I have recently finished reading Plunder in Paradise - Geraldine McCaughrean, and now started reading Stamboul Train - Graham Greene.
What influenced you choices?
I have recently finished reading Plunder in Paradise - Geraldine McCaughrean, and now started reading Stamboul Train - Graham Greene.
What influenced you choices?
@ Barbara Thompson: I haven't got strong objections to "good guys vs bad guys stories for children". I DO object to stories (e.g. the Harry Potter series or he Lord Of The Rings) that present the WHOLE of one team/country/religion/race as being the good guys while the WHOLE of another team/country/religion/race are the bad guys. And to books [again, what little I've read of HP sauce and - with FEW exceptions - TLOTR] in which the good guys are ALWAYS AND EXCLUSIVELY good and the bad guys are pure EVIL. At least in the other example that I cited in my earlier post to this Q&A, "His Dark Materials", the good guys are sometimes [partly] responsible for very evil things happening, and the bad guys are sometimes shown in a more positive light.
You write: "Hopefully they can decide to be 'goodies' themselves if they identify with characters of that type."
Yes, absolutely. And thousands of young men VOLUNTEERED to fight "Godless Communism" in Vietnam and other thousands volunteered to join the U.S. Army during the whole Afghanistan / Iraq invasion business, because they were CONVINCED that "God is on OUR side" / "The USA are ALWAYS the good guys!"
I forgot to answer Adrian's 2nd Q: What influenced your choices?
The 1st 3 mentioned, professional interest in perhaps publishing them. Georgiana's book because she's a WICKED writer who sparked my interest with her first "shared work" on this site.
"Dombey And Son" because I've never read it, I love Dickens, and I found it on the "you may help yourselves" shelves of abandoned books in a youth hostel in Co. Donegal, Éire a few months ago. (I only popped in to use their WiFi for 6 hours.)
I asked Bloomsbury to send me a children's book as I not only write for children, I'm a fan of the genre... as long as it's well done. (And Rundell does it well.)
I tend to read several books at the same time. I go cross-eyed but gain a lot of practice in peripheral vision. Just joking. I start one book and - long before I've finished it - start another.
At present, I've just completed (in one sitting) a self-published tale for children (in Catalan) that I was considering for my publishing hut (La Gr@not@), but it's not "other" enough. I've also just started 2 other stories sent to me by a Canadian contributor to "Alice And I", La Gr@not@'s birthday present to "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" (see mini-description at http://la-granota.com/list.htm). As she's a talented graphic artist, she'll be able to illustrate them herself.
I've also started the full version (sent me as a .doc) of "Checks and Balances" by Georgiana Derwent (https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/profile/georgiana-derwent/work) and really looking forward to reading more. If I haven't yet done so, it's no reflection on the quality of the gripping writing and plot. It's because I was working flat-out on editing the Alice book, and now am dancing myself silly until the wee small hours (e.g. 03:45, 04:36) at a certain-town-in-Spain's annual week of partying, in order to regain some sanity after weeks of staring at a computer screen until the same wee small hours... or even later.
Back at home, in printed form, I have Charles Dickens' "Dombey And Son" and "The Wolf Wilder" by Katherine Rundell (my gift for reaching 200 points on this site, but I lent it to my step-daughter to read first), both started and awaiting my return from La Gr@not@'s official launch party in Germany. (A return that got detoured by this town's partying.)
So: not counting the one just finished, 5 books on the go... unless I've forgotten others.