Claire Hennessy's Blog, page 23

Book-review post!

Some recently(ish) read YA and MG titles…

Cathy Cassidy – Looking Glass Girl

Cathy Cassidy’s most recent standalone novel ties into the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland, with a modern-day Alice falling down the rabbit hole – and into a coma. The story flits back and forth between her dream-like encounters with strange creatures (plenty of explicit nods to Lewis Carroll’s work), her family and friends reaction after her accident, and the months leading up to the slumber party that seems to have gone horribly wrong. There’s optimism but also acknowledging of how cruel kids can be to each other and how hard it is sometimes – a great addition to the Cathy Cassidy canon.

Nancy Ohlin – Consent

(Thanks to Edelweiss for the review copy. The book will be published in November.)

Bea’s looking back on the relationship that shouldn’t have happened – with Dane Rossi, the young music teacher that’s helped her finally realise what she wants to do in life and who’s supported her love of piano, a passion that hasn’t been supported at home ever since her mother’s death. Great voice and an avoidance of oversimplification makes this one to watch out for.

Robin Stevens – Murder Most Unladylike

So. It’s a 1930s boarding school murder mystery for 9-12s. How can you not want to read it? The first in a series, this book takes on its historical setting with a light touch, acknowledging colonialism, racism and homosexuality within the school without ever getting preachy. The narrator, Hazel, is in charge of writing things up – her best friend Daisy is the dynamic one, and (naturally) the leader of their detective society – and through her we learn about all the boarding-school peculiarities. Up until recently, the Wells & Wong Detective Agency haven’t had much to do – their classmate’s missing tie was the most exciting mystery up for solving. But now the science mistress has been found dead – and then her body disappears. It’s up to Hazel and Daisy to investigate. I utterly adored this book, and immediately leapt into the second…

Robin Stevens – Arsenic for Tea

… even though the second does not take place during term-time, thus depriving us of boarding-school gorgeousness, but the big-house setting during the holidays proves to work just as well. It’s brilliant to see this classic murder-mystery trope play out for young readers, and to watch as Hazel and Daisy investigate the poisoning of one of the guests at a tea party. When Daisy’s father looks very suspicious, it threatens to tear apart the girls’ friendship, adding a new layer to this instalment of the series. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this book – I’ve been recommending the series to lots of people. The third book, First Class Murder (taking place on the Orient Express!), is out in July.

Creativity in the classroom

This article, about UK children’s and YA writers arguing that the way writing and language is taught in primary schools actually has a negative impact on their creative writing skills, has been circulating around Facebook and Twitter, and I’ve been ‘liking’ and retweeting and commenting and doing all kinds of things, so I might as well blog and gather all these thoughts together.

I’ve touched on the idea that creative writing breaks a lot of the rules that English teachers love before, and it’s something I talk about a fair bit. I’m lucky enough to be able to work with trainee teachers next year about ways of using creative writing and children’s books in the classroom. I’ve done workshops in and out of schools for many years now, and you do start to see the mismatch between good writing For Assessment Purposes and writing that is deemed ‘good’ by other people (reviewers, critics, readers). The ‘rules’ that teachers often have – e.g. don’t use this word (and that anecdote in the article about ‘banned words’ in the classroom because they’re not sufficiently unusual is very familiar to me), put in tons of descriptive words (rather than carefully selecting which words will have the most impact), etc – often probably don’t match up with their own reading experiences.

None of this is to say that teachers are at fault. We absolutely cannot complain about teachers ‘teaching to’ a particular system when that is essentially the job they have been hired to do, and how their own work is often assessed (which is bonkers). This is especially the case for secondary school, where the majority of students will be assessed for college entry (if staying in Ireland) on just their Leaving Cert results, not anything else. In that situation, I really don’t think ‘a good teacher’ is someone who goes ‘well, screw the exam’ and spends all of their classroom time nurturing each student’s creativity – it’s a lovely idea but is ignoring the reality of how the world will value that experience. And there’s limited classroom time, and teachers are already under an enormous amount of pressure – anyone who thinks teaching kids or teens is an easy gig is an idiot. It’s one of those jobs we feel qualified to comment on because we’ve been on the other side of the desk in a classroom situation, but we need to remember we only saw a sliver of what those teachers actually did.

