Nerves of steal

Posted on by bijalv

Get ready to be spellbound by Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief series, who will be in Mumbai this fortnight (Sadly, Sarah fell ill and didn’t make it to Mumbai. But she did sign me a copy that too in her secret language).

sarah prineas, magic thief, Books, fantasy books, bookaro festival

 http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/nerves-steal

Sarah Prineas’s three-book series, The Magic Thief, tells the story of Connwaer, an orphan who lurks in the alleys of the magical city ofWellmet, picking pockets and steering clear of the Underlord and his goons.Conndiscovers he’s  a wizard when he steals the wizard Nevery’s locus magicalus (a magical stone). As Nevery’s apprentice,Connbegins studying at a magic school and starts investigating why the magic in their city is dwindling. The trilogy has some fantastic characters, including tough-guy Benet, who loves to knit, and bakes scrumptious biscuits. This fortnight, children will have a chance to meet Prineas, who will be signing books in Mumbai at Crossword Bookstore. She’s inIndiafor the Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival which is being held inDelhithis fortnight. She spoke toTime Out about books, baking, and writing for children.

What was the inspiration behind The Magic Thief series?
The first lines of The Magic Thief are “A thief is a lot like a wizard. I have quick hands, and I can make things disappear.” I kept those lines in a file on my computer for a long time, but I had no idea who said them. Finally I started wondering. What kind of character could be both a thief and a wizard? Immediately,Connleaped into being, completely himself, and ready to get into trouble and jump-start the story. The inspiration is that I’ve read loads of fantasy, and I wanted to write a book with all my favourite fantasy things in it: magic, adventure, wizards, dragons, peril, biscuits and bacon.

Connwaer is extremely believable, even though he lives in a magical world.
Connis so incredibly fun to write, because he’s a true protagonist – his actions make the story happen. He’s completely himself, so I always know what he’s going to do in any situation. He’s also full of contradictions: he’s a thief who never lies, he is smart and yet he does unbelievably stupid things. He is stubborn and he is brave, he thinks a lot but says very little.

How difficult was it to create the magical city of Wellmet?
When I first started working on the Wellmet world, I was inspired by nineteenth-century maps of London, with the twisty streets and dead-end alleyways with funny names, like “Mouse Hole” or “Cutpurse Lane”. Pretty soon, the setting started growing into a distinct place not like anywhere in our world. The concept of “balance” became important. Wellmet is a city that depends on balance, the run-down, dangerous Twilight on one side of the river, the wealthierSunriseon the other, and the wizard’s houses on islands in the river itself. One of the big questions thatConnhas to deal with is how to bring the various parts of the city back into balance with each other.

Tell us about tough guy Benet.
Benet was a funny character to write because he started out as a minor character, a simple tough guy bodyguard. Then I started thinking, “What do bodyguards do?” Well, they take care of people, usually by being tough and knocking heads together. But what if this bodyguard took care of people in other ways? So Benet started baking biscuits and knitting sweaters and scarves, and he became a much more important character, really the centre of Conn’s new family.

Can we expect a fourth book in The Magic Thief series?
I have written a fourth Magic Thief book, though I don’t know when it will be published. My next book starts a brand new series, the first book is calledWinterling. It’s a fantasy story that begins in our world and goes into another, magical world, and the main character is a girl.

By Bijal Vachharajani on November 26 2010

Rear window

Posted on by bijalv

Ranjit Lal on why his writing table faces a wall (or the story where I finally talk to my absolute favourite Indian author)

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/rear-window 

kids books, ranjit lal, birds from my window, indian bird guide, wildlife

House crows that filch melba toast from under the noses of members of the Willingdon Club in Mumbai, a lady sparrow that throws a tantrum and a “pipsqueak of a purple sunbird” who goes berserk on a bottlebrush tree outside author Ranjit Lal’s house are some of the protagonists of his new book, Birds from my Window and the Antics They Get Up To. In the introduction to this book, Lal said that he has been watching birds from his window and balcony for several years and finds it a “wonderful way of never having to get bored”. Peacocks, bulbuls, babblers and sparrows are always at hand to distract him so now his writing desk faces the wall, or “this book would never have been written”.

What inspired you to write Birds from My Window and the Antics They Get Up To?
There was so much happening around the home, with regard to everyday birds that it was worth following up their lives and writing about them. Also, there are a lot more species of birds around in cities like Delhi than one would imagine. Basically you just need to spend a bit of time, standing and staring!

Your book is a guide to Indian birds but unlike most guides, it’s laced with generous bouts of humour.
Birds can be quite hilarious – in looks, deportment, behaviour – and on occasion they’re not too different from us! They have the same ego issues, desire to impress the fair sex (though in birds the males are the dandies and the females are the critics!).

