2010 Judges

Packing for the holidays has an extra dimension for the three judges of this year’s New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Rosemary Tisdall, Trevor Agnew and Ruth McIntyre will no doubt be taking some of the 130 titles they will be assessing on their summer trips. What’s more, they are all looking forward to getting sand between the pages.

(L-R: Ruth McIntyre, Rosemary Tisdall, Trevor Agnew)

Rosemary Tisdall is such an enthusiast for children’s literature it covers both her working life and voluntary community work with Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand. As a children’s literature consultant, she has been working with the National Library of New Zealand to upgrade the libraries of low decile schools and with specialist school and library suppliers, Wheelers Books.
“We are looking to have our imaginations captured by books with a difference, so that the intended audience – the young people of New Zealand – will have reads that entice, teach, and therefore encourage, a lifelong love of reading,” said Tisdall, who will convene the panel.

Christchurch children’s book reviewer Trevor Agnew and bookseller Ruth McIntyre are the other judges. Agnew is a retired teacher and librarian, and the sole New Zealand contributor to The Source, an internet database of Australian and New Zealand children’s literature (www.magpies.net.au), creating detailed entries for over 2000 New Zealand children’s books.

Ruth McIntyre is co-owner of the award-winning Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie, Wellington, which she and her husband John established in 1992. An experienced journalist, she worked for magazines, newspapers, and as an editor at the New Zealand Press Association, and now produces newsletters for the bookshop’s school, library and retail customers.

The 2010 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards finalists will be announced on 4 March, the festival kicks off on 10 May, and winners are announced at an Awards Ceremony in Auckland on 19 May 2010.

The Read asked each judge about their memories of childhood favourite books and more…

Rosemary Tisdall

What is the first book you remember having read to you as a child?
Milly Molly Mandy – it reflected my own happy home life and I felt everyone else lived like that. My mum and dad tell me that when I was little, I loved listening to my older brothers’ stories at bedtime, so Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel and Thomas the Tank Engine featured too. And I still have my beloved copy of A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

What book first lit the ‘reading flame’ for you?
I was brought up in a ‘reading’ home, where my mum and dad always read to us, read avidly themselves, and still do, and took us to the library every Friday night. I can’t think of one particular book that ignited my reading, therefore. However, the Famous Five were definite favourites, and as a teenager I remember The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks as being a favourite, along with the Flambards series by KM Peyton.

Was there a curriculum book you remember reading that had a significant impact on you?
No, unfortunately I remember those books as being a time I didn’t enjoy reading. We had to analyse them chapter by chapter and I remember cheating in the sixth form and just reading the chapter I had to summarise!

What books do you remember enjoying reading most to your own children?
The Little House on the Prairie series. The Faraway Tree series beginning with The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. And I liked the Alfie books by Shirley Hughes.

International children’s author you’d most like to meet?
If she were alive, Beatrix Potter – she intrigues me, a woman so sure of herself and determined to write/illustrate and be published despite difficulties due to the time she lived in, plus I share her love of animals and nature.

Have you ever travelled overseas in search of a significant literary experience?
I have been to Korea twice in the past two years, at their invitation (and expense, lucky me!) to be a part of their children’s book festival on a beautiful tree-filled island an hour out of Seoul. I go again next year with writer, Jennifer Beck and illustrator, Lindy Fisher, where the 23 participating countries will be producing a collection of illustrated stories about peace.

How are you juggling all the reading hours required as a judge?
Being a judge last year, I know what I am in for. However, when the offer came again, I didn’t hesitate. It is a huge commitment, but I feel so honoured to be asked, I accept the workload. At last count when the second box of books arrived, I worked out I had to read two a day to be ready for the judges’ meeting in January. Now, I realise many are picture books, but there are quite a few meaty fiction books there, several of 300-400 pages. How better to get out of dishes at home than to say “I have to read some books sorry!”.

What non-children’s books will be on the stack beside your bed this summer?
None!!! Did you not read my answer above… If I did, it would be The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. I really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and can’t wait (but I will) to read the sequels.

Is there a children’s book you have re-read numerous times and keep returning to?
I think probably The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks for comfort and sentimental reasons and it was a good love story from memory. I haven’t read it for a long time now though. Maybe after the New Zealand Post books are all read I could treat myself…

Describe your idea of ‘reading-bliss’.
At our holiday place, Opoutere on the Coromandel, sitting under a tree, in my favourite deck chair, drinking a glass of chilled water with lime. ( A G&T would be nice, but I can’t read concentratedly that way.) Maybe with a young nephew on my knee, reading one of the New Zealand Post books of his choice – which last year, were usually the non-fiction ones. I only read New Zealand Post books from now until the end of February!

