Professional Development session for librarians and teachers
As part of the Term 4 exhibition at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, I’ll be presenting a PD session for teachers and librarians on Fri Nov 18. Details below.
GREAT AUSTRALIAN PICTURE BOOKS TO USE IN THE YEAR 4-7 CLASSROOM
Presented by FCLC Director, Lesley Reece
and Illustrator James Foley
See picture books come alive before your eyes as you work with the original illustrations and discover the stories behind the books. Explore exciting and invigorating ways to use quality Australian books. You’ll find the day inspirational and gain unique insights from the presenters.
Friday 18 November 2011
9.00am – 2.30pm
Suitable: Year 4 – 7 Teachers, Teacher-Librarians and Pre-Service Education Students
Session 1
Presenter: Lesley Reece
Flood by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley
Water Witcher by Jan Ormerod
Session 2
Guest Presenter: James Foley, Illustrator
James will demonstrate and then guide you through creating a comic strip story. These strategies are guaranteed to enhance your students’ narrative and visual skills. Comprehensive handouts included.
Session 3
Presenter: Lesley Reece
The Great Bear by Libby Gleeson and Armin Greder
plus a selection of FCLC staff’s favourite for this age group.
Cost: $140 (inc GST)
Morning tea and light lunch included
Booking is essential.
To register, please phone 9430 6869
Last Viking outpost in Fremantle
The Last Viking has set up camp at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre for Term 4 2011 and Term 1 2012.
If you’re a teacher, bring your class to see copies of preparatory sketches, character designs, clay models, final pencil work and colour prints. Call the Centre on 9430 6869 to see if you can book a time.
If you’re a member of the public and would like to see the artwork, then the Term 1 2012 Open Day is your best bet. A date has not yet been confirmed, but when we know, we’ll post it on the blog.
The Lit Centre ladies have done an amazing job putting the exhibition together- Norm and I were ecstatic to see it, me especially. It was surreal to see my work on the walls of the Centre, where previously I’ve been able to see the work of my picture book heroes.
The Lit Centre is selling copies of The Last Viking and many other amazing books in their well-stocked bookshop. They’re also selling limited edition signed prints of Last Viking artwork, and prints from other great Aussie artists (including my favourite, Shaun Tan).
James and Norm at FCLC Open Day, Term 4 2011
Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival
One of the best things about making a book is getting to travel for writers’ festivals- it’s a brilliant perk. You get to visit places you’ve never been before, chat with other authors and illustrators, and meet your readers.
Speaking of which, Norman and I will be visiting Geraldton later week for the Big Sky Festival!
The festival is organised by the hard-working staff at Geraldton Regional Library, and runs from Friday Sept 9 – Sunday Sept 11.
Norm and I are running a few sessions together over the weekend:
- Friday, 9.30 – 10.30am, Geraldton Library (youth session, talking about The Last Viking)
- Friday, 1.30 – 2.30pm, Our Lady of Mt Carmel in Mullewa (youth session , talking about The Last Viking)
- Saturday, 10.15 – 11.15am, Geraldton Universities Centre (talking about the collaborative process behind picture books)
Then on Sunday Norm and I will run two separate sessions at the same time.
- Norm‘s session is called “Appealing to a Young Audience“…
- and I’m running a workshop called “Comic Books: making words and pictures work“.
- They’re both from 11am – 12noon at Geraldton Universities Centre.
You can find the full program here.
HeARTlines in Mundairing
Although Children’s Book Week is over for another year, the fun ain’t over yet – because the HeARTlines Festival is just getting started.
This biennial festival celebrates children’s literature and book illustration, and is held at the Mundairing Arts Centre in the Perth hills. This year HeARTlines is dedicated to the memory of the festival’s founder, WA author Louise Schofield. Louise was an incredible woman and it’s an honour to be a part of her festival this year.
I’ll have original artwork from The Last Viking on display in the exhibition, and prints for sale too… the exhibition opens tonight (Friday 2nd September) and closes Sunday 9th October.
I’ll also be running a school holiday cartooning workshop during the festival – here’s the details:
- Friday 7th October
- 10am-12noon
- Ages 9-13
- Cost: $15 ($10 for members of the Mundairing Arts Centre
or Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre). - Call (08) 9295 3991 to book your place.
Hope to see you there 
The goodbye scene
There’s a scene in Last Viking where Josh arrives at Nan and Pop’s house, says goodbye to his mum and dad, and watches them drive off. Sounds simple enough. It took Norm and I a few goes to get it right.
The text and pictures would have to achieve a number of things- introduce Nan and Pop, introduce the setting, and show Josh’s close relationship with his Mum and Dad. The text and pictures couldn’t show Josh’s parents leaving in a way that implied they were dumping him so they could go away for the weekend together… it had to be sensitive.
