Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars

I fell in love with Martine Murray back in 2011 when I read her two absolutely gorgeous books about Cedar B. Hartley. The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (see my review) and The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (see my review). Both quirky, delicious, delightful reads. I fully intended reading more of Martine Murray and think that I've borrowed another book from the library a couple of times, but never got to reading it. And then this week I heard that she had just released a new book- I was at the book shop rather quickly. And it had to be read immediately.

Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars is yet another quirky, delightful read. Molly lives with her mother in rather unusual circumstances. Molly's mother is a hippy at the very least, a healer, vegetarian, loving, possibly bordering on a witch like creature going out to collect wild herbs at dawn when the vibrations are best to make her potions. Molly and her mother live in an unusual house.

Molly's house might have looked like a normal house from the outside, but on the inside it was quite different. As soon as you walked in, instead of a pleasantly regular feeling, there was an airy, open space with not one proper corner or straight line. Scatterings of large brightly patterned cushions, Persian carpets, billowy curtains, and low-lying beds covered in sequinned rugs made the room feel like a gypsy caravan. 

Of course Molly is a bit embarrassed by her mother's herb collecting and other slightly eccentric activities and she longs to have a normal childhood existence, like her best friend Ellen who lives in a normal house with her family and goes to pony club on Saturday mornings.

Molly blocked her ears with her hands and imagined that her mama was just like Ellen's mother who drove a nice clean car and gave Ellen muesli bars in plastic wrappers and let her watch whatever she liked on television. 

Molly's mother is wise, but one average Saturday she makes a terrible mistake and Molly is left alone to look after herself. She must try to keep out of the way of the interfering, meddlesome neighbours, the Grimshaw's.

The neighbours were staunch, zipped-up, sneering people, who glanced away when you went near them, but were always peering over fences and squinting into everyone else's lives. 

Molly turns to Pim a rather odd boy in her class for help to solve her problem. Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars is eccentric and a bit hippy too, illustrated with Molly's drawings of herbs. It is however an enchanting, beguiling and whimsical story that is certain to delight young readers.

This video says that it is 10 years since Martine Murray's last book! Martine worries that modern kids aren't imaginatively engaging with nature, and Molly and Pim and the Millions of Stars is a response to that, and encouragement to kids to get out there amongst life and nature.  I hope Martine Murray's new generation of readers will look back to her other reads, there is much delight in store.

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Glenda Millard's Top Ten Australian Children's Books

I was very excited to come across this list last week. I love any list, but especially an Aussie list of course, and it was so nice to see this one by Glenda Millard- one of our most original writers. And it had just so much synchronicity. I had just recently come across The Man Who Loved Boxes (and read it), and here it was again!


1. The Man Who Loved Boxes - Stephen Michael King (see my review)

2. Fox - Margaret Wild, Ron Books

3. The Trouble with Dogs - Bob Graham

4. Withering-by-Sea - Judith Rossell (see my review)

5. Bird and Sugar Boy - Sofie Laguna

6. The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley - Martine Murray (see my review)

7. The Running Man - Michael Gerard Bauer (see my review)

8. Something in the World called Love - Sue Saliba

9. Sea Hearts - Margo Lanagan

10. Leaf - Stephen Michael King

5/10

I'm ashamed to have not read Michael Gerard Bauer and Margo Lanagan- not just these particular titles, but any of their works. Bird and Sugar Boy has been lurking in my TBR for some time. I've not heard of Something in the World called Love before- there's always at least one I've never heard of...

August 2015 now 6/10 as I have just read, and totally loved, The Running Man. This list has 3 books I really loved- The Running Man, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley and Withering-By-Sea. I think Glenda Millard has excellent taste....  Now I'm really curious about those titles unread. Something about the cover of Bird and Sugar Boy always appealed to me, I think it's next on the hit list.

September 2015 7/10

2011 A Year in Books

I wasn't planning on writing a wrap up post, but after having read a few other lists, it got me to thinking. What were the best books I'd read this year? It's interesting to look back and wonder. These are the dozen titles that I gave 5 stars to on Goodreads this year, generally gushed about here, and remembered fondly.

