Andy Griffiths and Roald Dahl's Enduring Influence

I almost read this Sydney Morning Herald article on time. Well, pretty close for me. I actually found it the weekend that it was printed. Andy Griffiths is of course one of our most popular Australian writers writing for children. I've seen him speak at several writers festivals and he always has tremendous queues of kids eager to meet him and have him sign the huge stack of his books that they've brought with them. Certainly they were in Melbourne in 2012, and he was the best selling author at the Sydney Writer's Festival just last week. He spent seven hours signing books for kids!

Andy writes in a comedic style, and obviously sees humour as an important, as did Roald Dahl. According to the article Road Dahl once wrote that the four ingredients of children's fiction were suspense, action, eccentricity and magic. Plots with ghosts were good, and so were those with chocolates, toys, treasure or money. Children, he wrote, loved to be spooked and "made to giggle". Read Roald Dahl's full advice here.

The books and authors Andy Griffiths suggests are keeping the Dahl legacy alive:

Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky: Grubtown Tales - Phillip Ardagh

My Life Series- Tristan Bancks

Horribles Histories - Terry Deary (some not all of course there's so many, see my reviews)

Gasp! - Terry Denton

Two Weeks with the Queen - Morris Gleitzman

The Un Series - Paul Jennings

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series - Jeff Kinney (again some not all)

Captain Underpants - Dav Pilkey (quite a few, but still not all)

Holes - Louis Sachar (see my review)

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket (read 1/13)

You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum! - Andy Stanton (review coming soon)

The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling (read 1/7)

Demon Dentist - David Walliams (wouldn't you know it? The only Walliams I haven't read! But you can read all my other gushing Walliams reviews) July 2015-  I've read it now! (see my review)

The descriptor in the article about You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum! sounds fantastic. It's so good to live now, so that even if a book isn't published in Australia (and why would that be?), you can get your hands on it very quickly online. It will be mine, oh yes it will be mine.

London

Perhaps I should try and read something more learn-ed when travelling, but I do enjoy the Horrible Histories franchise, and had already bought the London title, so it was an obvious book to include for my holiday reading. It made great reading on my Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras Eurostar train. 

I've read a few Horrible History books now and reading London has certainly confirmed the notion that every place has a bloody, and rather Horrible history. We may now think of the English as a gentle, well mannered people but that certainly has not always been the case. Indeed they were a rather blood thirsty and brutal lot. 

London was named after King Lud, pre-Roman king of Britain. Lud-dum.

The Romans arrived in 55BC led by Julius Caesar, and they were to stay until 410AD. Caesar's presence is commemorated as his sword is still on the London coat of arms, and is quite visible all over the city. 

On grand dragon statues

And simple traffic bollards

It is thought that Boudicca is buried under Platform 8 at King's Cross Station. 

The real Dick Whittington story does not involve a cat, the cat version was made up 200 years after his death. 

The English had particularly dreadful sports and entertainments involving their animals. Bear, bull and badger baiting were practised for well over 700 years before being banned in the 19th century. 

Of course their bloodthirsty nature didn't end at watching animals die hideous deaths, they were also very fond of public executions.  Most of the people to die at the Tower of London were not beheaded- 7 were beheaded inside the grounds of the Tower the rest were hung outside so that large crowds of people could watch.There was a special gibbet constructed at Tyburn so that 24 people could be hung together. 

Executioners were not always precise in their acts, and sometimes relatives would tug at the dying so that they would die more quickly. It was rather fascinating to read that the body and clothes of the dead then belonged to the executioner and that the family would need to buy them back. The heads that were displayed on poles were of course prone to rotting so they were boiled in salt or painted with tar to make them last longer. 

London tells us that a horrified Charles Dickens attended the executions of the Cato Street Conspirators in 1820 who were beheaded after they were hung as traitors.

There are also wonderful and gory descriptions of plague arriving in London in 1348.

And the interesting beliefs of the time:

London was a perfect introduction for me. 

France

I'm a great fan of Horrible Histories on the tele. There are many, many books of course, and like most things the books came first. I haven't read all that many of the books. I read Gorgeous Georgians last year and loved it. As more research for my upcoming Continental Grand Tour I've just read France, even though I was more than slightly outraged at Terry Deary's recent comments about libraries. 

I didn't love France as much as Gorgeous Georgians. Perhaps it was familiarity with content to some extent. I found the early parts about France in the Dark and Middle Ages to be quite confusing. Of course Horrible Histories doesn't always try and present a cogent, linear narrative of history- they are too busy chronicling the terrible, grisly deaths of many of our forebears. And that's ok to get kids interested and reading history- which is what the series has achieved, but if you are trying to understand the history not just find an assortment of gross facts then it may not be what you are after.

Still, I think it did put the French Revolution in some context for me. Even though I studied the French Revolution in my own personal Dark Ages of High School, I'm not sure that I remember all that much from those studies. Of course I've learnt some things as an adult which helps. France helped me realise that in the 1000 years leading up to the revolution of 1789 the French people had lead a very marginal existence with poor diets, too many taxes, and often being killed in droves by soldiers. Rich kings and starving peasants had been the norm for centuries. There were flour wars in 1775. Which perhaps helps explain the rather extreme laws regarding bakeries to this day in France- bakeries are regulated so that they can't all be closed in a particular area, they are also given a schedule as to when they can close for holidays.

France did of course also present many interesting facts. Here are some of my favourites. 

