CONTENTS NOVEMBER 2019
2 Guest Editorial Philip Womack describes publishing with Unbound
_________________________________________
3 Kevin Crossley Holland explains how folk-tales make us human
_________________________________________
4 Books of the Year 2019 BfK contributors choose
_________________________________________
6 Ten of the Best: Books for Beginner Readers chosen by Tony West and Margaret Wallace-Jones of The Alligator’s Mouth Bookshop
8 Authorgraph: Rob Biddulph interviewed by Louise Johns-Shepherd
12 Books for Giving your indispensable gift guide
14 Beyond the Secret
Guest Editorial 239
Loosing The Arrow of Apollo. Author Philip Womack on his experience of crowdfunding
I’ve always been interested in classical myth, but whilst researching my 2016 novel, The Double Axe, I rediscovered a spark that had been dormant for a decade or so. With an avidity I hadn’t felt for years, I gobbled down the ancient texts, re-reading the ones I knew, savouring the ones I didn’t, delighting in finding connections and comparisons between them. Once more, I was hooked. The mythology is vast. The source texts don’t
________________________________________ _________________________________________
10 Windows into Illustration: Jon Agee
_________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________
Garden: how to make sure there’s something for everyone on your holiday gift list
16 Fill Your Stockings! Find room for these last-minute recommendations
_________________________________________
17 It’s Wicked! Celebrating a brilliant creative writing competition
18 Good Reads chosen by students at Herne Bay High School, Kent
_________________________________________
always agree on details, but you swiftly garner a general sense of the way that most of the myths operate. I became fascinated by the edges of things. The cycle of Agamemnon’s story, the House of Atreus, begins with the terrible crimes of his ancestor Tantalus, who tried to serve up his own son as lunch to the gods, and finishes with his son Orestes, absolved at last from matricide, returning home. But how did Orestes live with the knowledge of
tragedy in his own family? What of the children of Orestes? Did they grow up knowing their father was a murderer? These were the questions that consumed me. And so were sown the seeds of what was to become The Arrow of Apollo. I imagined a world in which the gods were growing tired of mortals. One by one, they departed, leaving behind only Apollo, who loved mankind too much, and Hermes, who liked to be at the centre of the action. The plot all fell into place, into a nice, neat structure, much more easily than any other novel I’ve ever written. I have not crowdfunded a book before, having published six children’s novels with traditional publishing houses. But, after much thought and many
discussions, _________________________________________
19 Reviewers and reviews Review Feature: 100 Best Children’s Books reviewed by Neil Philip Review Feature: The Book of Dust The Secret Commonwealth reviewed by Nicholas Tucker Under 5s (Pre-School/Nursery/ Infant)
_________________________________________
5-8 (Infant/Junior) + Ed’s Choice 8-10 (Junior/Middle) + New Talent 10-14 (Middle/Secondary) 14+ (Secondary/Adult)
34 Classics in Short No. 138 Tales of Uncle Remus
_________________________________________ COVER STORY
This issue’s cover illustration is from Bad Nana: That’s Snow Business written and illustrated by Sophy Henn. Thanks to HarperCollins Children’s Books for their help with this November cover.
Unbound. Firstly, I decided as to publish with they produce exceptionally
beautiful books, and I knew that I would be able to guarantee maps and even illustrations if I could raise the funding for it, and that I would have some say in the process as well. And secondly, I had faith in Greek myth as a draw for young readers. To say that crowdfunding is not easy is an understatement. I had the idea for the book in about 2015. I finished the first draft in December 2016. It went to Unbound as a second draft in October 2017, and we launched the campaign to fund it. The sum of money we would have to raise seemed to me as impossible as one of Hercules’s labours. And I’m not very much like Hercules. It’s a wonderful thing, to give money on trust
for something that does not yet exist, and I will be grateful for ever to the supporters of The Arrow of Apollo, who have surprised me, delighted me, and enchanted me.
Books for Keeps
November 2019 No.239 ISSN 0143-909X © Books for Keeps CIC 2016
Editor: Ferelith Hordon Editorial assistant: Alexia Counsell Managing Editor: Andrea Reece Design: Louise Millar
Editorial correspondence should be sent to Books for Keeps, 30 Winton Avenue London N11 2AT.
2 Books for Keeps No.239 November 2019 There was an initial
rush of pledges. We zoomed up to 40% of the funding target pretty quickly. This would be easy, I thought. Alas, I was wrong.
The
doldrums followed. There were a lot of doldrums. Every day, before work, I would send out ten emails (that was the limit, we were told). And every day I would wait, and every day there would be nothing. The fund hovered around the 60% mark for a
month, two months. Then, with no apparent cause, there would be another rush, and the percentage would shoot up; only to plateau again. There was relief. As the planners at Unbound had
predicted, once the target reach the late 80s, and readers could see that the book was certain to be published, the pledges began piling in. I was pushed into 100 % by a late night text in February 2019. And that was that. I could now retire with a large glass of wine and some chocolate. Or so I thought. After the heavy lifting of the funding, then came the usual heavy lifting of preparing a manuscript for publication. First was the structural edit. I was exceptionally lucky with my editor, who delivered her thoughts with sensitivity and clarity.
I spent weekend after
weekend huddled over my computer whilst everybody else enjoyed the sunshine, early morning after early morning making sure everything was right. Then the second pass, tidying up any loose ends; the copyedit; and then, finally, the stage I am at as I write, which is the read through of the typeset pages. I never get over the glorious rush of seeing the text looking just like an actual book. Equally exciting was the cover process, and I am immensely proud of the dynamic, enticing cover, which demonstrates beautifully (I hope) the drama and the matter of the book. I am also very lucky to have Emily Faccini illustrating the maps. One of the major reasons I wrote the book was to
further the spread of classics in children’s reading. I wanted to bring some of my passion into my fiction, and to show readers that myth is not a difficult place, but one that is full of excitement and wonders. And to have it all encased in a beautiful hardback copy is a dream come true. Will I be doing it again? We’ll have to wait and see.
Find out more about Unbound and The Arrow of Apollo
https://unbound.com/books/the-arrow-of-apollo/
Books for Keeps is available online at
www.booksforkeeps.co.uk A regular BfK Newsletter can also be sent by email. To sign up for the Newsletter, go to
www.booksforkeeps.co.uk and follow the Newsletter link. If any difficulty is experienced, email addresses can also be sent to
enquiries@booksforkeeps.co.uk*
Email:
enquiries@booksforkeeps.co.uk
Website:
www.booksforkeeps.co.uk *Email addresses will be used by Books for Keeps only for the purpose of emailing the Newsletter and will not be disclosed to third parties.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34