Cover of "Taj and the great camel trek"

Book review:

Rosanne Hawke: Taj and the great camel trek.

Published in 2011 by University of Queensland Press.

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend the Adelaide launch of Rosanne Hawke’s latest novel. I am becoming addicted to launches of her books; this is the fourth one I’ve attended in three years. As anticipated it was a joyous time of celebration because I know how hard she has struggled with this story over the last 4 years.

The main character, twelve year old Taj, lived in Beltana in outback South Australia in the 1870s. His father is a cameleer and Taj has his own camel Mustara, a character in its own right. In fact, Taj and Mustara have featured in another Hawke book, the picture book Mustara.

Cover of "Mustara"

Taj and Mustara are invited to join explorer Ernest Giles on his second expedition  across Australia from Beltana to Port Augusta and then on to Perth in Western Australia. It is not a journey to be undertaken lightly because much of the territory they planned to cover is desert, for most part uninhabited even by local Aboriginal people. The team accompanying Giles struggle with coming to terms with the isolation, their own feelings of fear,  the harsh environmental conditions and the almost total lack of water. At times, they traversed many hundreds of miles without finding a drop of water. The whole journey has them on the very edge of disaster throughout, giving the reader a sense of the extreme hardships they endured.

While this is a novel, written as fiction and from Taj’s point of view, many of the incidents and characters are based on real events and real people taken from Giles’ own journal and the records in newspapers of the day. Taj himself is a fictitious character which points to the real strength of this book. Rosanne revealed at the launch that this book was originally conceived as non-fiction, but early on in her research and early drafts discovered that fiction was a far more powerful vehicle to tell the story. In this way the author has brought history to life for the reader, a delicate balancing act at the best of times. She has handled the transition with great skill. We see and feel the anxiety of the party through the eyes and emotions of Taj.

Highly recommended reading.

Links:

• Rosanne Hawke’s web site
• Taj and the great camel trek special page - including photos from the launch and teachers’ notes.
• Merchandise – buy T-shirts, mugs, ties, fridge magnets and many other items featuring the cover art work from the book. I am the proud owner of a Taj coffee mug which I use every day.
• Marrying Ameera - my review of Rosanne’s previous best selling novel, listed recently as a Notable Book.

Disclosure: Rosanne was my supervising lecturer when I completed my Master of Arts (Creative Writing) course recently. Apart from being a great friend and an amazing mentor, I gain nothing from promoting her books and the merchandise associated with it. Reviewing her books is just my way of saying ‘thank you, Rosanne.’

Rosanne Hawke and a friend

For the full list of both the winning books and the honour books click here.

Permit me a few moments of dreaming: I hope one day my name will be listed in these awards.

Okay – dream over – back to editing my novel so that someday I can be in the running.

Good writing.

Journal writing is an excellent way of honing many writing skills that are essential to the writing process. It doesn’t matter much whether you write fiction, non-fiction, articles or blogs, regular writing practice is essential. If possible, I’d encourage all writers, especially beginner writers, to write every day, even if in the first few months or years journal writing is all you do.

I’ve kept a personal journal since July 1990. That means the 20th anniversary is coming up very soon; I must remember to celebrate it here on this blog. I write about anything that comes to mind about events and people in my life. I filled several hand written volumes at first but in recent years I have tended to use my computer. One day I might get around to printing it all out and binding the pages into booklets.

More recently I have also been keeping a writing journal. In this I have recorded the processes I have gone through in writing my stories, especially my recent novels. The journals include details of my ideas, sources of  inspiration, research findings and the decisions I had to make along the way. In part you can read how I went about ‘Writing a Novel’ here.

When I was a classroom teacher I used Journal Writing as an integral part of encouraging children to write. The skills developed in my programme had some amazing results, not just with writing. I wrote about it in this article: The Power of Journal Writing – a Story of Hope.

This article relates the experience I had with one of my former students. I bring it to your attention now – especially for my many new readers who may have missed it at the time.

Good writing.

I was saddened to hear late last year that Ivan Southall had died, aged 87 after a short battle with cancer. He is best known for his novels Hills End, Ash Road, Josh and To the Wild Sky. He wrote 30 novels and many other books, some for adults. He was a four time winner of the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award, just four of many awards in his lifetime. His works have been translated into at least 20 languages.

Southall’s writing was exciting and he often put his characters in difficult and dangerous situations, often without adult help. I found his writing to be very lyrical, pushing the boundaries of what many regarded as good literature for children.

Before his writing career began he was a pilot in the RAAF during WW2, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross in the process. His early books draw heavily on his war time experiences.

Vale Ivan Southall, 1921 – 2008.

The Wish Giver

Written by Rosanne Hawke and her daughter Lenore Penner.

Illustrated by Michelle Mackintosh.

Published by Windy Hollow Books.

The Wish Giver  is a delightful book for young children. The Wish Giver lives on “the biggest and brightest star.” His job is to make children’s wishes come true. Unfortunately he falls off the star and lands in Layla’s garden.

Layla has a problem. She has no friends and no-one will play with her at school. She wished she had some friends to play with. She helps the Wish Giver return to his star, and he in turn helps her to find some new friends to play with.

