The Adventures of Miss Petitfour

Recently I needed some comfort food type of reading. Fluffy, non challenging reads. So it was utterly appropriate and timely that I plucked the pastel hued The Adventures of Miss Petitfour from my TBR.

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour is the first childrens book by Canadian novelist and poet Anne Michaels. I remember meaning to read her Fugitive Pieces back in the day, but don't think that I ever did. 

Miss Petitfour is a young crazy cat lady. She lives in a small cottage with her 16 cats! Yes, 16 cats. I'm not quite sure why she needed to have 16 cats, no plot point ever depended on all 16 cats being present- it could all have been achieved with four or five cats. And every time the cats came into the story all 16 names were listed, over and over again. It was very boring, quite tedious and totally unnecessary, and I found myself skimming the four or five lines it took to list all the crazy cat lady cat names. 

But the 16 cats is a minor quibble I guess. I really enjoyed Miss Petitfour and her Adventures.  Miss Petitfour just happens to use tablecloths to fly about her village to go to the shops, while trailing 16 cats. The Adventures are very gentle and rather domestic on the whole- running out of marmalade, losing a stamp (and BTW a  Penny Black is a real thing, the first adhesive stamp used in a public postal system, released in Britain on 1 May 1840), or clearing out the closets. 

Some adventures are so small, you hardly know they've happened. Like the adventure of sharpening your pencil to a perfect point, just before it breaks and that little bit gets stuck in the sharpener. That, I think we will all agree, is a very small adventure. 

Other adventures are so big and last so long, you might forget they are adventures at all- like goring up. 

And some adventures are just the right size- fitting into a single, magical day. And these are the sorts of adventures Miss Petitfour had. 

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour is whimsical and charming. There is wonderful wordplay, there's not enough books of any sort using words like rickrack, gesticulating and furbelow anymore. Or "the tiny sound of whiskers being licked clean". Although all of the digressions did get a little much, I like to think that maybe somewhere cats do play badminton and wonder if I should take up singing sea shanties while I clean my teeth. I shall try to divide people (and cats) by their predisposition to like circles (donuts, biscuits, pancakes) or lines (sausages, french fries, linguine and liquorice ropes).

I was somewhat hesitant going in as I remembered that my friend Brona hadn't liked Miss Petitfour and her Adventures, and whilst I do take her points, I found it a perfect antidote to my week. 

Grover Finds a Home

I had never heard of this book (or indeed this series) until Grover Finds a Home showed up on the Readings Children's Book Prize Shortlist for 2017. A lost dog story is always welcome for me, and it was the shortest of the shortlisted books and easy to slip in as a quick read during my week of comfort reads.

Grover Finds a Home is such a lovely story- imaginatively told from Grover's point of view. Grover is living a terrible life, always chained in a backyard, neglected, abused and mistreated by the Man with Big Boots. One night he escapes terrified during a thunderstorm and is picked up and taken to an animal shelter. He is malnourished, sick and has infected, sore ears but he wins over Annie, a worker at the shelter who decides to take him home.

He couldn't believe how nice it felt to rest his tired bones on a soft bed, in a warm house, with a full belly. This was all he'd ever wanted. 

Picture Source

With lovely illustrations by Johannes Leak Grover Finds a Home is perfect for beginner readers and any animal loving child. Master Wicker would have loved this as a read aloud bedtime story way back when. There are three books so far in the Grover McBane Rescue Dog series- Grover Finds a Home, Grover's New Friends and Grover, Benji and Nanna Jean.

Like any modern personality Grover McBane has his own instagram account. Somewhat dispiritingly he gets about more than I do. We have two rescue dogs at the Wicker house, both sitting with me right now.

They're almost impossible to photograph, Especially together.

 These are from last winter. Basking in the sun at the door.

Claire Garth is the General Manager of Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, a large council pound and non-kill animal shelter in Southern Sydney. It has been in operation since 1946 and is currently on a major fundraising drive as they need to raise $3 million for a purpose built facility.

Mamamia did an interesting profile on Claire Garth and Grover McBane encouraging us all to get a rescue dog. It is a life changing decision- for both of you. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com

The Birds of the South Coast

It almost seems a life time ago, but last September/October Master Wicker and I had a short holiday on the beautiful South Coast of NSW.

It's a lovely area, one where I hadn't spent much time. See my South Coast Panoramas.

Naturally, I was keen to check out some birds while we were there. We did see some, but sadly I don't think any of them were new for me. I did get some good photos though.

Lewin's Honeyeater (Meliphaga lewinii)

It's almost impossible to get good photos of lyrebirds though. They are always in dimly lit areas, and are constantly in motion, continually pawing (can birds paw?) through the undergrowth looking for dinner. 

Superb Lyrebird (Meura novaehollandiae)

You'd think this bird would be easy to identify, but I had a hard time. It should be a Spotted Turtle Dove I guess, but there aren't any obvious spots. 

New Holland Honeyeater (Phyildonyrus novaehollandiae)

This Grey Butcherbird was an exciting sighting for me, I've had glimpses of them before. This fellow flew off as soon as I got this photo. 

Grey Butcherbird (Practices torquatus)

We stopped at many beaches, one of them had a distinctive rooster noise as we got out of the car. And sure enough there he was!

It's always a joy to see some Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus), they're so pretty. 

An Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator) on the wing.

Pied Oystercatcher (Haemtopus longirostrus)

Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus)

Long-billed Corella (Cacatua tenuirostrus)

Happily, I see Crimson Rosellas most days near home. I've even been bitten by one as I released it from bird netting in the back yard. They hurt. 

Male Crimson Rosella (Platycercus elegans)

The birds at Pebbly Beach are very used to people. The beach is also famous for the resident kangaroos hanging out on the sand. 

Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus)

Male King Parrot (Alisterus scapulars)

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The Beach at Night

I'd like to think that I'm the sort of person, the sort of reader, who will read Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels someday, but well I suspect that I'm not. Not really. I haven't read them yet, not even one, so the chance of me reading all four is, well, remote. Committing to one book is hard enough, but committing to four by reading one, well, that's near impossible. 

So I was very excited to see that Elena Ferrante had written a children's book. I was moderately disconcerted by the weird looking doll on the cover, but I bought it anyway and read it recently while waiting for an appointment. 

Oh my, it is so, so bizarre. The Beach at Night is narrated by Celina, a doll who has been accidentally left on the beach after her owner, five year old Mati, forgets about her after she is given a new kitten by her father. Celina is dropped like the proverbial hot potato. But seriously who takes a new kitten as a present to the beach?

Celina is left behind in the sand as night falls. She is then raked up by the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset with all the other debris of the day, and rubbish left behind. Which makes me wonder if Italian beaches are routinely raked each night? Maybe I'll have to go to Italy one night and find out. Celina has a nightmarish night battling fire, water and the creepy Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset, who sings impossible songs that surely must sound better in Italian, and dribbles much more than he should.

I can't imagine that too many children would enjoy reading The Beach at Night. I'm not sure what adult Ferrante fans would think of it. My cover blurb calls the book a "wonderful children's fable", and tells us that with it "Elena Ferrante returns to a story at the heart of her novel The Lost Daughter, which she considers to be a turning point in her development as a writer."

I'm now more than a bit concerned about whether I'd like Ferrante's adult writing or not. I don't see how I would based on this smallest of tastes. The translator here is the same translator as her adult novels, so there must be some stylistic link? 

American reviewers also struggled with this book. The Washington Post. The New York Times. 

Stella Prize 2017 Longlist and Shortlist

The Stella Prize has done such a great job of highlighting the superb writing by Australian Women writers since it's inception in 2013. The official site of the Stella Prize gives a great account of its foundation in 2011. It's interesting that it was founded at the same time as the Australia Women Writers Challenge, which started in 2012.

This years list is naturally another Stella list. I have been keen to read many of these titles, and have bought a number of them already.

The Longlist was announced on February 7.

Victoria: The Queen - Julia Baird
Between A Wolf And A Dog - Georgia Blain
The Hate Race - Maxine Beneba Clark
Poum and Alexandre - Catherine de Sainte Phalle
Offshore - Madeline Gleeson
Avalanche - Julia Leigh
An Isolated Incident - Emily Maguire
The High Places - Fiona McFarlane
Wasted - Elspeth Muir (see my review)
The Museum of Modern Love - Heather Rose
Dying: A Memoir - Cory Taylor
The Media and the Massacre - Sonya Voumard



The Shortlist was announced this past week.


Between A Wolf And A Dog - Georgia Blain

The Hate Race - Maxine Beneba Clark

Poum and Alexandre - Catherine de Sainte Phalle

An Isolated Incident - Emily Maguire

The Museum of Modern Love - Heather Rose WINNER

Dying: A Memoir - Cory Taylor

The winner will be announced on April 18.

UPDATE April 18 Heather Rose's The Museum of Modern Love has just been announced as the winner. 

The Stella Prize needs our tax-deductible support.

Do Not Open This Book

Do Not Open This Book arrived in a blaze of publicity in September 2016. Celebrity first time authors with a cute backstory tend to help that along. Andy Lee is half of the comedy duo Hamish and Andy and wrote this book for his nephew's first birthday present (make sure to watch the video of the surprise in action). Andy wrote the book on a flight. He then asked his friend who just happens to be a children's book publisher to make one copy for his nephew George, but his friend wanted to publish it. This was clearly the right decision as the book crashed the publishers website and sold more than 40,000 copies in just the first two days. 

I'd been meaning to pick up a copy when I saw it, but I never managed to find one in a shop til this week. Do Not Open This Book is perfect picture book simplicity. The funny little blue guy gets angrier and angrier as you keep disobeying him and firstly open the book and then turn each page. 

It is reminiscent of 1971's The Monster at the End of this Book, and there was a small skirmish about this at the time of publication, but I don't think that anything has come of it. Indeed there appears to be at least two other books called Do Not Open This Book- a 1998 book by legend Joy Cowley, and a 2006 one by Michaela Muntean. 

Do Not Open This Book was published by Lake Press, a small independent publisher based in Melbourne that has been shortlisted for Best Children's Publisher Book Publisher 2017 in Oceania at the Bologna Book Fair.

Surf and Soul in the Country

A few weeks ago I got to see The Temptations and The Beach Boys as part of their Surf and Soul tour 2017. I never expected to see either group touring rural Australia, but tour they did, and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Initially it all looked a bit dressing gowny

But there was a lot of dancing going on,
and the suits worked well. 

The Temptations put on a fabulous smooth, slick show. Then so did the sunset as we were waiting for The Beach Boys.

Naturally they were fab. 

Mike Love was the only original Beach Boy there. But Bruce Johnston was almost a Beach Boy from the start (I just didn't get a half decent photo of him). The harmonies were wonderful as you would expect from The Beach Boys, and it was such a great night.

There were nods to the past.

The only thing to dampen spirits was the weather. Feb 12 was at the tail end of a heat wave, it had been 40 degrees for days. That evening the temperature dropped from 35 degrees to 11! It was decidedly non-beachy by the end- particularly for those of us dressed for summer. 

The Beach Boys are still a hard working touring band. There are plenty of opportunities to check them out no matter where in the world you live. Paris June 1 certainly appeals. 

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