Book Review: You Choose!

Pippa Goodhart & Nick SharrattDaniel’s nursery have a book loan scheme and we brought home our first book from this yesterday, chosen by Daniel; I presume based on the fabulously bright and cheerful cover.

It’s not a story book but it could keep a child entranced for hours. On every double page you have to choose what you would like to visit/wear/live in… the list goes on and on. The illustrations are absolutely amazing – incredibly detailed without being fussy or difficult for three year-old-eyes to discern and filled with friendly characters; even Dracula is a very friendly vampire! The choice on every page is vast and there are more every time you look; you certainly won’t see everything the first time through, or even the second.

Another thing I loved about the illustrations is how cleverly they’re done. Nick Sharratt has somehow made it normal for a pirate ship to be sailing past a space rocket or a poodle to be sitting next to a dragon, and the range of things covered in the book is excellent. There’s a double spread covering jobs that people do, my favourite one which is all sorts of food, one for children who love to dress up offering a variety of clothes…again, it just goes on forever. There are clothes, houses, food items etc from all sorts of cultures (even the undead…) giving opportunities to discuss other cultures.

This book is so versatile, it can be used in many different ways. I’ve been straight through it with Daniel, just choosing what he would like; we’ve also branched out to choose things for other members of the family; we’ve talked about what jobs his grandparents did, and what he would like to do. It’s a brilliant introduction to asking “What if…?” and thinking in timescales or tenses other than the present or immediate future. It’s a great springboard for the imagination as children can make lots of choices safely – Daniel has no problem with his imagination but I think that if a child is struggling in this area, this is a great way to encourage them to explore. There’s no right or wrong, they can make as many choices as they like, but there’s a guide to help them until they have the confidence to use their imagination on their own, in free play. It also introduces new vocabulary and new concepts without children ever realising it. If your child is a bit younger, don’t bother with the “What if..” use, it’s just a great first word and picture book. If you’re really confident, you could even use it as a primer into other languages. One use which I intend to explore soon is helping Daniel to make his forays into storytelling. He’s three and a half at the minute – I can see this being a favourite for years.

I have to return the book to school this week, but I’ll be straight onto Amazon to buy my own copy. And I can’t recommend it highly enough.

You Choose! – Nick Sharratt & Pippa Goodhart. ISBN 978-0552547086

Available from Amazon.co.uk here.

Beggar at the Feast

So, to continue my current love affair with Les Miserables, I’m borrowing the title of a song for this blog post although the link is extremely tenuous. Towards the end, the villainous Thénardiers gatecrash the wedding of Marius and Cosette and enjoy the experience of being at a posh do.

Ain’t it a laugh? Ain’t it a treat?

Hobnobbing here among the elite?

…Here’s me breaking bread with the upper crust!

I love Twitter. One of the reasons I do is the way you can ‘meet’ so many different people, from all sorts of backgrounds. When I first joined (and still to an extent) one of the big things was to follow Stephen Fry. Throughout the day you could get to know little bits of how a real celebrity spent his day and how he felt about random topics; now, he has so many followers it’s highly unlikely you’d get a reply from him, but many celebrities are using Twitter and do interact. If you follow the lovely Maria Duffy, you can read her blog for Hello! magazine in which she interviews celebrities on that exact topic. Now, pay attention, as it’s my chance to drop a few names. I’ve had replies from Paula Abdul and Hugh Bonneville, Steve Balsamo (who plays Jesus on the most recent recording of Jesus Christ Superstar – now that was a jawdropper. How many people have had private messages from Jesus?!) and some literary celebs like Katie Fforde and Joanne Harris. Once I tweeted about a rejection that particularly stung, and got a lovely encouraging message from Katie Fforde. The next day we were in Waterstones and I spent about ten minutes showing my husband the shelf full of Katie’s books and repeating the tweet I’d received. A couple of days ago I was thrilled to be followed by Joanne Harris and have had a few exchanges with her, especially about Les Miserables. To be honest, this to me is like being the beggar at a feast full of A-list movie stars.

