Posts by Jackie Clark
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It's all about personal preference, Russell. Boring old world if we all liked the same thing etc etc. What astounds me is that so many adults DO like the HP books, considering that they were written for children. I certainly don't think her style would translate well to adult fiction, but who knows?
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I'm on jury duty next week, but I'll have a poke around at work Jolisa and see what other childrens' gems we can dig up - after all, being a kindergarten teacher, you'd think I'd be able to immediately think of some great contemporary classic childrens books, wouldn't you?. I'm very partial to the Arthur books - written by Amanda Graham - and Edward the Emu (there's another book too about Edwina the Emu) by Sheena Knowles. Lovely, lovely books both. The Owl Babies is beautiful. I suspect the list could go on and on!
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I'm acknowledging the unreliable assumptions people can make, and confessing to be as guilty as the next person of making them
I was wondering after I'd written that to you whether I might have been jumping the gun a little, David. I do apologise for doing so. And I have to say, I'm terribly guilty of being judgemental. And Che, I LOVE Harry Potter. I don't know what it is, because I don't normally like science fiction/fantasy/magicky type stuff, but damn that woman knows how to write. I have all the books, and have read, and re-read them several times (something I never do). I don't think I do highbrow literature. Give me a good esoteric discussion any day, but I'm not interested in what I see as the literary equivalent of having a good wank in public. Now, educational theory, that's a different thing entirely.....
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Now Mr Slack, I would have to take issue with your statement "A glance at the cover of the book a person is reading is all we need." A lot of people, me included, read all sorts of things. I read chick lit from time to time. What does that brand me? Or sometimes I can be found reading something a little more esoteric. All a bit confusing. Don't you think you're being a tiny bit smug in your ability to read people?
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Oh, David. He's beyooooooooootiful. Personally, I don't have babies, I just like to look at them, and young Bob the Baby is a very lovely person to look at, I must say. Although, do you really think you should be talking so blithely about having a second human being so soon after the first one. Jennifer may have something to say about that!
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jobs,I've had a few.......isn't that how the old song goes? No? Oh well, it's true nonetheless. Loving all these stories. My worst jobs were definitively the ones I had as a barmaid in England. For three years, I seemed to take the jobs with the shittest landlords in all the land. Frank the Irishman who threatened to throw me out of a window. He got fired for diddling the brewery. Another guy who was diddling the brewery. Oh yes, and another one too. The best of the worst bastard bosses was at a place called The Ship in Richmond. I was there for two days when I was fired for asking the man what he had said (turned out he was asking me to wash ashtrays). "It's not going to work out" he dramatically says. Apparently he said that to alot of people. I went to a TNT bbq at Richmond Park where there were hundreds of aussies and Kiwis. And eleven of us had all been fired by the same man. The commonality? We were all fired a few days after he'd stopped smoking for the 1000th time etc. The best job I've ever had is the one I do now. Teaching 3-5 year olds in public kindergartens. Love it. Haven't always loved the people I'ved worked with, however. But you get that sometimes.
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Apparently lots of "stars" use our National Airways Corporation - who'd a thunk it?
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Jolisa, a lovely, lovely post as per usual. On the reading to kids thing, I once spent a day with Margaret Mahy at the Storylines festival here in Auckland. I was supposed to shepherd her hither and thither, and failed dismally. Anyway, the one thing she said to me that stuck (apart from "I'll stay here as long as that queue of people wants their book signed" thereby meaning our time management was completely kaput) was that parents should read to their children every night until the child is at least 12 years old. The way she put it was that until they are at least that age, you can take them places their imagination would never go left to their own reading devices. Wonderful. As a kindergarten teacher, and having observed the prereading behaviours of many poppets, it is certainly a bit of an osmotic process helped along by good reading modelling by family. I would suggest you also check out the musings of Gill Connell for toddlerboy. She's introduced a system called Perceptual Motor Programming. It makes very interesting reading indeed. http://www.movingsmart.co.nz/Home
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Thanks for that Graham - I didn't realise that you had interviewed my Dad. That was an article that I hadn't seen yet. Dad loved his yachting, yes he did, and I spent alot of time with him on boats at various times, and in boat building sheds (the smell of epoxy resin still evokes powerful memories of when Buccaneer was being built). I was really pleased to see that they had finally scattered his ashes in Valencia. He would be really sad that the Cup remained in the clutches of those "Swiss" peoples. Still, at least he wasn't here to see it......
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We don't care if he thinks it's inane, do we Danielle? Well, I don't, anyway. I love it - all that bitchiness and talent all rolled up in some very extreme personalities. Fabulous telly, say I. But then, I love Survivor.