Michael Leunig has still got it

Jackie French Nanberry

Martine Murray The Slightly True Story of Cedar B Hartley

Brian Selznick The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Jackie French Flood 

Shaun Tan The Lost Thing (coincidentally my most popular post by a mile)

John Baxter Immoveable Feast A Paris Christmas (a book I loved so much I did two blog posts about it #1 and #2)

Fred Gipson Old Yeller

Lonely Planet Paris Not for Parents

All the 13 things children should know series that I've read so far.

I started listening to audio books in the car this year when my commute time tripled (from 4 minutes to 15!), I've been listening to nonfiction, and a few of these really won over my affections.

Tim Flannery Country

Dawn French Dear Fatty

Jim Leavesley Mere Mortals

I'm pretty pleased with myself that a full 50% of these books are Australian! Also pretty pleased with the diversity. Fiction. Nonfiction. YA. Picture books. Adult books. Interesting to note that no adult fiction made my list. I hope to remedy that next year. The TBR always looms large.

I really enjoyed participating in the Foodies Reading Challenge and Wondrous Word Wednesdays memes this year. I've learnt so much from these activites, and made new online friends. I look forward to continuing both next year.

Another 5 star discovery this year:

Mango Pancakes!

Yum cha dessert used to be easy. Mango Pudding. No decision. Now I discover Mango Pancakes! Pudding? Pancakes? Such a dilemma!

The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley

Just as it can be hard taking on a childhood favourite, it can be hard deciding when to tackle a sequel. Say, you've read a book recently that you've loved. And then you find there's a sequel. You don't really have that much time in your heavily regimented reading life, but you know you want to fit it in. Should it be soon, to climb on the shoulders of the wondrous gem you've just finished? Or will it be too samey? What if it's not as good, will the shine start to dull on your new favourite? It's a quandary alright.

But being the brave soul that I am I decided to strike while Cedar's iron was still hot, and jump on to the second Cedar B. Hartley book.

Cedar has grown up a little since her first book. Although if I was over fifty I'd say "Now is that really Cedar B. Hartley? My, hasn't she grown up."

Cedar is facing some new challenges in this book. She's still mad on Kite, although he has done a rather dastardly thing and moved to Albury to join the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. Understandably Cedar is devastated. But then two new people come into her life, Aunt Squeezy, and the mysterious girl down the street.

Aunt Squeezy has been away living in India, and has done a lot of thinking about Buddhist beliefs whilst there. We get lots of well-expressed thoughts from Cedar, Aunt Squeezy and sometimes Cedar's mum (although most of the time she's at work)

In the end, we moved the chairs in the living room and she showed me some yoga and I showed her some balances and Mum took photos and drank wine. She said wine was just as relaxing as yoga but required less effort. 

And there's still wonderful rambling Cedar passages:

I was suspicious. I felt she was stealing my feelings. My unique feelings. She was flouncing round, tipping spices into a big pot of lentils and stealing my feelings. It was kind of great having her around because she cooked food all the time, and since Mum was always at work and too tired to cook, and Barnaby only knew how to make spaghetti with a can of tomatoes, and I only made cheese and tomato Brevilles, it was exciting to have someone making a big deal about meals. She even made porridge in the morning, with dates in it and grated apple and almonds on top. But, best of all, she was always up for a talk. And I mean a  real talk. A chewing and burrowing and blazing-up kind of talk, not just a how-was-your-day kind of talk. She and I got to talking about real things. I'd never met someone who wanted to talk about life as much as I did; about the big stuff like love and difference and hope and lentils and the nervous system and bigotry. 

The mysterious girl turns out to be a refugee from Afghanistan, and the girls discuss their lives in the two countries.

"I feel bad, you know, because you have got such a good country and you do not feel grateful. Here people are so fortunate. They get to have everything. I mean, what else do you want?"

 I can't answer her because I know there is lots that I want, and suddenly it doesn't seem right to be wanting when I can go and play in my street whenever I choose. As we walk back to our street, I can't get her words, what else do you want? out of my head. I think of me wanting to be a circus star, wanting it even more than ever now that the possibility of joining a real circus is here. I even think of Marnie always wanting to look pretty and great, and Mum wanting one day to buy a house, and Barnaby wanting to play his songs to the world. And then I think of all the girls in Afghanistan who just want to be able to go outside and play. It confuses me. Maybe wanting something is just what you do. It's not really about what you have or what you need, it's about something else. 