I’m also very happy to have frequent chats with Real Authors. When I say chats, I usually mean trading friendly insults. One of my favourite books is by Gillian Philip, and I love chatting to her, both on Twitter and facebook. You know what though? It’s good for me. Especially Twitter – I’m learning to communicate concisely and (hopefully) wittily with intelligent, witty people, some famous, some not. My confidence is developing by leaps and bounds as a result. Someone said to me the other day that I don’t come across as shy online – I think perhaps a year ago I would have done. I would never have had the confidence to suggest to Joanne Harris that I insult her (I mean, come on! The woman has written a book that’s a Johnny Depp film, for crying out loud) or argue with a Carnegie Medal-shortlisted author about the banking crisis or ask the author of one of my all-time favourite books how her new hamster is settling in. And I’m learning that Real Authors are, like, y’know, normal people with regular lives and highs and lows. And they don’t have two heads. Who knew?

I’ve blogged before about some of the amazingly good friends I’ve made on Twitter – you know who you are, Jane, Nettie, Ciara, et al. But this is an aspect of Twitter that has taken me totally by surprise and I love it. And maybe one day, some complete unknown will be blogging (or whatever, I’m sure technology will have moved on somewhat by then!) about how they’ve had a message from a Real Author, Rebecca Brown.

Not very Misérable

Ok, I’m sorryabout the pun. But I couldn’t really pass up the opportunity.

I decided to buy the DVD of Les Miserables: Live at O2 since I had some birthday money left, and it really is one of all my all-time favourite shows. And I have to say what I think – absolutely blown away.

I’ve got the 10th anniversary concert, and I enjoyed that. The cast was great (I mean, Michael Ball, Ruthie Henshall, Lea Salonga, and of course Philip Quast against Colm Wilkinson) and you quickly got used to the concert format, where the actors stood at microphones rather than moving around the stage, and only the principals were costumed, with a huge choir in Les Mis t-shirts behind. I want one of those t-shirts. I’d be willing to swap husband for t-shirt if anyone’s interested; he’s pretty good, more or less housetrained and hardly ever eats the furniture.

The new one, celebrating the 25th anniversary, was on another level. Repeating the concert format, but improving on it by having some props, costume changes and a little background action, it seemed to be fresher and livelier. I think this was helped by the new orchestration (aforementioned husband isn’t keen on that but I love it, brings it a little up to date without changing the power of the music). I also, though don’t quote me on this, think that both orchestra and choir are miles bigger than 15 years ago. Same conductor though, I noticed; I do like him.

So, casting. As I said, 1995 was a pretty good cast. I am still unsure whether anyone can beat Philip Quast as Javert – the power and contained fury are fantastic – but Norm Lewis was excellent. As far as Jean Valjean goes, I’m a bit of a blasphemer; I like Colm Wilkinson, but he’s not my die-hard Valjean. Alfie Boe is a strong contender for that, as here he was mesmerising, excellent focus and a soaring tenor. And I thought his journey was utterly believable, right down to his little headshakes when the Bishop of Digne tells him to become “an honest man” or his falter when he reads Marius’ letter and realises that Cosette has been keeping her own secrets.

The Thénardiers – now this was where I was expecting to grumble. Jenny Galloway is my all-time favourite Mme Thénardier, with brilliant timing, expressions in both face and voice and brutality towards little Cosette, so I was delighted to see her reprise the role. But when I heard that Matt Lucas was going to play her oh-so-charming husband, I was very disappointed, thinking the producers were going for a cheap celebrity shot and that he would just play it Little Britain style (and I’m really not a Little Britain fan I’m sorry to say). I warmed to him after watching a documentary about the production, but watching him actually do it has won me over as a new fan. He was Thénardier to the core – vile, slimy, in his own particular way, and bouncing off Madame perfectly. I would probably rate him now as my favourite in the role, and a real highlight of the show, just as Boubil & Schonberg envisaged all those years ago.

