Tomorrow Meredith from Oh, The Thinks You Can Think and I will be interviewed by Carol Duncan for the local Newcastle ABC radio broadcast. As we have been trying to work out what we could possibly have to say that might be in any way interesting (aside from telling embarrassing stories about each other), it occurred to us that we have been friends for more than half our lifetime.

We met when we were 12, on the first day of high school. Twenty-something years later, we still get together at least once a week to catch up and often chat on the phone. Back in 2005 we even wrote a cookbook together called Keep the Table Laughing.

Because I’m a kind of nerdy, navel-gazy sort of person, I’ve been pondering why it is that our friendship has lasted so long. I’ve come up with the following list:

Why I Am Friends With Meredith

• She writes notes like “ass/shop/tennis” as a reminder to tell me something, then can’t remember what it means.
• She doesn’t make fun of me (to my face) when I get excited about performing very basic technical tasks (like working out how to sync my Outlook calendar with my iPod).
• She also obsesses about completing the word association web on iAssociate.
• She can be easily (and cheaply) bribed with a cup of coffee and the assurance that I don’t have any other friends as funny as she is.
• She knows when to schunkeln.
• Because in the course of a one hour conversation, we can cover such diverse topics as Alvin & the Chipmunks: the Squeak-el, mommy bloggers, Christian fundamentalism, post-impressionist art, the Australian political landscape, geeky iPod apps, whitegoods, German folk music, grocery prices and colouring your lady bits.
• She always buys me the perfect gift for my birthday. I still have my Famous Writer Magenetised Finger Puppets stuck to the fridge – Tolstoy, Dickens, Shakespeare and Woolf.
• She also thinks that it’s awesome that Floyd from the band in the Muppets was pink. Think about it.

What do you value most in your friends? I know all about the loyalty, compassion, encouragement, honesty stuff. What quirky things about your friends make you look forward to seeing them and spending time with them?

Two weeks ago I bought my first iPod. Yes, I know. I’m quite possibly the last person in the world to own one, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t one of those “here today, gone tomorrow” consumer trends (yes, Betamax video, I’m talking about you).

I now have a bright, shiny new toy onto which I have downloaded 700 of my favourite songs (along with a whole bunch of game apps that I am hoping will not become mindless timewasters – BubbleWrap app, now I’m talking about you).

It has now become clear to me why avoiding an iPod for so long was a good thing. With all my favourite music gathered into one conveniently portable device, it is now totally impossible for me to avoid acknowledging that my taste in music is not only dated but more than a little bit daggy.

We’re not talking reasonably main stream with a few quirky choices here. Nor am I redeemed by an overwhelming interest in a particular style of music. My preferences are just sadly out of touch with the modern music scene and, with the inclusion of some sentimental German folk music favourites, more than a little bit embarrassing.

Am I the only one out there with an entire iPod full of songs that would embarrass their children and/or partner should word ever get out? Anyone have a dedicated playlist with some deliberately downloaded “cool” songs just in case they need to play their iPod in public?

For the record, I will defend the inclusion of Herzilein by Die Wildecker Herzbuben on my iPod to the death. If you’re ever caught out and need some emergency music to schunkeln to, you’ll be sorry you didn’t heed my words of advice and grab a copy yourself. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Leave a comment and share your most tragic iPod song selections. I need the morale boost and trust me, I’m in no position to mock you.

Title: Parenting
Subtitle: A Practical Guide to Raising Preschool and Primary-School Children
Author: Kathy Walker
Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2010 (262 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-670-07422-8
Topic: Parenting, raising children

Summary (from publisher website)

Does your child have trouble settling at bedtime? Refuse to sit at the table for meals? Ignore you or argue when you say it’s time to turn off the TV?

Expert parenting and educational consultant Kathy Walker recognises that being a parent is one of the most rewarding jobs you will ever do but that it isn’t always easy. In this book she shows you how to create a calmer, more nurturing home environment for you and your children, and gives you her top strategies for managing challenging behaviour.
She helps you to understand your parenting style, and the reasons behind your child’s behaviour, and gives insightful tips on:
• setting up and maintaining routines
• promoting self-esteem and resilience
• communicating with your child

Using case studies and concrete examples, Kathy offers advice on handling everyday family situations such as constant fighting between siblings and hassling for the latest gadgets / a new pet / more pocket money, as well as challenges related to school, friendships and separated or blended families.

Down-to-earth and reassuring, this is the must-have guidebook for all Australian parents of preschool and school-age children.

Comments

I was recently chatting with Meredith from Oh, The Thinks You Can Think and Jayne from The Best of All Possible Worlds about the lack of resources for parents of primary school aged children. There are seemingly countless books on taking care of babies and toddlers as well as forums and resources online. Once kids hit puberty, the information is there once again with numerous guides to managing both the physical and emotional changes that occur during teenaged years.

Between toddlers and teens however, the information superhighway seems to morph into an isolated country lane which we travel along hoping that nothing breaks down leaving us stranded.

