Children's Books

As some of you know, I love children's books, both the content and format, with all those pictures, the rhyme, the lyricism in them… Must be the peter-panish side of me.

In any case, here are a couple of new releases that I would like to get my hands on.

This one is by Julia Donaldson, whom you may know as she is the author of The Gruffalo.

And this other one has a rhyming format, which is nice, but also, check out the illustrations - they are awesome!

Reading in Galician - FANECA BRAVA

I've just finished reading this novel, which I came across quite accidentally and it was a real pleasure to read, and a nice surprise. It is a page-turner, and I personally enjoyed Portas's skillful use of language, poetic yet dynamic. 

Here's a small extract from a review:

Trátase dunha intriga ben artellada e dunha novela coidadosamente escrita, cuxa lectura engancha e seduce. Ese coidado na escrita, que tanto se agradece, non a converte, porén, nunha lectura difícil, senón fluída e rápida a medida que se van desvelando misterios e se quere saber máis. 

And an interview with the author:

HAVISHAM - Prelude to Great Expectations

I quite enjoyed Great Expectations, and Miss Havisham was quite a disturbing character. This book by Ronald Frame presents itself as the prequel to Great Expectations.

Here's an extract from a review:

The greatest difficulty with Havisham, however, lies at the very heart of the endeavour. Frame seeks to recast Miss Havisham as a woman of flesh and blood, driven mad by heartbreak, but that is to miss the point of Dickens's creation. Miss Havisham is not an elusive ghost like Brontë's Bertha but nor is she real, as Pip is real. She is an illusion of startling intensity, like the gods of fable or the witch in a fairy story. Trapped in her mausoleum of a house, the embodiment of disillusionment and bitterness, of a life wasted and anguish turned inside out, she derives her power from her otherness. By making a real person of her, Frame is obliged not only to scale her down to human size but to explain all the awkward logistical quibbles that Dickens imperiously overlooked. In so doing, he diminishes both her majestic inhumanity and her terrible pathos, and loosens her hold over our imaginations.