For the women, again I was delighted. Samantha Barks was vulnerable yet feisty as Eponine, and I really wanted to see more of her, and Cosette managed to not be too twee. She had a pretty soprano voice that never shrieked, which I was pleased about. Lea Salonga, who is ALWAYS fantastic, pulled off a minor miracle. Fantine is, in my admittedly limited experience, always played too old, too frumpy, too whiny and her bits are the part where you don’t mind needing to go to the loo. But when Lea Salonga did it, she brought Fantine to life. You could see her being young yet prematurely aged; I believed that men would want to seduce her; I felt pain and longing and memories of a happy youth when she was singing. Major respect to Lea for playing Fantine as she exactly should be played.

My one let down was Marius. Nick Jonas just didn’t seem big enough for the role. He looked far too young for a start, even next to Cosette, and his voice was terribly disappointing. It was very nasal, had no power and both his face and his voice seemed to convey a rather pained concentration without any joy of being in love, youthful idealism at the ABC Café or agony of losing his friends. I’m perfectly willing to believe that with lots more training and maturity he can grow into the role, but he was certainly the weakest link on that performance by far. On the other hand, Ramin Karimloo was a stunning Enjolras. He had the intensity needed, the voice to lead numbers like Red and Black or Do You Hear The People Sing? and was the kind of student every teenage girl dreams about.

Actually, I have two let downs. The second is that I am so greedy, I want more. I know that what was on the DVD is not the entire performance of Les Misérables; what I don’t know is if that is because a redacted version was performed at the event at the O2 and we are actually seeing what the live audience saw, or if clever editing has cut out bits so that to see the whole thing you had to be there. Either way, I would have been over the moon to see the whole 3 hours of Les Mis as I know it on the DVD. It was magical from start to finish. And the buzz I got from seeing the special finale just on DVD was amazing, I can’t imagine the adrenalin of actually being there!

Here’s the link to Amazon if you’ve enjoyed my review; highly, utterly recommended.

As an aside, I’m thinking about doing a regular blog post about musicals. Not always, or even often, a straight review like this, but my tuppence’orth on different aspects of my favourite shows. Whaddya reckon? Comments appreciated, as always.

Out of the Ivory Tower

Over the past couple of months, with the general busy-ness of Christmas, work at home and vile weather outside, I haven’t been out much. I used to go to playgroup, but since Daniel started nursery it’s been one of those things I’ve been meaning to do. I haven’t met up with friends much, for the same sort of reason.

I’ve had human contact, with family. I’ve had fairly constant contact with people around the world, on Twitter. But on the whole, I’ve been kind of shut away from the world in my little tower with my family. This is very much a double-edged sword.

For one thing, with Andrew being off work for Christmas we’ve had some much-needed time together. We’ve been able to help each other rest when nights have been bad; we’ve been able to back each other up. We’ve had peace and protection from the rude interruptions of the outside world. It’s been precious, wonderful time.

On the other hand, this time has warped our perception of some things. When the only three year old you really see is your own, the tantrums are unreasonable, his behaviour is unacceptable, no other mother is so put-upon. But then that’s not so bad, because your three year old is also a genius, an artist, a prodigy. Your baby is streets ahead of everyone else’s, which is quite astonishing since no other baby in the world sleeps as little as she does.  Your home is probably the messiest place on the face of the earth, the ironing is an insurmountable mountain that is probably hiding the Marie Celeste in there somewhere.

