Posts Tagged ‘competition’
Competition Winner!
I neglected to mention you needed to post a comment on this blog in order to be entered into the competition so I’ve had to be rather liberal about where the entries were posted. All the entries were fabulous and it took some time to pick one. MinzBeads has managed to sneak in more than one and picked them from several different age groups so the prize is yours. All I need is a mailing address. Congratulations!
The Peace Garden – Lucy Sussex
Just for a bit of a change of pace I thought I’d review a book I picked up this afternoon. It’s a children’s book so didn’t take too long to read. It was Lucy Sussex’s first fiction novel.
I first heard of Sussex last year when I attended AussieCon 4, fourth World Science Fiction convention to be held in Australia, in 2010. I attended a panel and I forget the correct title but I think it was about Australian female horror writers, Sussex was on the panel. When I saw the book I knew I had to read it and see what made her so good.
The Peace Garden is a fairly ordinary patch of land in a fairly ordinary town in Australia surrounded by ‘interesting’ people. Holly is shuffled between her separated parents, it’s currently the holidays and she’s with her mother and step-father. Despite being only 11 she’s left on her own a lot of the time and finds her way to The Peace Garden. It doesn’t remain peaceful for long as two people decide they want to lease it for their own purposes. Holly finds herself in the middle of all this, bringing together the misfit children in the town and helping find a resolution that suits almost everyone.
I like the writing, I found it very easy to read. Some of the misfit children seem to be misfits more because of their parents rather than due to their own behaviour and Holly seems to bring out the best in them. The language is uncomplicated and the concepts are easily understood by someone with a reading age of about 11, but if they’re reading above their age I’d still recommend it.
There are lessons in this book. Never judge a book by it’s cover being the biggest. One of the children, Gawaine (he prefers Gary) has a mohawk and ‘intriguing’ clothes but he turns out to be the nicest person, Bridie is in a wheelchair and can’t speak but when Holly starts talking to her we find she is lovely, bright and quite capable. Another lesson is that there’s always a better idea, one that can include many more people.
One thing I found quite interesting, I waited the whole book to see if it would be followed up, were a couple of possible horror motifs. They weren’t followed up. Sussex had the choice to make it into a horror story but chose, instead, to make it into a lovely story about children helping the whole town to win in the nicest possible way.
Because I loved this book so much I’m going to give it away. I reread that sentence and it doesn’t really make sense but that’s tough. It’s too young for my kids so I want someone else to have it for theirs. Tell me your favourite childhood book and why you liked it so much. You have until 5pm Tuesday 21st January. Your time starts…now!
Lots of Woot!!!!
Yes, I did need that many exclamation marks, seriously. Last Thursday night during #spbkchat, the Twitter chat for all things bookish based in the South Pacific region, I received a phone call that made me very excited, so excited I couldn’t concentrate on anything she was saying as I was just trying to get my head around the content. It was just lots of Woot!!!! I’ll take you back in time a bit and try to do things in a some sort of logical order.
The end of last month I wrote about my dilemma with ereaders, tablets or neither and I’ve just realised how appropriate that date was. I was trying to make a decision on how I was going to take reading matter to NZ for a three week trip. Liss of Frills in the Hills rang me and made the decision very simple. She told me I’d won an iPad2. It took ages for her to convince me I’d won and looking at the machine I still don’t quite believe it. I even had to ask her the name of her blog as I was so dazed I missed it when she introduced herself, not to mention the fact that I’d entered and promptly forgotten about it. I knew I’d never win so didn’t bother to remember when, where or how I’d entered. Liss was very patient with me while my head span and I freaked out.
The competition was sponsored by Rocketman Media and their new product RocketFuel and I’m entirely grateful to Jessie from Rocketman Media for dealing with me so gently while I freaked out when it didn’t arrive on the day she said. Looking back at both websites I did actually remember entering the competition and then following through to have a look at the RocketFuel website, I’ll be going back for another look when time permits and possibly even to sign up.
The family have been terribly excited and my youngest ended up taking delivery as I wasn’t here when it arrived. I knew she was excited as she sent me a text, rang me, sent me an email, wrapped the box in ribbon and left me a note. Here’s the picture to prove it.
She's not excited, I'm sure.
I’m planning on installing lots of book apps and putting in as many books as I can. I used it for the #spbkchat Twitter chat last night just because I could. I can’t thank both Frills in the Hills and Rocketman enough for fuelling my addiction to Twitter and making my decision totally irrelevant!
The reason the date I blogged was so appropriate? It’s the date the competition closed. I do wonder if I’ve entered any other iPad competitions and forgotten about them.
Books with possible problems
I know this is old news as Skip McGrath blogged about it in May, but you should know by now that I don’t always give you this information at the time of publishing. You can look at his blog for further details, but basically he’s blogged about a guy in America who forged signatures of popular authors and then sold them for inflated prices on eBay.
I do want to reassure my readers I do not condone the practice of forging signatures or misrepresenting books in any way. If a book has a signature and I can’t verify it I will mention that in the listing and price it accordingly so you know what you’re getting. If a book is not a collectable title and is in really terrible condition I will commit the cardinal sin of throwing it in the recycling. Yes, sometimes I do get books in such condition but only when I buy in bulk and can’t vet all of those books before taking them home so sometimes I will bring home a book in dreadful condition. There is the odd exception for very collectable books and Beebo is one such exception. They are very collectable and there are very few of this title listed on the internet. It’s in such poor condition that I’ve priced it very low.
I was very lucky one day with a book I listed on spec on eBay. When I picked it up to list it the cover fell off and I debated throwing it out, but the book was in a collectable series and so I listed it for 99c thinking if it didn’t sell I would only have lost 30c. The book had multiple bids and ended up selling for a very nice price so I upgraded to registered post at my expense.
Anyway, I feel a ramble coming on so I’ll stop here and leave you with a final reminder for the current competition.
Don’t forget, today is the last day to make your comment and enter the competition. I’ll be announcing the winner in the newsletter tomorrow.