Keris Stainton's Blog, page 24

Merry Christmas…

… from Team Stainto. Hope you all have a wonderful one.

Stevie Wonder + Disney + Christmas = JOY

Friday favourites

Catching up on old saved items again. I’ve had this in my Twitter favourites for over a year (via @JillMansell). I don’t think I’ve watched a single flashmob that hasn’t made me cry.

I am gutted that I missed the giant rubber duck floating down the Thames. Gutted.

A few of my favourite children’s authors are doing advent pictures on their blogs. Clara Vulliamy‘s is fabulous as is Alex T Smith’s. Cheering.

I’m loving this series on fathers in popular culture, written by my friend Diane Shipley. She always makes me think. Plus, one of the posts is about Blossom. Ace.

Book review: 40 Uses for a Grandpa by Harriet Ziefert

We were sent this book while we were doing Harry Reads to Joe, but didn’t have a chance to read it then (because people were so lovely, we reached the target before we thought we would), but we’ve read it a few times since and really love it.

There’s no story, it’s literally just a list of things that Grandpas are good for, but the illustrations (by Amanda Haley) are so lovely and really bring the book to life.

Joe loves repeating the ‘uses’ after me – e.g. ‘play date’ ‘nurse’ ‘pet minder’ – and it’s good because there are plenty of words he hasn’t heard/used before (‘mediator’ ‘oarsman’ ‘opponent’) and so we get to talk about the meanings as well as discussing whether his ‘Grandpa’ would be up for any of these activities.

Thanks so much to Mat from PGUK for sending it to us.

Homeschooling Harry: first quarter report

I meant to write this post last week when it was actually three months since Harry should have gone back to school, but I didn’t get round to it and then I actually got a commission to write about home ed and so wanted to get that out of the way first.

Actually, writing the article really confirmed to me how happy I am that we’re doing this. I’m so enthusiastic about it that the original draft of my article was almost 2000 words. I had to cut it down to 800. (I didn’t quite manage it…)

Because I’m so passionate about it, I actually plan to blog about it a bit more than I have been doing and so it doesn’t take over this blog entirely, I’ve set up a new blog. Of course I have. I’ll still be posting about it here every week or so, but if you want extras, please subscribe to Happy Home Ed.

So. Three months on. How’s it going? It’s hard to say, really, because it just seems entirely natural. It reminds me of when I first gave up work and every now and then would think “I don’t have to go to work today…” and it would give me a little thrill. We just seem to have happily and easily fallen into a routine that we all enjoy. Well, I say ‘all’. Joe has been going to preschool on Monday and Wednesday mornings and outdoor preschool all day Friday and he would really rather be at home with me and Harry. Mostly with Harry, if I’m honest. On a Monday, David’s parents pick Joe up and he stays there for the afternoon, so it means that Harry and I have Mondays and Fridays to ourselves and we don’t really want to give that up. So we’ve compromised (a tiny bit) and I’ve told Joe he doesn’t have to go to preschool on Wednesday mornings from the new year. We’ll see how it goes.

We’ve been back to school a couple of times – for Bonfire Night and the Christmas Fair – and Harry was fine, if a bit shy (not surprising since everyone kept asking him how it was going at home). He still sees his best friend once a week and another friend is coming over next week for the afternoon. I’ve noticed when we’re out and about that Harry is chatting to people more than he used to. It’s completely random though – we went out for coffee with a friend the other day (Hi, Trish!) and he didn’t talk much at all, but then he nattered away to some kid’s grandma in a soft play centre earlier this week.

I’ve also noticed that he’s much more relaxed about reading and writing than he was when it was “homework”. He doesn’t read much to himself, but he’s enjoying me reading to him at night much more and we’re reading much longer books. He will read a book (something like Moshi Monsters) in the car and he obviously reads things secretly when I’m not around because he’ll mention something that was in the paper or a magazine. In our local park, there’s a huge hoarding hiding some building works and there’s a description of the works printed right along it. He LOVES reading that aloud, as long as I don’t make a fuss of it. Last time, when he finished reading, I said, “High five!” and  he got a right gob on.

I wanted to say something about people’s reactions to the news that we’re home educating, but I’ll save that for next week, I think.

Also, so you get a full picture vague idea, I decided to ask Harry for his input:

“It’s going fine. I like it. I like having fun with Middy.”

So there you go.

Stuff my parents used to say

I’ve written about pet names over on Girls Heart Books today. I thought of it because for a while now, I’ve been making a note of the words and sayings my parents used. So I don’t forget.

So along with “toochy face”, “chucklebutty” and “pigeon smidgeon” as mentioned in that post, there’s also:

Dolt

Doddle

Sufferin’ succotash (which Dad would say in a cartoony voice).

Sufferin’ hell (which Mum would say through gritted teeth).

Beat it while your boots are good

Put the mockers on it

What a maroon (Dad again).

Damn and blast

Piddle and twiddle (Mum. When she worked as a cleaner in Boots, she knocked over the mop bucket and said, “Piddle and twiddle!” The manager, joking, called out, “Language, Mrs James!”)