This week I came out of the Ivory Tower. I finally took Emily to playgroup, and she took off. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful in its reactions – the world was her oyster. But she was one of many, just another baby crawling around, taking life at their own pace. Today I had lunch with a friend, then went round to her house and spent a couple of hours chatting. Talking about the children’s behaviour (her daughter’s the same sort of age as Daniel), talking about our church (we’re in the same house group), talking about nurseries and holidays and husbands. And what did I get reminded about? Daniel is not the most unreasonable child in the world, nor the cleverest – he’s just a three year old. A house with two children in it has stuff lying around – that’s the way it is. Laundry dries on radiators – it doesn’t get sorted by the Magical Laundry Fairy. My life is average – no better, no worse than anyone else’s.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in what’s going on in the Ivory Tower. Of course your own home, children, family are absorbing, it would be worrying if they weren’t. But I need perspective. And for that I need actual, face-to-face human contact. It’s hard when you’re shy; you don’t want to impose, you get stressed about social situations, you worry about what you’re going to say, if you manage to say anything. The Ivory Tower is so much safer. Unfortunately, it’s not all that healthy. It’s not good for writing – what kind of material can I generate when the person I spend most of the day with can’t even talk yet? It’s not good for my grip on reality. Give it much longer and I’ll be sitting in the cot sucking on a rusk. So I am going to try coming out of the Ivory Tower, in tiny baby steps, and squinting at the sunshine of the real world.

I give it two weeks. 😉

Invasion

Being the thoughts and opinions of an unfinished character; Miss Emma Flint, aged 16.

I must introduce myself. I am the protagoniste of Mrs Brown’s novel, which, being as yet unfinished, leaves me in a kind of limbo. Unable to keep silent yet without my own means of communication, I have taken advantage of what I am told is “Blog Takeover Day” to make myself heard. My mother, indeed, would have you believe that I generally have no difficulty in this regard, but do not believe her! I am, as is the way with all young ladies with something to say, by no means attended to as I deserve.

I have sworn, however, that with the dawn of the New Year (my goodness, 2011; the last New Year I celebrated was 1816) I shall be silent and ignored no longer. I shall give my Authoress no peace until she has completed my story and allowed me to give free rein to my expressions. And then she will find, having once finished my book and edited my words much more ruthlessly than I should like, that she is deceived in writing “The End”; I believe that I and my companions intend to allow her no respite.

You do not understand, I believe, what life is like for us mere characters, to whom you capriciously give birth then allow to languish in files and drawers, notebooks and imaginations. We had no voice, no thought of anything until you brought us into a semi-existence, then we come alive! I am young, I am full of things to say (and I do believe, more sensible than many of my peers if I do say so myself) and I burn to say them. Yet you allow petty considerations such as children and homes and busyness to interfere, to stop you picking up your pens and giving us life. We control you, we seek to creep into your minds and dreams until you stop the sillyness which prevents you from paying us due attention, but what a pitiful kind of control it is! At some point you will grow weary, shut us away for the night and we must start our insidious process of invasion all over again.

At least we can allow ourselves the satisfaction of straying from the paths you had imagined for us. I am never happier than when Mrs Brown has said that I shall go down such-and-such a path but as soon as she begins to write I wander in another direction entirely. I do flatter myself that my way is better, but I do not know that she has entirely admitted to it yet. We shall see, and I know that I shall be proved right yet again.

Do, pray, if you have any compassion, campaign on my behalf. Mrs Brown is a sad, frippery thing and needs constant prodding to complete the most important tasks (such as my story). She has, indeed, pledged herself to give me much more consideration but I beg you will be my best and dearest friends and give her no rest until I am finished. And then I can allow my successors to take up my task and hound her until their stories are also written. There is also the matter of your own characters – do not neglect them as I am neglected! Do not allow my sad situation to be repeated – show them the attention I am denied by my Authoress.

Thank you for your kind attentiveness. I feel sure we are to be the best of friends, and I look forward to meeting you again, in a more respectable state.

Your friend, E Flint.

Emma can be found pestering me on Twitter, as MissEmmaFlint. Don’t listen to her though, she’s a demanding thing. Thanks to Sally Quilford, whose idea the Blog Takeover was; her blog can be found here.