What I’m Reading
Juliette MacIver
When your children are finally beyond the stage of the hundredfold repetition of one picture book, it is cause for celebration. Yet as a writer I find my ‘‘market research’’ time is sadly diminished by the lack of a demanding, pint-sized audience.
And then Emma Wood and Carla Martell’s Tulip and Doug came along! This is so delightful that I have read it repeatedly to my teenagers, in addition to a few silent-readings. It’s both hilarious and poignant, wellpaced and well-crafted, and has a perfect, satisfying ending – one of the hardest things to pull off. The quirky illustrations bring the story to life and infuse it with just the right feeling of warmth and energy.
I have also recently finished The Memory Thief, by Leonie Agnew. This beautifully written, compelling story aimed at 10-12-year-olds is a sophisticated read with a difficult theme – a magical take on memory loss, which has similar intrinsic logic problems to time travel – but Agnew handles it convincingly. The characters, their self-discovery and evolving relationship are beautifully revealed and the story is ever absorbing. A deserved winner at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults this year.
But most of my current reading is, somewhat oddly, about pain. More specifically, whether pain is commonly conceived of as a conscious mental state, or an objective state of the body. This may be rather atypical background reading for a picture book author, but it’s for a philosophy paper I’m doing as part of a Masters’ degree in linguistics. And there can be no doubt these metaphysical musings will come in handy for my next whimsical romp for three-year-olds!