PAPER PLANES AND HATS
Among the many beautiful children's picture books that are sent to me, a few are just as appealing to adults. Newspaper Hats by Phil Cummings and Owen Swan (Scholastic Press) is one: a small girl visits her grandfather in a nursing home and finds he remembers his youth but doesn't know her, until they start folding and wearing paper hats from his pile of old newspapers. You can't do that with a digital newspaper, can you? The book's gentle, nostalgic message for all generations is delicately illustrated, with shiny sticky-taped titles and real Australian newspaper clippings. A folded paper plane adorns the cover of Alpha by Canadian illustrator Isabelle Arsenault (Walker Books, out in August). This is a witty record of the NATO phonetic alphabet (or International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet) used by emergency services. I always fumble for the right word when trying to spell clearly to strangers (cat is Charlie-Alpha-Tango not my "c for, um, cat, a for apple, t for Tom", though that can work too). The lovely artwork (Charlie is a bowler hat, Delta the paper plane, kilo a slice of cake) will help the letters stick for both adults and children learning the alphabet for the first time.
A FESTIVAL ON THE SECRET RIVER
Newest on the crowded festival calendar is the St Albans Writers' Festival, taking place on September 18 to 20 in the beautiful Macdonald Valley on the Hawkesbury River. Kate Grenville will be among the 30 authors, speaking on her book about her mother, One Life, though she's sure to touch on The Secret River, set in that country. The impressive guest list also includes Hugh Mackay, Michael Robotham, Nikki Gemmell, Courtney Collins, David Hunt and Mark Tedeschi. There will be panels on crime fiction, science fiction and Australia's future, plus ghost stories and readings in the sandstone pub, and a talk on local Aboriginal art sites. Organised by local resident Catherine du Peloux Menage, a perfume expert who also works in educational publishing, the festival's facilitators include her husband John Vallance, headmaster of Sydney Grammar School and a member of the Library Council of NSW. See the excellent website stalbanswritersfestival.com.au for details and bookings.
LAUGHTER AND TEARS
Bernard Cohen won the inaugural Russell Prize for Humour Writing for his novel The Antibiography of Robert F. Menzies, which the judges said was "post-modernist with actual jokes" and "perfectly captured the states of nervy restlessness in the Australian psyche, while possessing the grace of great fiction". Cohen, who teaches creative writing to children, was delighted "because when my teenage daughter claims my jokes are bad, I can now say, 'officially funny' ". However, there was a poignant note to his win. Cohen continued the trend for writers to give away their prize money, donating half his $10,000 to the Play Therapy Unit at Westmead Children's Hospital in memory of his son JoJo, who died some years ago, and half to Save the Children Fund for children's education and play in the Nauru immigration detention camps.