The first and second goes didn’t achieve these things :p
First go
second go
James the Hirsute, Viking explorer
It’s been a hectic July promoting The Last Viking.
On July 16 and 17 I was in Balingup for the Children’s Literature Festival, with talented WA creators Meg McKinlay, Deb Fitzpatrick, David Caddy and Elaine Forrestal…
…the next weekend saw Norman and I visiting Albany’s Singing Tree bookshop to teach children how to roar like Thor…
…and the weekend after that I was in sunny Kununurra for the Kimberley Writers’ Festival, with fellow Fremantle Press authors Alan Carter and AJ Betts.
Thanks to all those teams that put the events together- Helen and the ladies in Balingup (who aren’t booksellers or librarians, just committed and passionate members of the community- amazing people)… Dianne Wolfer, Andreas and co in Albany (thanks for your generosity and hospitality, and the mulled wine)… and the marvelous Jo and her team of maniacally energetic librarians and volunteers up north (who work 11 months of the year to put the Kimberley Writers’ Festival together- on top of their normal duties. Amazing amazing amazing).
Here’s a few pics from the travels…
The Balingup town hall, main site of the children's literature festival- 8.30am, before the mist has risen
One of the problems with writing picture books, I reckon, is the 32 page size limit imposed on them by the size of paper folds. A sheet of A1 paper folded in half, then half again, then one more time, equals 8 sheets of A4. Stitch 4 bundles of A4 together and you have 32 pages, the standard size of a picture book. If you are onto a good story and the ideas are flowing thick and fast, then you can use up all the available space really quickly. Being a picture book , however, you have to save some space for the pictures, and preferably lots and lots of space if your illustrator is half decent and is on the same wavelength as you. Unfortunately for what I thought were my well chosen words, James is more than half decent and so he needed lots and lots of white space to let his talent run free.
In this first daft you can see I was ready to head off on several tangents that appealed to my sense of adventure. It was pointed out to me later on when the plot was coming together, by Cate Sutherland, Fremantle Press’s children’s publisher , that the tangents tended to detract from the core of the story. That is the reason that Knut setting off in his head to discover America and trade with the Indians came to a sticky end. Ironic really, as that is precisely what happened to many of the Vikings that first set foot on Newfoundland. The Native Americans didn’t like them one little bit and fired a multitude arrows in their general direction.
The same thing happened to the scene when Knut and his imaginary band of hooligans decide to attack and burn the monasteries of Northern England. 
We cut it short and let the reader imagine the consequences of a full-on Viking raid on a monastery full of placid, defenceless monks. Showing monks murdered or being led away to the slave markets and their houses set on fire probably wasn’t all that advisable if we wanted Knut to remain a sympathetic character. Our audience might be a bit young for anti-heroes.
Another long scene that bit the dust was where Josh declares he is going become a follower of the Norse Gods. I originally had him announce to his Nan, ‘I’m off to become a Pagan.’ Nan looks over her glasses and says sternly, ‘Over my dead body,’ and drags him by his ear down the street to the Sunday School to meet the Vicar, who we based on Dawn French, the Vicar of Dibley. There were two problems with this. Firstly, we didn’t want to set up a competition between the Pagans and the Christians in a book for children and where a lot of the customers are likely to be Christian libraries. That battle was fought 900 years ago and the Christians won, with Scandinavia converting to Christianity around 1100AD. The second reason is that hardly any kids go to Sunday School anymore. We could just image modern readers asking, ‘Sunday what?’
I often say it is so much easier writing novels where the only constraint on the length and number of words is the boredom threshold of the editor. If you can keep her interest up to when the hero is hanging from his finger nails from a two hundred metre high ledge, then you can continue, but the minute the story starts to lag is the time to cut it short. Like about now.
First Draft
Now that the lovely Kris Williams, fifth member of ABBA, has mightily, regally and graciously launched Little Knut, the Last Viking, off on his first voyage, ( just did I just hint at a sequel then?) I thought you might be interested in seeing the very first draft I did of the story, late on a Friday night two years ago at a Rottnest Island Writers and llustrators camp. This was few hours after having first seen James’ drawing of the little knight and me suggesting to him we might like to do a story together about a boy who dresses up like a Viking.
Having announced that to James, and, unfortunately, a lot of witnesses sitting close by, I then panicked and thought I had better actually produce something for him to illustrate. Hence the late night and the hurried scribble. Had there not been witnesses I could have told him next morning he imagined it and was having nightmares.
Should you be able to read my writing, you can see lots of elements of the story that ended up in the final draft, although not in any order, because at this stage the ideas for what Knut looked like, what happens to him, what he does, and the consequences, as well as a real plot, were still swirling around in my head like a Longship caught in a whirlpool at the edge of the known world, where there be dragons. Had I known how much work the next two years would entail for me, but especially for James, I might have let the Longship be hurled off the edge of the world, along with my images of a small boy carrying on like a barbarian in his grandparents’ back garden.