Twinges (meaning twins, i.e. “Are the twinges coming over for Christmas?”)

Co-inky-dink (for coincidence). Sometimes shortened to “co-inky” or “co-ink”.

Branny, short for “brand new”, i.e. “Went to see Jean’s branny baby.”

Will add more as and when I think of them. (Or my sister reminds me!)

Pale blue dot

This made me a little breathless.

{via Upworthy, which is one of my favourite sites at the moment – so many amazing videos.}

52 Books: A Natural Woman by Carole King

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Carole King – I didn’t know all that much about her, apart from knowing she’d written some iconic songs and had one of the best-selling albums of all time with Tapestry. I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up if I hadn’t been sent it by the publisher.

I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t really gripped by it. King is very laid back about her awesome (and I mean that in the original sense of the word) career and glosses over some of the most fascinating periods in music history. I mean, she worked in the Brill Building in the 60s writing songs like Will You Love Me Tomorrow and then moved to LA in the 70s and became part of the Laurel Canyon scene, but I don’t feel like this book gave me much of an impression of what either was like.

She was admirably honest about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her second husband, but then spent way too long describing a court case she’d been involved in with her third husband (over the property rights to her home – was this a huge story in America? I can’t imagine why she included it in such detail otherwise).

I was left with a definite feeling of admiration (and a new Spotify playlist), but I still feel like I need to sit down with her and say, “But what was it all REALLY like?”

Theo at the Park by Jaclyn Crupi

When I was offered the opportunity to review a scented book, I jumped at it. I remember some sort of ‘Smell-o-vision’ thing when I was a kid (did the card come with the TV Times?) and I loved the idea, so I thought Harry and Joe probably would too.

Theo wakes up to find he’s lost his sense of smell, so he wanders around sniffing things – honey, a rose bush, strawberry ice cream – that he hopes will bring it back.

Both boys were fascinated by this book (even though it’s aimed at much younger readers than Harry, obviously) presumably because they’ve never come across anything like it before. The story is slight, serving mostly as a vehicle for the sniffing, but that was fine with Harry and Joe since they both just wanted to skip ahead to smelling stuff. I was a bit disappointed that – spoiler alert! – Theo’s problem isn’t resolved at the end of the book, but the boys didn’t seem bothered, so maybe that’s just me.

Thank you to Anne at Autumn Publishing for sending it to us.

Writing for teenagers: it’s not all OMG and LOL

I’ve been thinking about running an online writing course for a while now and I thought I’d finally get my backside in gear and do it. It will run for six weeks from the middle of January (to give us all time to recover from Christmas/New Year) and I’ve based it on a course I ran last year with Winning Words.

On this six week course you’ll learn:

What teen fiction actually is (and how to decide what age group you actually want to write for)

How to come up with inspired ideas

How to create believable characters

How to write convincing dialogue

How to grab readers right from the first page and keep them hooked to the last

The teen fiction cliches you may want to avoid (or not!)

How it works is that I will send you the course notes at the beginning of each week, along with some homework and a writing prompt – it’s entirely up to you whether you do the homework/prompt – I know some people won’t be at that stage yet or simply won’t want to write to order like that (I did a journalism course years ago at an adult education centre and my heart sank when the tutor set a writing challenge) – and then we’ll have a forum where we can discuss that week’s topic in more detail and where I can give you advice and feedback if that’s what you need.

It will basically be six weeks’ access to the contents of my head. But, you know, in a good way.

I’m running it for an introductory price of £50. For the full course. Payable in advance via Paypal. (Places are limited, but I appreciate pre-Christmas may not be the best time to shell out extra money, so feel free to email me to register your interest and pay after Christmas.)

Any questions, please email me.

TESTIMONIALS:

“Keris mentored me through my first YA novel – she was honest without being too harsh and was brilliant at spotting bits which didn’t work or weren’t very teen as well as helping out with plot and structure issues. Since then I have written two more YA novels, am currently working on my fourth and have secured myself a literary agent.” Catherine Cooper, journalist.

“Keris is an inspiration. She’s been there, worn the tee-shirt and she’s brilliantly at advising, coaching and giving you the specific ‘how-to’ of making your writing dreams into a reality.” Suzy Greaves, Life Coach and creator of The Big Writing Club.

“Keris Stainton was a fab tutor and made things simple to understand and fun. Great to have advice from someone in the industry and who uses her own tips daily.” Laura Heath, Book blogger (SisterSpooky)

ABOUT ME:

Keris Stainton has had three novels published by Orchard Books:

Della Says: OMG! “A fun, delicious treat you’ll want to eat up in a single bite!” Meg Cabot

Jessie Hearts NYC ”A breezy summer rom-com with oodles of New York glamour.” The Bookseller

Emma Hearts LA “In-depth characters make this a light read that’s not frothy at all.” Kiss magazine

Before writing her own novels, she co-founded the influential teen books blog, Chicklish and, according to The Bookseller is “well in touch with what teen girls want.”

Image courtesy of Just2shutter / FreeDigitalPhotos.net