In the Middle Ages the French made a sport of catching young swans.

Joan of Arc didn't defeat the English, but she united the French, and the English never recovered from the defeats they suffered at her army's hands. 

Charles VI (1368- 1422) really was quite mad, among other things he imagined that he was made of glass, and had steel rods put into his clothes so he wouldn't shatter if he fell over. At one time he was treated with 250 oranges, and apparently this cured him for a while. I've come across fascinating snippets about Charles before. I must find out more about him. 

Francis I (1494-1547) was quite the patron of the arts. He acquired the Mona Lisa from Leonardo da Vinci. France claims that he hung it in his bathroom. I'd forgotten about the Leonardo- France connection despite accidentally finding an exhibition about him when we toured the Loire in 1998, and having walked the double helix staircase at Chambord that is attributed to him. 

Marie de Medici wore the most expensive dress in history. Worth 10 million pounds today, it had 3,000 diamonds and 39,000 pearls. She wore it once.

Picture source

I imagine that it was this one, her coronation dress, worn on 13 May 1610 at St Denis (I'll be going there!). What a week that must have been. Crowned Queen of France one day. Her husband assassinated the next day, and she then became regent until her eldest son Louis XIII came of age. 

France banned tobacco sales in 1635! Seems it's true. 

Louis XIV adopted wigs because he was bald, and heels because he was short. 

The French helped the American people to rebel against the English. 

Louis XVI helped advise Dr Joseph Guillotin with his terrible invention. Later Louis XVI's neck was too fat to be killed swiftly at the guillotine. This seems surprising as he had been imprisoned for some time before his death, and even if he had a fat neck I would have thought that a period of imprisonment would have corrected that. 

Napoleon sold off the land in the Louisiana Purchase to America in 1803 to raise money for a war against the British. Napoleon may have been killed by arsenic poisoning. 

Madame Tussaud was a real person (I had never thought about that) who made wax masks from the severed heads filling guillotine baskets. Her page on wiki is quite fascinating.

Somewhat controversially I think France claims that the Eiffel Tower was built for the 100th anniversary of the Revolution, and that her 289 metre height was in reference to the date of the revolution. Would Gustave Eiffel have designed his famous tower in metres in the 1880s? I can see that the 1889 World's Fair/ Exposition Universelle was held in France as a centenary event, but I'm just not sure about the height having any deeper meaning. Further research is required I think. 

Books on France, a great 2013 challenge from Emma at Words and Peace

Dreaming of France, a great Monday meme from Paulita at An Accidental Blog

Gorgeous Georgians

Nothing like a sick morning in bed to get a bit of reading done. My son and I have been watching the totally fabulous tv series based on these books recently, so of course I was curious about the books. This was perfect fare for a morning of dozing and feeling not quite right.

It's always quite astonishing what seems completely sensible when you actually think about it for the first time. I don't think that I've ever pondered what the Georgian moniker actually meant, turns out that it is the period of time ruled over by the Four Georges in England, 1714-1837. D'Oh. 

It's hard to keep away from the tv show!

Gorgeous Georgians doesn't pretend to be an all inclusive history of the Georgian era. Rather it is a mixture of the gross, funny and scatological maximally designed to appeal to primary school aged children. And there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. And so here is a random collection of interesting facts. 

Cricket was legalised in 1748. Why was it illegal, and needing legalisation? That isn't explained. But I could have been saved from many summers of torture if it had remained illegal. 

The fans so fashionable with ladies could be used to hide rotting teeth or bad breath, as well as for signalling messages. 

Poaching fish was punishable by death. 

Silk beauty spots helped to hide smallpox scars. 

Mallow flowers and mashed up snails is a great cure for ague (fevers and rigors). Squashed fish eyes is a great cure for toothache. If you have cancer you should drink a libation of sugar, nutmeg, woodlice powder mixed with your own urine.

Godfrey's Cordial ( a mixture of opium, treacle, water and spices) was used to quieten many crying orphans at night, (and used commonly by working class families), many of these poor children never woke up. Of course, child mortality was dreadful, one in three didn't live to 15

False teeth were fashioned out of tusks or pottery. Or if you were rich, dentists could take a tooth out of a poor child to replace your rotten tooth. 

The Georgians used hot houses to grow fruits such as grapes, peaches and pineapples. There was a new fashion to eat fruit raw!  More astonishing to realise that until the Georgian era noone in the world enjoyed toast or sandwiches!

There were a number of intriguing mentions of Daniel Defoe. Besides famously writing Robinson Crusoe (which I'm excited to be reading in the next few months), he formulated a seven class hierarchy of British society. 

These were certainly fascinating times. Times that make you glad to live now, no matter what our more modern problems. I guess I'm still slightly surprised that these books are so wildly popular with kids. But they are. I'm very glad that they are- I think the whole Horrible Histories phenomenon is fantastic. And it's about to get bigger. I remember how history was taught at school. Awful. They finally have made history fun for all of us.

Horrible Histories

Recently my son and I have taken to watching Horrible Histories on ABC 3. I've been surprised at how much both of us like it. We love it actually. And both of us learn stuff.

Like the Kings of England. 

What Alfred Nobel was really famous for. And why he created the Nobel Prize. 

They even take off my other favourite shows.

It's quite a fascinating show actually. Entertaining, educational and best of all- laugh out loud funny. And now there's a whole series of books for me to check out too. The books have been coming thick and fast since 1993, so there's plenty to choose from.