Jean's comments (member since May 05, 2009)

Jean's comments from the Wild Things: YA Grown-Up group.

I love all of Streatfeild's books - I've read and reread them over the years. I do find it confusing that they have different titles in the States though - only Ballet Shoes and Tennis Shoes have the word "shoes" in the original title. I've never understood why publishers change titles like that - on several occasions I've pounced on what looked like a new book by a favourite author only to find it was one I'd already read under a new name.

Possibly an endless undertaking now that her son Todd is writing them too.

I'm reading this for about the hundredth time. It's one of my comfort books and I carry it around on my pda as well as having hard copies at home. This time I've been thinking about the idea of it being Marilla's story. I'd never noticed before how many of the scenes are actually Anne and Marilla, with a lot of the stories told by Anne to Marilla rather than by the author telling them directly. Nor had I realised that we see directly inside Marilla's head more often than we do Anne's. We know Anne's feelings through her words and actions.

From The Wind in the Willows

Glancing back, they saw a small cloud of dust, with a dark centre of energy, advancing on them at incredible speed, while from out the dust a faint "Poop-poop!" wailed like an uneasy animal in pain. Hardly regarding it, they turned to resume their conversation, when in an instant (as it seemed) the peaceful scene was changed, and with a blast of wind and a whirl of sound that made them jump for the nearest ditch, it was on them!

Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors. It's good to see that a lot of her books have been rereleased in the wake of the Harry Potter boost to children's fantasy in general.

I think I've read everything she's written. One of the things I like about her is that her books are different from each other - they don't have any kind of standard formula. Maybe the fact that she wrote relatively few things that can be called a series is one reason why she hasn't captured as big an audience as other authors? Even the Dalemark Quartet and the Chrestomanci books have a range of different main characters rather than strictly following one person.

I like them all, so it's hard to say which I would recommend most. I like the Howl series, and also the Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the Chrestomanci books.

I'm planning to read this fairly soon. I think I read it as a child, but I really don't remember much of it.

I agree with April that there is a need to present a fair and balanced perspective. But I think I would go further than just saying that there's no problem with letting children read such books. I think they should be encouraged to read them, so that their awareness of how cultural norms have changed can be raised. I think it was Edmund Burke who said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it - and reading the fiction of a particular time is one excellent way to get inside the viewpoint of the time.

I have real concerns about the "cleaning up" of older fiction. We can end up presenting a distorted view of the past and ultimately denying our own actions.

I just recently reread Little House in the Big Woods because it was sitting on the table in a coffee shop where I was waiting for a friend. It reminded me how much I loved these books as a child. One thing I liked was the detailed way the author explained how they made and did things in the past. Fascinating.

I love this series too, and also don't remember particularly noticing the sex when I first read them at an early age. It's definitely there though there's nothing at all descriptive or explicit. The entire dragonrider society is portrayed as non-monogamous - it's one of the reasons why the non-dragon-riders disapprove of them. I think it's partly just that the early books are just books of their time - the early seventies - the end of the era of hippies and free love.

My least favourite books are the first two, Dragonquest and Dragonflight. Partly because I find the writing a bit clunky - she definitely got better at her craft as she wrote more - and partly because like Renee's friend I find them a bit disturbing. Both Lessa and F'lar behave in ways that, if you stand back and look at them, can only be described as ethically questionable. Not in terms of promiscuity, but in using their power to manipulate the people around them to do things against their wills.

My favourite books, which I reread and reread as comfort books, are the ones with Menolly (Dragonsinger, Dragonsong etc) She's a great character and basically a nice person. I find all the characters in these books to be more human and more caring than in the earlier ones.

I would still strongly recommend the series though. You could start with the Menolly books, but it does definitely help to read the first two just to understand the world and the background.

*whistles airily pretending she didn't just order 13 new books online*

I blame this group actually. 12 of them are YA.

Oh, and when I said the Keys of Time series earlier, I meant the Keys to the Kingdom series. Oops.

It's a series in the sense that one follows on from the other, but it's not the same main central character. Time has moved on.

Thanks Sara TX. $3.97 sounds like a great deal. Amazon is $4.99 per book plus $4.99 per order - so $9.98 just for postage if I order just one book. Amazon UK is even higher. I'll follow it up.

There's a HK based online store too - I've just ordered some YA stuff from them, spurred on by this group. Could take a month or more though.

I think I have read most of what he's written - I started with Sabriel etc, and liked them so much I went on to read other things he wrote. I've enjoyed the Keys of Time, but it's not as good as the Sabriel trilogy in my opinion.

Hi all. I'm Jean and I've never stopped reading YA fiction despite the fact that I had my 50th birthday a couple of months ago. I'm based in Hong Kong, which can make getting the books I want a bit problematic. Local bookshops will carry the latest, most mainstream stuff, but relatively restricted range compared to the UK. I always come back from overseas trips with a suitcase bulging with books.

Yes, I could order through e.g. Amazon, but the postage more than doubles the cost of the books. Ouch.

Looking forward to getting to know the group.

I've been looking through my shelves to see if I have anything published in the year I was born (1959 eek!), and The Lantern Bearers is the only one I found. I'm looking forward to reading it again.

Her books, at least the ones I've read, are all pretty early in history - Romans in Britain, Anglo Saxons, Vikings etc.

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
3. Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone
4. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
5. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
7. To Kill a Mockingbird
8. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
10. Private by Kate Brian
11. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
12. Stargirl by Jerry Spinell
13. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls
16. The Family Bones - Kimberley Raiser
17. Christy by Catherine Marshall
18. The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
19. The Wednesday Wars - Gary D. Schmidt
20.The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
21. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
22. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
23. homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
24. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
25. The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
26. Switchers by Kate Thomson

I grew up with Enid Blyton, from her brownie tales for very young readers up through Secret Seven to the Famous Five. Those kids had so much freedom - always off camping or taking horse drawn caravans across the moors with not an adult in sight.

Still have and reread all the Narnia books, Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series, and Lloyd Alexander's Taran books. I was really keen on Alan Garner too - the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, the Moon of Gomrath and Elidor in particular.

And I absolutely loved Elizabeth Goudge's "The Little White Horse".