I think we need to think carefully about what role creative writing serves in the classroom. We don’t teach editing – we teach ‘tidying up’, or ‘rewrite without spelling mistakes/in neater handwriting’ – we don’t get kids to pull out something from six months ago and ask them to rewrite it. Most teachers will have not done this. Most adults haven’t. For the later years of school, we teach how to produce a decent draft under exam pressure – when anyone writing creatively for publication purposes would redraft and rework over and over again. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think we’re teaching creative writing because we want kids to be writers. We’re teaching it because it ticks two boxes at once – it’s creative (yay, we want to encourage this!) and it’s writing. So short stories et al are called upon to teach kids about structuring sentences, and about expanding their vocabulary, and punctuation, and other technical writing things, because it seems (and undoubtedly is) more fun than covering these topics in a dry and tedious fill-in-the-blanks-in-your-workbooks way.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Part of what educators do is to try to make the things on the curriculum that need to be covered as engaging and relevant as possible. But perhaps we need to be clear about what’s actually being taught. Because I don’t think it’s creative writing, really. And maybe that’s okay – once we don’t try to pretend that it is.

Some stories…

… just in case you’ve missed them.

My short story ‘Tonight’ won the Doolin Writers’ Weekend short story competition 2015, and can be read from that link.
I wrote a little snippety sequelish thing to Good Girls Don’t following the marriage equality referendum.

(And now back to yammering about other people’s words.)

Calling all CTYI alumni!

Really excited about this, so reposting this call for submissions from the CTYI facebook page. Do spread the word – even if someone doesn’t have time/energy for a long submission, it’d be great to get as many ‘where are they now?’ pieces as possible.

CALLING ALL FORMER CTYI STUDENTS AND STAFF!

We’re putting together a collection of anecdotes from alumni, provisionally titled NERD CAMP MEMORIES, and we’d love you to contribute. Do you have fond memories of Vinnie’s lectures, of your nevermore year, of field trips to the Botanic Gardens? How about the courses you took, what you danced to at the discos, the friends you made? We’ve a number of suggested categories below, and we’re looking for submissions of anywhere between 50 to 1000 words. The best submissions will be published in a book at the end of this year, and should be emailed to ctyialumni.submissions@dcu.ie by Monday, 15th June 2015. Writers should include their full name (if you’d prefer to publish it under your initials please let us know) as well as courses taken and the years (attended or worked).

Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested!

Suggested categories:

– ‘you know you were at CTYI in the ‘90s if…’ (reflections on the early years of CTYI)

– ‘CTYIzens’ (the friends you made on the programme)

– ‘Bye Bye Miss American Pie’ (memories of CTYI discos)

– ‘Do you know where your towel is?’ (CTYI traditions through the years)

– ‘Life in the classroom’ (courses you took, and what you learned)

– ‘Life wisdom from RAs’ (if there was any…)

– ‘T is for smart’ (thoughts on that ‘talented’ or ‘gifted’ label, before and after CTYI)

– ‘Where are they now?’ (a quick two-line summary of what particular alumni are doing now)

Queries in relation to this project can be sent to danielle.broomfield@dcu.ie

Book-review post!

Back to YA for this book review post…

Patrick Ness – More Than This

I have complicated feelings about this book, which are mainly genre-ish: I read this thinking it was going to be about Life After Death, all that ‘what is real?’ stuff, etc, and then found myself slightly disappointed by how overtly sci-fi it ended up being. Even though I like sci-fi. So, yes. This is a tricky one to talk about without dragging in spoilers all over the place, but I suppose what I will say is that trying to figure out what kind of book it was made the experience of reading it less delightful and rewarding. (That being said, it is Patrick Ness. There is bucketloads of great stuff in there.)

Jandy Nelson – I’ll Give You The Sun

Twins, art, and love. This is a gorgeous, if at times a-teeny-bit-too-coincidental-but-you’ll-let-it-slide-because-pretty-language, exuberant story about Noah and Jude, and what happens to them between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, and how things have changed from Noah being the ‘odd one out’ to Jude being the art school girl while Noah is surrounded by ‘normal’ friends. The attention paid to the Californian landscape, and the ultimate hope in love that’s woven throughout the book, echoes Nelson’ first (equally gorgeous) book, and the focus on the adults as flawed but real individuals sets this apart from many YA novels. One of my favourite books of the year so far.

