Flying Books and a magic library.

I saw this short film on tv last night and had to share it with you.

If you are a regular reader by now you have probably guessed I am a sucker for animation and that I love a good book and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore has both, no wonder I was glued to it!

It also has a magic library, a Wizard of Oz style whirlwind scene and dared to ask the big questions like “Why does the weasel go ‘pop’? Does it matter? If life is enjoyable does it have to make sense?”
I dare you to resist.

The entire film runs for about 15 minutes and is wonderful. Below is the (short) official trailer but to see the whole thing click here.

My favourite xmas present.

I don’t review books here on Buried Words and Bushwa. Although I love to read, I prefer to leave it to people who are better at it than I could be.

I am going to talk about a book today though although it is not so much a review as a rant about how much I love it.

My family was doing a Kris Kringle this year so a friend was given all of our names to match up, and we were each given a person to buy for.

I was very hopeful that Youngest Sister would be the one to get my name. Along with my dad the two of us are the big book lovers of the family and she always gets me something wonderful.

Luckily she did, and this time she remembered my love of Shaun Tan, so one of the books in my present was the utterly wonderful Tales from Outer Suburbia.*

I am a confirmed Shaun Tan fan and one of my favourite books ever is The Arrival. No words, just pictures, and the reunion near the end brings a tear to my eye every time. You can imagine how eager I was to see what treasures Tales from Outer Suburbia might contain, and I wasn’t disappointed.

In Tales from Outer Suburbia Shaun Tan tells small tales of strange things happening in everyday places, Eric the exchange student and his departing gift, what really happens to discarded poetry, Grandpa’s wedding. The gentle stories have a feeling of both melancholy and wonder.

All of the stories are accompanied by beautiful drawings of both the instantly recognizable and the totally unexpected. Televisions with teeth and speedy legs, a vista of suburban houses all with backyard missiles, a crowd of giant clockwork birds towering over a creeping car.

As always, I have to go back to linger over his drawings. They are so simple and beautiful that whenever I pick up a Shaun Tan book it makes me want to rush out and buy a new set of drawing pencils and a fresh art book. I can’t draw of course, he just makes me want to!

*The other was Terry Pratchett’s The Compleat Ankh-Morpork, just to ensure no housework gets done at all today 😉

Robert Hughes dies in New York. August 2012.

I was sad to hear the news today that Robert Hughes, Australian critic, historian and author (among other things) died in New York today, aged 74. (ABC news)

Robert Hughes was the author of my favourite book on Australian history, The Fatal Shore.

This book is fascinatingly written, and explores the reasons why Australia was used as a penal colony, the hardships suffered by the convicts transported to Australia and the society created by such events.

Robert Hughes had a great knack of writing truly interesting stories from different points of view, and the ability to really give you the feel of the hard lives lived by our ancestors.

I have The Fatal Shore in my kindle, but I love this book so much that the caravan has its own copy just in case the kindle lets me down when we are away in the bush. I can’t tell you how many times I have read it. Hearing the news of his passing has inspired me to pull it out again. Thank you Mr. Hughes, RIP.

Let the wild rumpus start. RIP Maurice Sendak.

I was sad to read that Maurice Sendak has died, aged 83. I am sure that you know him best as the author of ‘Where the wild things are’. My kids have this book and I remember reading it in primary school myself.

According to this ABC news item he released a new book in September 2011 called Bumble-Ardy which, after a quick look at Amazon, appears to contain its own wild birthday rumpus.

I will be dragging wild things out for the kids tonight. When I told them this morning that the Where the wild things are man had died they said ‘awwww…’ RIP Maurice Sendak.

Wild Things author Maurice Sendak dead at 83 – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Eric Partridge, word lover and dictionary master.

The West Australian-15 July 1936 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article40733834

My current favourite book is the gigantic (1400 page) dictionary of slang written by Eric Partridge (1894-1979).

Without the help of Mr Partridge I wouldn’t have been able to understand many of the obscure words used in the old articles I love. I realized the other day that there was no reason he wouldn’t be referred to somewhere in these newspaper articles so I looked him up. Lo and behold, there is an article about him being awarded a fellowship to begin writing what will end up being ‘The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang’, yet another book on my wish list.

Eric Partridge was a very interesting man and achieved a lot in one life. He was born in New Zealand and came to Australia in his teens. He served at Gallipoli and was wounded in France. Later, he took up a travelling scholarship at Oxford, lectured at universities in Manchester and London and started a publishing house before writing a variety of dictionaries and books about language. (See http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110155b.htm for a summary of his biography)

Morning Bulletin 6 Mar 1929 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article54645539

In my readings about him I found his name mentioned regarding a scandalous book called ‘The Sleeveless Errand’ written by Norah James. The book was declared to be obscene and all copies ordered to be destroyed. Mr Partridge owned the publisher of this book, Scholartis. He read the book and had suggested that, although horrible, the language mirrored real life in certain parts of the community.

I doubt those people making the decision in court in 1929 were people in the part of society her book used for reference. Banning the ‘degrading muck’ in this book would hardly make the lower classes change their ways would it? I wonder if the  language in the book would have been seen differently if it was written by a man.

Obviously the ordered destruction was not as effective as the magistrate would have hoped. I notice that copies of it can be bought on the interweb. Who would have thought of that outcome back in 1929?

If anyone out there has read ‘The Sleeveless Errand’ I would be very interested to know what you thought of it.

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.

One Sunday morning the warm sun came up, and POP, out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.

That might not be word perfect but it is from memory, so give me a break! Writing about Scuppers the other day make me think about all those other wonderful books we love. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was always popular in this house. I knew it so well that I could read each page without needing to see it and, as such, was able to do it with lights dimmed, encouraging sleep far more easily in two active boys! I was never any good at remembering the order of the long page of goodies as we always made up our own versions of deliciousness. What a great book. Another on the list of ‘never to be given away’.