December, 2012
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RIP David Lomon, 1918-2012
2December 22, 2012 by Lydia Syson
When Ellathebookworm from the Guardian Teen Book Club asked me this week what I would have found hardest if I’d been a soldier in the Spanish Civil War, I immediately thought of David Lomon, and what he had endured after being taken prisoner by Mussolini’s forces in Spain in the spring of 1938. Richard Baxell interviewed him for his new book, Unlikely Warriors - read more here. Very sadly, David died yesterday.
Category Blog | Tags: David Lomon, Guardian Teen Book Club, International Brigades Memorial Trust, last British International Brigader
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News and an offer
0December 14, 2012 by Lydia Syson
Tucked into a corner of King’s Cross Station, just beside the sign for Platform 9-and-3/4, there’s a newish bookshop called Watermark which is well worth seeking out. Thanks to Laura, its fantastically enthusiastic children’s bookseller, that’s where just over half my writing group kicked off this year’s Christmas celebrations last night.
Category Blog | Tags: Adventure Walks, Atticus Claw, Guinea Pigs Online, Jewish Socialist, Keren David, New Books, Platform 9 3/4, review, Village Books, Watermark, Wrtiers' Forum
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Christmas stories
0December 7, 2012 by Lydia Syson
This post was written for Hot Key Books ’9 Days of Christmas’
All my childhood memories of Christmas merge into one indistinct blur: it was always the seventies. It was always grey. It never, ever snowed. And later I keep reading
Category Blog | Tags: 9 days of Christmas, A Hundred and One Dalmations, Chanukah, Christmas, Dodie Smith, Laura Ingalls Wilder, memories, On the Banks of Plum Creek, Rumer Godden, snow, Special offer, The Story of Holly and Ivy, traditions
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The Next Big Thing
2December 5, 2012 by Lydia Syson
Yes, yes, I know writers are meant to be a lonely lot, isolated in far-flung garrets of angst-ridden creativity. Actually, the children’s writing community is as welcoming and inclusive a place as you could ever hope to find yourself. Hence The Next Big Thing – a kind of chain blog in which no curses are threatened if you don’t pass it on, but writer after writer has the keep reading
Category Blog | Tags: Battle of Britain, children's writers, Fleur Hitchcock, Julie Mayhew, Natasha Ngan, Next Big Thing, Polish pilot, Rebecca Lisle, Saviour Pirotta, WW2