One of the privileges we had being in Rosanne’s class was getting a view of the printer’s proofs many weeks before publication. The book was launched by well known South Australian author Phil Cummings. One of the interesting aspects of this book was that Rosanne’s daughter Lenore was also credited as the joint author. The original story of the Wish Giver was written by Lenore as a high school assignment. It was this story that initially got Rosanne into writing. It was also very much a family event, with Rosanne’s grandchildren also present.

After leaving the launch my wife told me she had been taking notes on how to run a book launch. Rosanne, when signing our copy of the book, added: “It’ll be your turn next.”

Now it’s up to me to get some of my manuscripts off to publishers.

Good writing.

.

One of the things that Rosanne impressed upon us from the very beginning was the importance of reading picture books – as many as we can get our hands on. I’ve always read plenty of picture books, first when I was a teacher librarian, and then as a classroom teacher.

When I retired from teaching four years ago I drifted away from reading picture books as regularly as I used to do. Rosanne has given me the impetus and reason for getting back into this exciting and enjoyable area of books. So once again I’ve reactivated the use of my library card and I am borrowing ten or fifteen a week to read. And I’m thoroughly enjoying the activity.

There is another incentive: we need to keep a reading log of what we are reading, as well as write some short reviews of the books we read. This is a required, assessable component of the course. It is a very enjoyable part of the course I might add.

Good writing.

Good reading.

Here is a list of some of the words:

fear, anxiety, enthusiasm, happiness, courage, joy, anger, excitement, despair, sadness

This is what I wrote:

James could hardly wait for Saturday. He was jumping out of his skin. “When will it be Saturday?” he asked for about the tenth time. “Tomorrow,” said his mother patiently.
James raced to his room. He checked his money box again. He counted the coins over and over. He was ready for the Agricultural Show.

He couldn’t wait to go on the rides. He wanted to see the animals; the cows, the horses, the dogs and the cats – even the ducks, especially the ducks. He thought of the icecreams and lolly-pops and fairy floss. He could just taste it melting in his mouth. He thought of the colours and the sounds, the smells, the crowds and the clowns. He wanted to see the machines and the cars, the ferris wheel and the tents.

At that point we were asked to stop; and I was just getting warmed up!

Can you work out the word I was given?

Enthusiasm. When I was asked to read it out aloud I also read it with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Your turn:

As a warm up writing exercise, choose one of the emotion words I listed above. Write about it for five to ten minutes. It does not have to be a story, nor does it have to be for children. Just write.

This may be just an exercise but do not throw it away. File it carefully; you never know when it may become useful for a story or an article.

Good writing.

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Writing that is easy to read is certainly hard to write.

Many misinformed people think they will start their writing career by writing picture book texts for children “because they are so simple they must be easy.” This assumption is totally wrong.

Have you ever tried to write a very simple text for four and five year olds with the following criteria?

• Have a limited vocabulary
• Write within a strict word count
• Tell an interesting story
• Be relevant to the needs and interests of children
• Be age relevant
• Be sparkling text
• Be socially inclusive, non-sexist, non-racist and non-everything
• Be innovative.

If you have, and been successful, then you don’t need to be reading this post.

In the early 1990s I wrote a series of texts for a publisher. These were for three to five year olds, and I know how difficult, challenging, exhausting and demanding it can be. Throw a publisher’s deadline into the mix and you will appreciate how hard it really can be.

With much practice in the art of writing you can make your writing appear easy.

It may appear easy, but the process is very hard.

Mem Fox is passionate about promoting children’s books and reading in particular. She is a strong advocate of the importance of parents reading to children from an early age.

She said if parents did not invest early in childhood reading their child would struggle in school. “I’m just getting crosser and crosser at those who are blaming teachers for their children not being able to read,” she said. “My main message is that parents should be reading to their children from the first weeks of their life. It only needs to be for 10 minutes [a day].”

I whole-heartedly agree with her. For 35 years I was a teacher of children mainly in the 6 to 9 age range. For eight of those years I was a teacher-librarian, a role where I could influence the classroom practices of teachers. But I was generally talking to the converted as most teachers know the benefits of parents reading to their children. Convincing the parents was a more difficult task.

Reading to and with children, especially pre-schoolers, is THE one very positive activity parents can do to ensure the future educational outcomes for their children.

It is not just important; it is crucial.

What do you think? Leave your comments about children and reading in the comments below.

Related articles:

• The importance of books
• The importance of books – more comments.
  
• The Queen tells children to read books

I’ve written several picture book texts as well as several novels for older children; all remained unpublished (but my day will come). I’ve had six books published; two were teachers’ curriculum guides and the others were children’s workbooks linked to the curriculum. I’ve also written many children’s poems, mostly unpublished too.

Many would-be authors think they will start by writing children’s books “because they are easier to write.” WRONG. Writing for children is a very demanding and difficult genre. As with many artistic endeavours, the easier it looks, the harder it is to do well.

Eugie Foster is a published author who has written a short guide called Writing for Young Readers on the Writing World website. She outlines the things to remember and things to avoid when writing for children.