Finding Your Voice…

I just read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. Such a good, funny and thought provoking read. You know one of those in which you sense hidden depths of meaning that you’re not sure you can quite grasp. At the end Fat Charlie (no not the Fat Lady) sings. He finds his voice. A lovely metaphor for finding himself. Andrew Norriss has found his voice too. In each new book it is a little clearer and his stories become more and more wonderful. Ctrl-Z (the undo shortcut on a computer keyboard…) is his latest. It doesn’t come out until March but you can read a sneak peak on my website http://anorrissbooks.wordpress.com/. Neil Gaiman and Andrew Norriss are both examples of fine fantasy writers whose fantasy worlds blend very nicely with real life and who subtly ponder the meaning of life.
Back to Anansi Boys – ‘By the windmills of Babyland he sat and wept’! Such a genius play on words if you get it, and if you don’t, you don’t know what you’ve missed.

Self help books for children?

I read ’selfhelp’ books. The ones that say ‘this worked for me, it might be useful to you.’ The ones that give examples from others lives that help explain how my own might work for the better. How often do you say  ’ If I knew then what I know now…’ and that’s why I read self help, Spirituality, and great novels. So that I don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel in my own life. Classics are have lasted the test of time because they help us look at our lives and show how we might work things out.

 And that’s also what I want in a truly great children’s book. So I say again if a children’s book can offer this – ‘The absolute bedrock thing is that you need to work out exactly what it is you want in life – something that’s a lot trickier than it seems. If you don’t know what it is, you can’t hope to get it. You must find out what you really really want.’ I want to read it however old I am! and this was said by children’s author Andrew Norriss when talking about his book Aquila. It won the Whitbread Children’s book award. You know the Aesop tale about the wren flying high on the back of an eagle?

 I love that there are encouraging and inspiring children’s books out there which are also greaf fun reads especially at this challanging time. I want books to help not weigh me down with angst and gritty urban tension. I want to know how to make life better and Norriss really does it. Great! Anyone else come across his books? I really really recommend them see Amazon.co.uk