Sarah Crossan – One

I’d been excited about this book for so long (Crossan’s verse novels are things of joy!) so I was delighted to get an advance copy of One, in which Grace relates what happens when she and her conjoined twin, Tippi (the parents are big fans of old school leading ladies) start regular school, after having been homeschooled all their lives. Despite what people might think, the twins can’t imagine being separated from one another – this is their life, their identity. But with new friends, a boy Grace wants to kiss, and the opportunity to raise money by sharing their story with a documentary-maker, there’s the chance they could undergo surgery and lead their own lives, as two, not one. The poetry is gorgeous, the details carefully-selected, the portrayal of how the twins’ medical issues dominate their family life done wonderfully. Do read when it’s out later this summer.

We did it.

Ireland, Ireland, Ireland. We did it. I still can’t quite believe it. Everyone I knew was voting Yes to marriage equality on Friday – from the obvious candidates, the always-politically-engaged types, to people who’d never been particularly bothered about voting before or regular Mass-goers who might have been expected to listen to the (still unforgivable) instructions from bishops about voting No. But there was anxiety too – anxiety about the lies and craziness the No campaign had been flinging around, not halted by broadcasters and newspapers terrified about ‘balance’, and anxiety about the accuracy of the polls, thinking back as far as the tight margin in the divorce referendum in ’96, and as recently as the UK general election earlier this month.

I have never been so anxious, so hopeful, so moved, so terrified, by any vote ever.

It’s bonkers in some ways: the peculiarities of the Irish constitution meant a referendum was needed, and the idea of voting on extending equality is distasteful at best. There was only one right answer. And we did it.

As Una Mullally, one of the absolute troopers of the Yes campaign, has noted, it wasn’t just Dublin or the cities pushing this through. Only one out of the forty-three constituencies got a No through, barely; areas that would have been viewed as traditional and backwards and in thrall to the Catholic church were going ‘Yes, Yes, Yes’ all day yesterday as the results came through.

Final thought from Fintan O’Toole, whose piece has me tearing up (a fairly regular occurrence over the past few days):

It looks like a victory for tolerance. But it’s actually an end to mere toleration.

Tolerance is what “we” extend, in our gracious goodness, to “them”. It’s about saying “You do your own thing over there and we won’t bother you so long as you don’t bother us”.

The resounding Yes is a statement that Ireland has left tolerance far behind. It’s saying that there’s no “them” anymore. LGBT people are us.

Just say yes

May 22nd. One of those rare occasions where the people have an opportunity to make their country kinder, safer and better. Vote yes.

(it’s not the end of the world…)

Book-review post!

This is one of those ‘sometimes I read grownup books’ posts. Mix of fiction and non-fiction.

Amy Poehler – Yes Please

This was recommended to me often, and I loved Tina Fey’s book so very much, so I was hoping for a similar hilarity-fest, but Poehler’s book is much more on the fuzzy-lovely side of things. It’s the story of a life in comedy, and has some interesting insights and advice, which I liked, but wouldn’t necessarily be pressing into everyone’s hands insisting that they read straight away. It did make me feel as though I absolutely-positively needed to heed that other bit of advice that everyone keeps giving me about pop culture, which is to watch Parks & Rec. (I know. I have never seen it. I mean to! I swear! Stop looking at me like that!)

Matt Haig – Reasons To Stay Alive

Matt Haig first came to many people’s attention when he blogged for Booktrust, and I am mainly aware of him from Twitterland, and conscious of some wise things he’s said on writing and on mental health. I’d been looking forward to this book – part memoir of depression and recovery, part observations – for ages, and while it’s good, and has some smart things to say, it’s not a radically different offering for anyone who is a compulsive reader of memoirs-of-depression (e.g. Shoot the Damn Dog, Sunbathing in the Rain, The Devil Within, Prozac Nation, etc.) But it has lists and quotable bits and although the ‘meds are not for me’ bit kind of bugs me, it is worth a read.

Jenny Offill – Dept. of Speculation

This is an interesting book about relationships and things breaking down and it is beautifully written, but also weird, and I was underwhelmed. I’m sorry, universe. Please don’t judge me.

Liane Moriarty – The Husband’s Secret

A decades-old murder comes to the fore again, shaking up the lives of three very different women. This is a page-turner and an easy read, and I liked it, but I didn’t love it enough to want to race out and buy more of the author’s books.

Susan Stairs – The Story of Before

This debut novel looks at suburban Dublin in the 1970s (I think?) and the secrets and cruelty of children, focusing on what happens when a family moves into a new house and encounters a charismatic but ultimately dangerous neighbour. Interested to see what Stairs does next.

Eimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing

This is clearly the ‘I am underwhelmed by these grown-up reads’ book post. I saw the stage adaptation of this a few months back and really liked it, which uses text straight from the book but has the benefit of being a) only eighty minutes long and b) performed. On the page the playing-around-with-language does become tiresome – it’s just not my thing – and the subject matter (illness and religion and sexual abuse in pre-Boom Ireland, oh my) has been covered an awful lot elsewhere.

Clearly I need to stop having thoughts on these books for adults and just go back to kidlit and YA, yes?

Ways of reading

Editor-hat: is this exciting, gorgeous, well-written, well-plotted, featuring characters I adore and also commercially viable and also something I kind of want to press into the hands of everyone I know?
Teacher-hat: what are the strengths and weaknesses of this student’s writing and what advice can I offer to help them develop this piece and as a writer in general?
Writer-friend-hat: inserting comments filled with squee and too many exclamation points and also noting bits that are maybe not needed or are confusing or feel like they need to be developed more.
Reviewer-hat: how does this book compare with other published work and what did I like about it and what, if anything, did I feel let down by, and who else might enjoy reading this?
Reader-hat: I am having ALL THE FEELS.

Book-review post!

Here are some books you must read. They are YA or YAish, really – Sarah Bannan’s book is being marketed as a crossover, while the other two are pitched as YA but get marvellously dark and adult along the way and are the sort I think should be pressed into everyone’s hands. They are all gorgeous.

Sarah Bannan – Weightless

Pitched as The Virgin Suicides meets Prep, so, y’know, you can’t lose with this one. Told from the point of view of a group of girls looking back at the year beautiful Carolyn Lessing moved to their small town, this book explores bullying and rumour and jealousy and responsibility in a way that is compelling and unsettling. The subject matter is familiar but the first-person-plural is absolutely the strength of this novel, letting us get sucked into this world and watch the manipulations and power struggles of adolescent (and small-town) life. Sarah Bannan has worked in the arts and literary world for a while – I mention this only because we need some reason or justification for why this debut novel is so damn good.

Moira Fowley-Doyle – The Accident Season

Every year, it happens – accidents befall Cara and her family, ranging from minor scrapes to serious tragedy. This year is no different. Meanwhile, there’s a girl at school who shows up in every single one of her photos, regardless of where they’ve been taken – a girl who’s disappeared and no one seems to remember except for very vaguely.

This is a dark, twisty story grounded in the real world but with an unsettling supernatural threat hovering over everything; it manages to brilliantly convey both the everyday school and family life and the chilling spookiness. There are friendships and love stories and secrets and I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s a very pleasing book and I can’t wait until it’s out in the world (coming this summer).

Courtney Summers – All The Rage

There are echoes of the pilot of Veronica Mars in Courtney Summers’s latest book, and I mean that in the best possible way. Like Veronica, we meet Romy a year after her life’s been shaken up, after a rape, after her family circumstances have shifted and after the small town she lives in has decided she’s not to be trusted. But Romy doesn’t get to be a quippy girl detective. She’s still hurting. In some ways her life is better – her mom’s back with her old high school boyfriend, and her alcoholic father’s out of the picture – but she’s perpetually branded a liar for saying that one of the town’s golden boys – his father’s the sheriff, his mother runs their business empire – raped her. Her former best friend Penny won’t talk to her, and the boy at work she likes, Leon, seems nice, but Romy knows you can’t trust nice, can’t trust anything. When Penny shows up at Romy’s workplace and then disappears that night, and Romy wakes up in the middle of the road with no memory of what’s happened and ‘rape me’ scrawled on her stomach in her trademark red lipstick, it’s the beginning of a town search that can only end badly.

I wanted to read this book and I also didn’t. Because it is a tough read, an upsetting read; it’s about the prejudice in small towns and the powerlessness of people, and the insidious nature of rape culture and how dangerous it is to be a girl in this world. The line I’ve seen quoted over and over again is when Romy thinks about her boyfriend’s newborn niece: “She doesn’t even know how hard it’s going to be yet, but she will, because all girls find out.” There is some hope, some redemption, but there is also a lot of pain and anger that refuses to be solved by the end of the book – and rightfully so, because this is a struggle against culture and society, not against particular individuals. I am glad this book exists. I wish it wasn’t so real.