The River Singers

Title: The River Singers

Author: Tom Moorhouse

Publisher: Oxford University PRess

Published: July 2014 (PB)

The River Singers by Tom Moorhouse was published in paperback this month, and I thought a review was in order to celebrate since I really, really love this book.

The River Singers is not only a poignant, perfect summer read, but a novel to treasure and keep. I had heard a lot about the story prior to reading it, and reading so much positive press about something means that sometimes you wonder if a novel can really be as incredible as its hype, but The River Singers truly is. Written by Oxford ecologist Tom Moorhouse (who obviously knows his material very well), The River Singers is about a family of water voles who lose their mother and are struggling for survival. Sylvan and his siblings find themselves orphaned when a new, mysterious predator arrives in their home, and soon Sylvan, Fern, Aven and Orris are embarking on a journey to find a new and safe place to live.

This is a beautiful, bewitching story that had me gripped until the last page. Lauren St. John described it as “a hymn to nature, written with compassion and flair”, and the prose certainly has a lilting, lyrical quality at times, delicately painting vivid scenery and minute details of the riverbank world. Still, there are also hypnotic, urgent and gripping depictions of action and danger, and incredible moments of suspense in The River Singers. It is poignant, heartrending and hopeful, ranking with those classic animal tales like The Wind in the Willows, The Animals of Farthing Wood or anything from the likes of Michael Morpurgo, Gill Lewis or Lucy Daniels, books that line children’s bedroom bookcases and deservedly stay there. Something that sets apart The River Singers, though, is the level of immersion and insight we readers have into Sylvan’s world, and the danger that we as readers are forced to feel and live with him, Aven, Orris and Fern, after their home is destroyed by the arrival of a predator. The riverbank universe becomes ours, too, and the threat of the dark, elusive mink (comparatively huge compared to water voles) becomes as real and frightening for us as for the siblings who try desperately to evade it. As animal protagonists go, Sylvan is likeable, compelling, bold and fiercely loyal, and he and his siblings grow as they learn from one another, as well as how to help one another. For these reasons, The River Singers is also a very human story; it is about coping with grief and loss, reeling in the aftermath of trauma, and it reminds us of the importance of sibling loyalty and friendship, more than ever during times of pain, crisis and trouble.

All in all, I really cannot recommend The River Singers enough. As I have been blogging about libraries a little this week, it seemed another good reason to review The River Singers, since this – as an incredible Middle Grade read, ideal for children aged nine and older – definitely has a place in both primary and secondary school libraries. It is a perfect story to read aloud with older primary children, either one-to-one or as a class read. A sequel, The Rising, is due out in October this year (link here), and I will certainly be buying it. 

“One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen.”

Happy library days!

The epilogue to Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography begins with the words of this post’s title; she expands upon them as she asks world leaders to offer children education across the world: “Let us pick up our books … our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” Her words highlight something crucial for me – the role of reading in young people’s spiritual and educational development – and the subsequent spread and cultivation of ideas. Before I began my Publishing MA, I was a librarian in Abu Dhabi. I read as many children’s stories as I could, read a lot of picture books, and listened and watched a little. I came to a few conclusions in watching children read.

The key thing is that reading can and should be shared, if a child is going to learn to love books. It was one of the reasons we hosted book fairs and had an author come to visit us, one of the reasons we bought wall stickers (quotes from books) and added those to the library decorations. Some struggling readers may not necessarily ‘see’ a story beyond the problem of decoding and analysing it. While reading as a skill is crucial, stories and the immersive nature of them is what makes a book fun (losing yourself, living in another character’s world and thoughts). Children need to know that a book is a story, as much a world to be lived in as a movie could be. To me, this happens when adults take the necessary time to nurture a love of books, showing them that reading is about stories. There is something magical about reading picture books to very young children for this reason.

Another thing was the timeless value of printed books; I still love seeing young people digging with their hands into library bookcases, as opposed to swiping fingertips across screens. It was good likewise to see our pupils clutching signed print copies of books brought to our library by a visiting author. Academics from Stanford and Munich are arguing that the mere presence of books and bookcases in a house has a positive impact on a child’s achievements: “Books at home are the single most important predictor of student performance in most countries.” (See link here.) This is not to negate the incredible development of eBooks, the brilliance of story and spelling apps from publishers like Nosy Crow or Oxford University Press, or aimed to discourage those children who prefer reading on tablets – but for me (and hopefully for most), print and digital, old and new, can and should coexist. (On the subject of apps, Nosy Crow posted this via their blog some time ago, which is worth a read.)

If nothing else, I took away from my library work the vital place of libraries as relevant, powerful hubs for nurturing reading and learning. I really loved it whenever a picture book that proved a hit and several children the following week would come in asking to borrow it; I loved recommending books, having books recommended, reading one-to-one with people, deciphering the meanings of misunderstood words in English and Arabic, or dissecting the finer plot points of J.K. Rowling and steady building of canon over a certain series of seven stories. An adult’s input – librarian, teacher, parent, etc. – can, I think, help create the bedrock and foundation for a lifetime’s reading, and I haven’t stopped loving the books I loved when I was younger any less. This nurturing of great children’s literature is part of what makes children’s publishing such an exciting industry to be a part of.