Trevor Agnew

What is the first book you remember having read to you as a child?
Chicken-Licken. It was a picture book version, the kind that only had one colour on a black-and-white illustration. I enjoyed that story and hung on to the book for years. I duly arrived at school with it, able to read it. I had memorised the words and knew when to turn the pages. Actually I was able to read when I started school and having been reading like a vacuum-cleaner ever since.

What book first lit the ‘reading flame’ for you?
My aunt sent me a copy of The Secret Travellers by Elleston Trevor (1948). It’s about a group of English woodland animals, who have houses in trees and smoke pipes. (I see now that it’s a bit Wind in the Willows.) Elleston Trevor went on to write brilliant war stories, historical novels and spy stories – he was Adam Hall – but his children’s books have a special magic.

Was there a curriculum book you remember reading that had a significant impact?
I wish I could remember its name. I was at Sawyers Bay Primary School in the early 1950s. We’d had the old Janet and John readers and a right boring lot they were too. Then along came some large hard-back readers. I can see them now. They had colour pictures and lots of stories about American children, past and present. One farm boy had trouble with cows starving during a snowfall, but when he dragged a log behind the tractor, the cows were able to get at the grass. Stage coach passengers took a journey west, with the men and boys all getting out to walk, as they went up the hills. A pioneer family had a crisis, when a little boy broke the clock and a wandering peddler repaired it – and they had the joy of seeing the clock reach the hour and the little figures coming out. What were those books?
At Otago Boys’ High School, I was entranced by Denis Richards and J.W. Hunt’s, An Illustrated History of Modern Britain (1950). I recently bought an old copy in a second-hand bookshop out of nostalgia. It was the first history book I ever saw that used cartoons as its illustrations: Cruickshank, Punch, Low. It’s probably the reason I became a history teacher.

What books do you remember reading most to your own children?
We read to them at night, of course, now something that they do with their own children. We have four daughters, so we went through a lot of books – Ramona the Pest was a favourite.
I am one of those fortunate people who can read in a car, so on our long car journeys, I would read them longer stories. The Never-Ending Story was a surprising success, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, Mistress Masham’s Repose and Ramona.
More recently, my oldest daughter – who’s a librarian, surprise, surprise – used to share a car with me, so we’d drive across Christchurch every morning dropping off her children at their schools. I discovered that Jack Lasenby’s Uncle Trev stories were exactly the right length – one to a trip. Harry Wakatipu was just as good. They appeal to a wide range of ages, and Jack really knows how to spin a yarn.

International children’s author you’d most like to meet?
The late Tove Jansson. Her Moomintroll stories and their marvellous illustrations bewitched me young and the magic has stayed. The weird plants and odd animals, the hattifatteners and the Joxter, hemulens and lots of weird events, but no matter what happened a mother’s love was always there. Magnificent books.

Have you ever travelled overseas in search of a significant literary experience?
Several – from Bath for Jane Austen, to Kirk Alloway for Robert Burns. Bath was superb. Kirk Alloway was a disappointment. I arrived at mid-day on New Years Day. I thought the Scots would all be out celebrating. Wrong – not a soul in sight. The Burns birth-place was locked. The Burns Museum was locked. The farm was closed. The public gardens – with its Burns statues – was locked. Only the graveyard was open, but there were no dancing witches. I tried walking over Tam O’Shanter’s bridge but it was icy-frozen and I nearly broke my neck. The only meal available in Kirk Alloway was ‘Table-de-hoot at twuntyfaive poonds the heed” so we had New Year’s Dinner in a KFC down the road. How Burns would have laughed.
Actually, I prefer it when the literary figure suddenly takes you by surprise. Unexpected encounters are best. Like us being in the graveyard at Iona, in six inches of snow, and suddenly realising that we were standing before the graves of Duncan and Macbeth.

How are you juggling all the reading hours required as a Judge?
No problem. Now that I’m self-employed, my hours are flexible. Of course, I read books professionally in preparation for interviews and I also review books. One of my jobs is writing entries for all New Zealand children’s & YA novels and picture books for the website The Source. That means that I have read some 70% of the books already. But judging is quite different from reading to provide summaries, genres, and subject headings, so I’m re-reading, looking for quite different points.
With the books for The Source and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards stacked up there, my grandchildren regard my office as their reading-room, and they’re happily reading through lots of this year’s crop of young people’s books.

What non-children’s books will be on the stack beside your bed this summer?
‘Towering over’ is more the phrase. I’m a sucker for anything on model-making and tanks, because I enjoy making model armoured-fighting-vehicles when time allows, and reading about them when time doesn’t allow. I love books about history. Any history. Detective stories are a weakness of mine, with Robert Parker high on the stack. Summer won’t be long enough.

