eloquently and passionately to her packed audience for an hour, proving in so many ways her dedication to the public library service and to books for children.

I admit to warming to her particularly because – elegant as she certainly is – she started then by explaining “This is how I look without the makeup that those lovely publicity people at the publishers do for their ‘author photos’.”

* You might like to check out this article because it also quotes Melvin Burgess and Anthony Browne, authors on our set books list.

Cleared a bookshelf

The set books are looking a bit lonely on the newly-cleared shelf at the moment.

These are old copies, and unfortunately they just won’t do. Others are available on-line (Little Women, Treasure Island, Peter Rabbit) but these won’t do either. I need to buy all the course-required versions I guess so that students and I have the same text, same page numbering, same introductions.

I’ve ordered some and will order the rest in a later batch. Apart from having to part with some money, there are lots of feel-good factors about buying new books, aren’t there?  Some people are able to support their local / independent bookshops. If you are ordering from Amazon you could consider clicking there via the University’s Online Bookstore which gives a small percentage of purchase money back to the fundraising charity, the  OU Foundation .

And then there’s the childlike pleasure of opening a parcel, and opening up those fresh clean pages. Even if you know what’s in the parcel, even if you’ve read the books before, it’s still a gift.

If I were going to buy a children’s book for someone else right now, I think I’d go for Dogs by Emily Gravett. What would be top of your list?

Anticipation

Excited. A bit nervous. Buying books, dipping into the hard ones, zipping through the soft ones…

And I expect some of the students are just the same. None of us have seen the course materials yet for this brand new course.

Information is seeping out through a student forum. All Open University (OU) staff and students have access to an email conferencing system and within that there is a forum called ‘OUSA EA300′.  A folder of ‘useful stuff’ is helpfully being created which at the moment has for instance:

• ISBNs for set books
• links giving some access to the course readers
• provisional dates for assignments.

While I don’t have a contract yet (and won’t at least until student numbers are clearer) I have been told there will be 6 two-hour face-to-face tutorials and one hour of online support*. This of course is apart from all other support and the marking of assignments.

I’m expecting to receive the course materials in the next few weeks. And the cherry on the celebration cake at the moment is the prospect of a course briefing in early September. I expect this to be the chance to meet some of the course team, other tutors, and really get in the swing of things.

Meanwhile, I read today that Biggles story saved crash pilot

* Later edit: These are the tutorial arrangements in my Region (R05); other Regions may vary.