Refugee politics and the inequities of the modern world are all dealt with rather well.  And Aunt Squeezy is there to give the more adult, Buddhist slant on things.

She said there're two ways to make people richer: one is to give them more money and the other is to teach them how to desire less. 

This book certainly gives us plenty to think about, as well as more of a story pushing us forward than the first Cedar book, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley. I read it in two days! Both books make you want to read even more of Martine Murray's work.

The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley

I love finding wonderful new authors, particularly wonderful new Aussie authors! Martine Murray was unknown to me before I read this fabulous book. I'd seen the cover around about the place, but don't remember ever reading a review, although there was a glowing one in The Guardian. 

Thankfully this book was selected to be in the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up that I am reading my way through (I've now read 169/1001- there's a long time before I can hope to be Grown Up!). 

This book was shortlisted in the Children's Book Council of Australia Awards (Book of the Year- Younger Readers) for 2003. Shortlisted. It didn't win! Which got me to wondering what did that year. It was a book I haven't heard of at all - Catherine Bateson's Rain May and Captain Daniel. I think I may have to read that now. Which is the bad part of reading a Great Book. I now want to read all of Martine Murray's books, and this one that beat Cedar. Yes, my TBR just got even longer. 

Cedar B. Hartley is a young girl growing up in suburban Melbourne. But she prefers to be called Lana Monroe, as that has a famous kind of ring to it. She lives with her mother who works full time with brain-injured people. Her father is dead, and her older brother, Barnaby, has been sent away somewhere and keeps in touch by sending cryptic postcards. 

First there's me, and I'm exasperating and potentially infamous. My name is Lana Monroe. I have red hair and I'm twelve, almost thirteen, which means I'm not old enough to be invited to play in Harold's bungalow but I'm too old for making water bombs or playing cumquat wars.  That's for kids. 

Cedar hangs out on her street after school before her mother gets home from work. Like lots of kids she knows the neighbours. Her friend Caramella. The gay couple. The Yugoslavian lady and her dog. Things happen after her dog, Stinky, goes missing. Cedar meets Kite, the bird boy, who teaches her to fly. 

Cedar gives us possibly the best explanation of dog people and cat people ever. 

The way I figure it, the world is made up of two types of people-dog people and cat people. If you drew a line down the middle and said all dog people on one side and cat people on the other, then the dog side of the world would be chaotic and muddy, an exuberant unparticular big kind of a place with many trees. The cat side would be clean and deliberate and full of sunny patches and silk couches. I belong to the dog side, so does my mum, and even Barnaby. But Marnie Aitkin, she definitely belongs to the cat side. It's the coral coloured fingernails. 

And how boys think

The thing about boys is that they don't talk in the same way as girls. They talk about things. Out-and-about things, things you can touch and see, not the things that are inside. Those inside things aren't really things at all, since you can't see them-not with your eyes- and you can't hold them- not with your hands. So they're situations. I call them situations of the heart. Boys don't talk about heart situations. If they're blokish, they talk about bulky things that move, like cars, footballs and chicks. If they're natty sharp, they go on about plug-and-socket things, like computers, stereos and science experiments. I think really smart boys probably talk about the government and the theatre, but there aren't many that smart. The smooth talkers talk about girls they see on the tram, and older boys like Barnaby talk about music, bands and marijuana, and what an antelope doesn't know. I don't think many boys talk about what an antelope doesn't know; only Barnaby, because he's a dreamer like our Dad was.

I really love books written in the first person, especially those with a unique, funny voice. They're some of the most memorable books for me. Vernon God Little springs to mind. And Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang.  We Need to Talk About Kevin. I definitely loved the vibe of the thing here. I loved the story. I loved the cover. I loved the little illustrations that were included as part of the text. 

I think we should all plan to live an unusual life! I'll definitely be reading more of Martine Murray's work. 

Kid Konnection is a weekly childrens book feature at Booking Mama