Is there a children’s book you have re-read numerous times and keep returning to?
That’s interesting. We’re back at Winnie-the-Pooh and A.A. Milne’s other gems. Characters like Eeyore become funnier as you get older. The Disney version doesn’t seem to catch the children or grandchildren; they prefer the marvellous Milne prose and the marvellous E.H. Shepard illustrations. The gags, like the gift of the empty honey jar and the burst balloon, just go on getting funnier.

Describe your idea of ‘reading-bliss’.
There’s a photo of me for this one. 

It’s our 40th wedding anniversary and I’m up to my neck in a spa pool at Ruby Bay in Nelson. The orange juice is cool, the Pegasus Bay Riesling is cooler, my daughters are preparing a 1960s banquet (cheese and pineapple pieces on toothpicks stuck in half-an-orange; cut-up salad with tomatoes and condensed-milk dressing). I’m re-reading my way through my collection of the Flashman novels by George McDonald Fraser. The music was early Beatles, but Mozart and Vivaldi are fine too.

Ruth McIntyre

What is the first book you remember having read to you as a child?
Probably Milly Molly Mandy had the most impact - I loved the maps, working out where everyone lived. I know that my parents read me all the usual fairytales because I can remember "reading" some of them to Dad once when he was sick and I would have been about four or five. But I was a timid child and was quite terrified by the "horror" in the Grimm Brothers' stories.

What book first lit the ‘reading flame’ for you?
I adored the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. The idea of kids going off on holiday on their own and having such wonderful adventures was intoxicating! I even joined the Famous Five Club - posted my application to England and received my club number and other information about three months later! I also loved Noel Streatfeild's books, such as Ballet Shoes, about children becoming stage and screen stars, which I thought would be very cool. My grandparents gave me Elsie Locke's The Runaway Settlers, still a marvellous story and the first New Zealand book that I really loved.

Was there a curriculum book you remember reading that had a significant impact on you?
In fourth form English we studied Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and, while that is my least favourite of her novels, it turned me on to her other books and she is still my favourite (adult) author.

What books do you remember reading most to your own children?
Slinky Malinki (it's sheer poetry), The Very Hungry Caterpillar (it's the best picture book ever) and Jacqueline Wilson's Sleepovers to my daughter when she was eight. We read it in one sitting and then she made me read it again the next day. She and I also read a funny picture book called Worried Arthur every Christmas Eve - it's become a family ritual. The story is about a little penguin who worries that Santa won't find his home or decide that Arthur hasn't been good enough for presents.

International children’s author you’d most like to meet?
Eva Ibbotson, author of Journey to the River Sea, The Star of Kazan, and The Secret of Platform 13. She left Austria for England before Hitler came to power and lived a quite bohemian life, including going to an unconventional boarding school. Her parents were divorced, her father a professor and her mother a socialite and they mixed a lot with the European emigrants living in London in the 1930s and 40s. Her books are wickedly funny, richly imagined and feature some wonderfully over-the-top characters.

Have you ever travelled overseas in search of a significant literary event / site / experience?
My husband John and I went to the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy in 1997 – actually the year that the rights to the first Harry Potter book were being sold, but we didn't know anything about that at the time, unfortunately. We also went to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2007 and the London Book Fair earlier this year. We visited the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, where there is a fascinating and very intimate exhibition of the three sisters and their lives, family and books, including Charlotte's wedding dress and hairbrushes. I felt I almost knew them.

How are you juggling all the reading hours required as a Judge?
The number of books submitted for the awards is quite daunting but, luckily, I have read many of them during the year when they were published so I'm getting through the pile. The bookshop is very busy right now so I'm looking forward to a quiet period after Christmas when I'll have more time to read.

What non-children’s books will be on the stack beside your bed this summer?
I don't think there will be any – I'll be busy reading and re-reading the New Zealand Post submissions. Also, there are so many new children's books being published every month and I like to read as many as possible so I can keep up with the play and tell our customers about them.

Is there a children’s book you have re-read numerous times and keep returning to?
I used to re-read all my books when I was a child but not now, although I re-read Jane Austen's novels every few years. I tend to read new books and then move on to the next one. But I do savour many of the books I have read and will often think about them long afterwards. I think if I re-read the Famous Five now I might be disappointed – sometimes it's better to just hang on to the memory of how much you enjoyed something.

Describe your idea of ‘reading-bliss’.
Sitting outside on a deckchair on a warm, sunny day, with a cup of coffee or a cold juice. I would be reading a new Eva Ibbotson book or, in my dreams, a ‘new’ Jane Austen novel that had just been discovered.