Links: Library Love

I thought, for this link post, I would share some links I liked or found useful as a former librarian.

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Library Websites

Library Games
A great website with lots of activities and ideas for making libraries fun.

Chatterbooks
Information on setting up a Chatterbooks reading group.

Roald Dahl Day
Celebrating all things Roald Dahl with lots of activities for children.

World Book Day
A must for the calendar, so many options and ideas for schools and libraries to celebrate the day. Many authors get involved with World Book Day, too.

International Literacy Day
Another one for the calendar.

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Library Books and Lesson Resources

Booked In

Booked In by Louise Heyden is a fantastic book for any librarian (the above link goes through to the Book Depository site, where it can be ordered online).

TES Resources

The Times Education Supplement website has so many useful resources for teachers. Some are also great for librarians, particularly sheets and session ideas on book characters and activities when you need them.

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Story Centres

The Discover Centre
Based in London.

Seven Stories
Based in Newcastle.

The Story Museum
Based in Oxford.

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre
Based in Buckinghamshire.

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

Title: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet 

Author(s): Bernie Su and Kate Rorick 

Publisher: Simon and Schuster 

Published: July 2014 

Having tuned into the web series, I was looking forward to lead writer Bernie Su’s novelisation of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and it isn’t disappointing. The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet extends the YouTube videos and features Lizzie as a Communications student and video blogger from California, living at home with her parents and two sisters – Jane, a poorly paid fashion assistant – and Lydia, who skips college studies for parties, drinking and shopping. Though Jane has a paid job and Lizzie tutors when she isn’t studying, all three sisters are too poor to move away from home and live independently. So Lizzie’s diary charts the behind-the-scenes progress of her thesis project (the YouTube series, chronicling her life in five minute episodes), life at home and of course her evolving friendships with best friend Charlotte Lu (a fellow Mass Communications student), rich new neighbours Bing and Caroline Lee, and their richer, arrogant friend, William Darcy. (In this story, Bing is a trainee medical student, Caroline is a socialite and Darcy is a young CEO from an illustrious family.) 

As a modern YA version of Pride and Prejudice, set in the United States, the retelling works and the tone of the diary is sustained well, confessional and bantering and informal. Lizzie chats about her thesis, her occasional qualms about the videos, tutoring on Tolstoy, fun asides that never make it onto the camera – and we are able to see more of a buildup to her eventual showdown with Darcy and how things come to a head. Bernie Su and Kate Rorick keep the story light and fun, and don’t let the story become solely about the romance; cash-strapped Lizzie, Jane, Lydia and Charlotte all face the same troubles as their nineteenth century counterparts, needing to find careers (as opposed to marriages) that will pay enough to get them out of home and achieve economic independence. Opportunities are thin on the ground, however, resulting in Jane holding onto a career that pays meagre money, Lydia skipping classes and refusing to think beyond her next shopping trip, whilst Lizzie balances the need to find a job with the desire to finish her education.

For instance [cue spoilers], Lizzie sees the ruin of her ambitions when a modern Mr Collins “proposes” she become his start-up business partner. Lizzie is quick to turn him down, preferring to finish studies, but Charlotte pounces on the opportunity and quits her degree, becoming the first of the friends to leave home and get her own apartment. Something that a modern readership might judge Jane Austen’s impoverished Charlotte Lucas for – marrying a man she did not love in Pride and Prejudice – is updated suitably enough for us to understand the motives of a modern Charlotte Lu. The romance of the original is, of course, still there – and characters are updated faithfully – but The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet is never only about the end result of relations between Lizzie and Darcy, or Bing and Jane, though these romances are poignant and touching. The point of this retelling is not so much about finding romance as growing secure in your own skin, and Lydia’s parallel journey of maturation and reconciliation with Lizzie also makes for good reading. 

To sum up, I found The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet an easy, entertaining read (it took me a day to finish) and a book I would likely have enjoyed, anyway, but I liked it the more for having watched The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and more still for having loved and re-read Jane Austen’s original Pride and Prejudice so often since I was twelve. I am fairly positive that this retelling from Bernie Su and Kate Rorick can be enjoyed in its own right as a teen read, and perhaps as a suitable introduction to Jane Austen, though it should perhaps come with a warning label, too – if you do read this book, it will doubtless lure you quickly into the YouTube rabbit hole that is Lizzie Bennet’s video channel and social media world.

A Few Thoughts on Transmedia and Publishing

Something I’ve found fascinating these last few years is the rise of transmedia storytelling online, and its implications for publishers (especially those of YA stories). J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore is the obvious case in transmedia as an immersive, encyclopaedic story experience, enabling readers to create roles for themselves within the Hogwarts universe.