Then you see a sight like this, with all the piles of brand new, shiny books lined up like precious gems and holy books plundered from the castles and monasteries of Northumbria, and they have your name on the cover! And you think, idiot, what ever could you have been thinking? It was worth every rewritten page, every substituted word, every ditched idea, every mild disagreement over words OR picture, because you can’t have both, and every sketch worked, reworked and reworked ten times over.
As you can see in the draft about halfway down, Knut’s shield was to be a Volvo hubcap. That had to be changed when we made the Gods accidentally drop a shield to Earth from their celestial Longship, so we could hint that the action might actually be happening in real life and not just in Knut’s head. I’m still wondering, however, would Volvo Ltd have come after us with a Thing full of lawyers and a string of copyright lawsuits for using their logo?
The Launch
(L-R) Norman, James, Kris Williams, our editor Cate Sutherland, and Director of the Children's Literature Centre Lesley Reece
It was a dark and stormy night…
Actually, it was. Norm and I had been watching the weather forecast all week, wondering what the heavens would bring on the Friday night of our launch. By Tyr’s Day, we could see that rain was likely. By Wodin’s Day, rain was certain. Come Freyja’s Day, when the wind didn’t let up all day, we knew a storm was brewing. Thor was angry. The joke going around was that his invite had been lost on it’s way to Asgard. But maybe that was true, and he thought we were snubbing him… and when you snub a Norse god, you get a once-in-10-years weather event. Thirty millimetres of rain fell in 30 minutes- the precise 30 minutes in which our guests were en route to the launch.
I have a new favourite picture book! The Last Viking, written by Norman Jorgensen, and illustrated by James Foley, was published by Fremantle Press (2011).
Josh is very brave. He’s only a tiny bit afraid of the dark, ghosts, boy-eating dinosaurs, pirates, monsters, vampires… Hmmm, and of course going to Nan and Pop’s. In fact, he’s as brave as a lion. Sort of.
Luckily, Pop introduces Josh to the Vikings. Josh becomes Knut, and his imagination takes flight. He’ll need all that imagination, and bravery, and perhaps some Viking magic to cope with the neighbourhood bullies.
All kids have anxieties. Literature is a great way to show children they’re not alone in their fears, without preaching to them. I think Knut’s story makes an excellent choice for parents and teachers who want to remind children that we all have fears, and that sometimes feeling the fear and doing it anyway can have surprising results.
Jorgensen’s writing works on two levels, like that in all the great picture books. There’s the main story, satisfying and full of drama. And then there’s the subtext produced by the combination of his words and Foley’s pictures. Like when Knut, outside with sword upheld to a thunderous sky and lightning bolts, vanquishes his foes, while inside Pop asks after little Knut because there might be a storm. And when Nan, who just doesn’t get it, refers to the bullies as Josh’s new friends and wants them to come in for some cordial.
Some picture book partnerships seem to be a relationship made in Heaven – or should that be Valhalla? Jorgensen’s writing is beautifully complemented by Foley’s art. The drawings are cartoon in style, but there is a richness and texture to the whole illustration that makes the book a real visual delight.
There is lots of attention to detail in The Last Viking. I adore picture books that engage our attention over multiple re-readings, don’t you? Several page borders turn out to be not just decoration. Even the end papers fascinate, with more messages to decode and an alphabet-rune key. What fun to totally confuse older brothers and sisters by writing messages in runes!
Do check out the author and illustrator’s blog for teachers, students and aspiring authors, Knut the Last Viking. You’ll find a great Resources page with pictures to colour, as well as runes to solve.
After reading this book with your kids, they’ll love to create their own Longships, be they from rearranged furniture, cardboard or construction blocks. I love the emphasis in The Last Viking on the close relationship between literature and imaginative play – it fits perfectly into The Book Chook’s scheme of the Universe. The book also emphasises non-fiction – there is a whole page depicting the book Pop gives to Josh, Vikings:Pirates of the North. I also love the way Josh is so inspired by this book, that he enters fully into his role as Knut, Prince of the Vikings.
Kids might like to work out their own names in runes, and read more about vikings on the BBC website, which includes a Dig It Up game and teacher resource page. Try carving runes into clay, or plaster of paris, or decorating rocks or pebbles with runes. Your older children might like to read an interview with archaeologist, William Fitzhugh, who feels the viking’s sordid reputation wasn’t entirely warranted. No matter the age, it’s lots of fun learning to write in runes, and confusing those not in the know! Can you guess what words are in my runes above?
Fremantle Press have teacher notes available to support The Last Viking…
the wonderful book trailer… succeeds in transmitting the flavour of the story without giving too much away – bravo!