Many of your books introduce children to animals and birds in the city.
Well, if you’re just a little observant and interested in the world around you, you can’t help notice the creatures that share our space. Keep observing and you’ll see patterns of behaviour emerge, showing that they too have orderly, disciplined lives, which generally will fit into the grander scheme of things.

How difficult is it to hook young readers onto wildlife?
The trick to get them interested in wildlife is not to make an academic meal out of it. It’s got to be fun and appeal to their sense of adventure, not to say curiosity.

What’s your average day like with the birds in your garden?
I’ve started putting out bajra and peanuts every morning, plus of course water. The peanuts get gobbled up very quickly – by peacocks, mynahs, babblers  sparrows et al. The bigger guys usually shove the little ones away. There are ego issues within species too, some big dada sparrows will bounce down and drive the wimps away. They hold their parties at any time of the day; it could be early morning, mid-morning, afternoon, evening: there seems to be no fixed time, probably because a lot of other people also leave out stuff, so the birds are spoiled for choice!

Tell us about your experience of birdwatching in Mumbai.
I wasn’t very interested in birds until I bought my first pair of large (and rather heavy) binoculars. We had a peepul tree growing outside the verandah and so I trained my binoculars on that. The first bird I spotted and saw close-up, was the coppersmith barbet, which had a face like a clown (and seemed a little tipsy, what with its hiccups). That was enough – if the first bird I saw looked like a tipsy clown, what would the other 1,200-1,300 be like, I wondered. That’s what I’m still finding out. Incidentally, that peepul tree, that overlooked the whole of Central Bombay, had over 15 species, including a pair of nesting black kites, which would dive-bomb me when they had chicks. And they were very cunning about how they went about it, slipping off the nest, below the cliff, banking away to one side and then gaining height out of sight, before zooming around the corner and whistling down screaming, with claws extended! Exciting stuff.

Birds from my Window and the Antics They Get Up To, Scholastic, R125. Ages 8+

By Bijal Vachharajani on May 26 2011

Spilling the beans

Posted on by bijalv
In an email interview with Time Out, Ken Spillman talks about the love of books

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/spilling-beans

ken spillman, childrens novels, advaita the writer, dehradun, ruskin bond,

Australian author Ken Spillman loves visiting India. “I never fail to enjoy India – it is definitely part of who I am now,” said Spillman, who has written over 30 children and young adult novels. Now the country is also the setting of his latest book, Advaita the Writer. The novel is about a girl who is lonely at her new boarding school in Dehradun, but who soon finds friends in the form of library books. Reading and the love of books is a recurrent theme in many of Spillman’s novels. In Jake’s Gigantic List, part of the immensely popular Jake series (Scholastic), a little boy called Jake is writing a super-long birthday list which includes things like a good mood tablet for teachers and a piranha fish tank. Then his Aunt Lyn introduces him to the wonders of books. This fortnight, Spillman will be in Mumbai to read from Advaita the Writer. In an email interview with Bijal Vachharajani, Spillman talks about the love of books.

Tell us about Advaita the Writer.
It’s a story about the sustaining power of imagination. I’ve always believed that a child’s resilience is linked to the strength of their inner life, which is richer when interwoven with stories of other lives, other worlds. In 2008, I met Advaita Kala (author of the bestseller Almost Single) and she told me that she’d been homesick when sent to boarding school at Dehradun, and had immersed herself in books. She was inspired when she heard that Ruskin Bond lived up in the mountains, and started to write her own stories. That was the seed from which my book grew. It’s not a true story, but that little bit of it is based on Advaita Kala’s actual experience.

What made you decide to set a book in India?
I never actually decide to set a book anywhere – a story begins with a character, and if that character lives in India then so does my story. The fact that I now have books with Indian settings at Indian publishers is probably because I love India so much, return here several times a year, and stay for as long as possible. India is now feeding my imagination.

How did you start writing for children?
My first published writing was short stories and poems, from the age of 17. After that I was able to earn a living with nonfiction and continue with my fiction ‘on the side’. Having always had a great connection with young people, writing for them seemed a natural shift. Now I see that this is my real strength – being able to engage with kids anywhere at any level, and to see the world as they do. I delight in visiting schools, whereas some writers prefer to stay home. Some people say I’m childlike, actually. Maybe one of the hyperactive variety.

Through your writings, you also try promoting the love for books and libraries.
Reading feeds the imagination, and I consider that imagination is our most precious gift as human beings. With imagination we can deal better with everyday problems, put ourselves in another’s shoes, cure diseases, teach more effectively, invent new things and so on. The key to getting the imaginations of children well fed is in getting them to read… and the key to getting them to read is to make that fun. I try to show kids everywhere that books are magic – we can go anywhere, do anything, meet people very different from ourselves. We can understand the world better.

Advaita the Writer, Tulika Books, R 100.

By Bijal Vachharajani on August 04 2011