Not long ago, though, I stumbled across The Lizzie Bennet Diaries video channel. The videos (a hundred in total, each averaging five minutes) are part of a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice across social media (YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr), performed for the web by a team of actors and writers in the United States. The series with integrated transmedia (characters tweeted to one another between uploads) resulted in a book deal for its creators; a YA novelisation of the series by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick was published this week by Simon and Schuster, and I find this a pretty wonderful and staggering feat. Their story reimagines Elizabeth Bennet as a California video blogger pursuing a Master’s degree in Mass Communications, ignoring pressure from her mother to forgo her education and find either a suitable job or a rich, eligible boyfriend as soon as possible, in order to leave home and start living independently.

So much has already been written about the brilliant updates invented by Bernie Su and his team, of the plotting and characterisation that caught on with so many watching the series, enabling Su and co. to found Pemberley Digital and commit to retelling classic stories full-time via new media. But the genius of transmedia is, I think, as much in the execution as in the content. Henry Jenkins’ definition of transmedia is as follows: 

Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.

As another recently wrapped transmedia case study, The Autobiography of Jane Eyre is another independent adaptation from a small writing team that, for me, has the unique draw of modern Jane Eyre’s Tumblr. Jane is a live-in tutor at Mr Rochester’s large house in Canada, and her artistic talent in the original novel becomes photography for this adaptation. On Tumblr, she reblogs – in addition to her YouTube videos – her own photography (she is of course on Instagram) and others’ vintage images, fairy tale art and scenes, inspirational quotes and music. Jane’s blog is a mood board, art journal and scrapbook (all the postings reflect her feelings at various stages in the story), an insight into those feelings she cannot, due to her introverted nature, always expand on for viewers, especially regarding Rochester. Jane vlogs, on the whole, in a copycat style to Bernie Su’s Lizzie Bennet – facing a camera in her bedroom – but this adaptation is actually better when Jane breaks this habit, i.e. when recording an eerie confessional scene in broken tones on the floor of the infamous Red Room, or musing aloud and filming during a walk in the woods. The series as a transmedia effort is not perfect, and yet I might just find a diary from this Canadian Jane Eyre (who drinks fruit tea, reads widely and quotes Frank O’Hara) a compelling read. It struck me that this could work in reverse, too – publishers and authors creating an extension of character or world building online, marketing meeting content – and not necessarily on the grand scale of Pottermore, either.

Apart from looking out for transmedia series deserving novelisation, as happened to Bernie Su and Kate Rorick, it will be interesting to see how publishers begin to work with transmedia and consider world building beyond the book. The only case I can think of is Night Film by Marisha Pessl, a horror thriller (for adults) from Random House with scans of newspaper articles, police reports and images apparently pasted into the narrative, to back up Scott McGrath’s story with integrated pieces of realism (or a semblance of it). The story becomes darker, more morbid for these added details (I have, as yet, failed to finish it as it is fairly black). There is also an app that releases more content and information. But a sprawling world is created around a single book (not to exploit success established already), and I can think of nothing else in book publishing – yet – quite like it.

Many book trailers are created and posted via the YouTube channels of publishers, but I think transmedia fragments might render the content more interesting by enhancing it. The excitement is in the planning, as it is all still a relatively blank canvas.

Links: Transmedia Adaptations of Classic Literature

I thought I would share some links to transmedia adaptations of classic stories across social media; whether or not this is the start of a trend in storytelling, transmedia seems like a fantastic means of introducing literature to YA audiences in particular. 

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Elizabeth Bennet of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is now Lizzie Bennet, a graduate vlogger creating videos in her bedroom and tweeting them to the world. She reenacts scenes through costume theatre and mimicking other characters until the delicate structure of her vlogging style (confined to her room, interruptions coming from only her sisters and close friend, Charlotte Lu) breaks and other characters begin to come in and learn what she is doing. This is an incredible independent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that has received a lot of acclaim (cue a review from The Guardian), as well as an Emmy Award for interactive media achievement and over a million views online.

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Emma Approved

Based on Emma by Jane Austen, this is the follow-up to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries from Bernie Su and the rest of his team. Emma Woodhouse is an ambitious entrepreneur and lifestyle excellence coach (not sure what that means, but she makes you believe it). Mr Knightley is her business partner and Harriet Smith is her personal assistant, while the ensemble cast of Mr and Mrs Weston, Mr Elton, Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax et al. from the book makes up her group of friends, business associates, clientele and possible future employees. Emma has an integrated fashion and lifestyle blog (which is good reading) that makes up a key part of the adaptation, in addition to her dedicated Pinterest and Twitter accounts.

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The Autobiography of Jane Eyre

This story, a modern Jane Eyre set in Canada, is an adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s novel (one of my favourite stories) that suffers from the fact that their Mr Rochester left before production wrapped. Jane works a live-in tutor for Adele Rochester, and eventually develops a friendship with her father (whose wife is … somewhere) after he returns home. To me, it does not feel as polished as the Pemberley Digital videos, but parts of it are compelling, and as an independent effort, I have nothing but respect for the writers and actors who decided to put this together. Transmedia is still such a new field and it will be interesting to see how it develops, particularly in conjunction with traditional and digital publishing.