Not long after my conversation with Meredith and Jayne, Kathy Walker’s book Parenting appeared on my doorstep for review and it is just the type of book we were all saying that we needed.

With a very practical, down-to-earth approach, Kathy helps parents to tackle some of the parenting challenges specific to raising kids aged between 4 – 12 years. Issues include discussing what age is suitable to allow children to have their first sleepover or first mobile phone and how to manage sibling rivalry, requests for pocket money and homework dramas (and lots more). It also offers sensible advice children’s birthday parties, how much time is appropriate to spend watching TV & playing computer games and an appropriate bedtime routine.

The information takes into account different family structures and priorities, helping parents to assess what parenting style will work best for them and their family.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. With three primary-school aged children, it was wonderful to be reading a book that was relevant to what I was going through and the decisions I making with my children.

I appreciated the opportunity to chat with Kathy for my review of Parenting at Suite101. I particularly liked Kathy’s comments about stepping back from the whirlwind of social and extracurricular activities and then speaking positively about this when chatting to other parents at school and other activities to help create a “carpark chat” culture that reduces some of the sense of competition amongst parents and hopefully allows a more supportive and encouraging environment to develop.

I highly recommend this book for any Australian parents with children of this age.

Kathy Walker is an educational and parenting consultant and has further information available at her website at Early Life Foundations.

A few weeks ago I finally took the plunge and enrolled in a university degree. With my youngest child starting school in 2010, I’ve decided to tackle some of the challenges that have been on hold for the past few years.

I have enrolled in an Arts degree with Macquarie University online through the Open Universities website. All far too easy – click here, fill in this field and before you know it, you’re enrolled.

It has been a few years since I last attempted university studies. Although I know several women who have completed uni degrees while caring for their young children, I’ve never been able to find quite the right balance when the kids were young. I clearly remember sitting in a hospital bed the day after my younger son was born completing an assignment that was due at the end of the week and two months later trying to complete a three hour written exam while breast-feeding. Ahh, fun times indeed.

Now that all three of my children are at school, the plan is that I will have time during the day to complete my studies. Whether this will actually work remains to be seen. I am choosing to believe the university when they tell me I will only require 10 hours per week to complete all the necessary reading and assignments. After all, why would they lie to me?

I’m going to keep track of my progress at uni here on Reading Upside Down. The core subject stream for my degree is Critical and Cultural Studies and I’m looking forward to the interesting range of subjects included in both the degree and the range of electives I can choose. I’m starting out with one subject per term and the first subject is Text, Image & Culture which is due to start officially on the 1st March.

Wish me luck!

Title: Traditional Australian Verse
Editor: Richard Walsh
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2009 (308 pages)
ISBN: 978-1-74237-138-2
Genre: Poetry

Summary (publisher website)

The quintessential collection of Australian bush ballads, and songs ranging from the first verse written on our shores through the works of CJ Dennis, Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson and many more.

Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, CJ Dennis and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Once upon a time these were household names and Australians could recite their most famous verse. Here for the first time in one volume are all the great bush ballads, memorable songs and other poetry from the glory days of our bush tradition.
If you always wondered what came after ‘There was movement at the station…’ or ‘ We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan…’ then Traditional Australian Verse is the book for you. Here too are the original versions of Advance Australia Fair’ , Bound for Botany Bay’ and The Dog Sat on the Tucker Box’ , plus the bawdy version of The Bastard from the Bus’ .

To entertain and delight the newcomer and the traditionalist alike, this treasury offers equal parts merriment, calumny, lyricism and gentle melancholia.

Comments

As I read through these poems preparing to review this book, I wanted to grab my children and recite many of the poems to them. The works Walsh has collection reveal something of the Australian character that I would love my children to cherish – tenacity in the face of adversity, an ability to see beauty in a land where others saw simply hardship and unfamiliarity, an irrepressible sense of humour, intelligence and eloquence.

I do not generally feel a particular affinity to poetry but there is something incredibly appealing about the work of many of the bush poets, probably because of the humour and lack of pretence so evident in many of the poems.

If you’re looking for an introduction to early Australian poetry that offers just enough background information to put the poems in context, Traditional Australian Verse fits the bill perfectly.

Related links:

• Review of Traditional Australian Verse at Suite101.com

As much as I’d like to say I’ve been to London to visit the Queen, the closest I can get is I’ve been to Canberra to visit the Prime Minister. Well, not actually visit the Prime Minister. More like drive past the places where he lives and works when he is in Canberra – although in a totally non-stalking kind of way, of course.

Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.

Over the past two months I have been running around in circles (mentally and at times physically) dealing with end of school year commitments for my children, Christmas, New Year, school holidays, a family engagement and trying to convince my husband that not getting air conditioning installed is equivalent to spousal neglect.

Now that the kids have returned to school, Christmas is a vague memory and the weather is no longer so scorching hot that I feel like I’m melting, all of the above issues seemed to have resolved themselves and I can get back on track to begin posting regular reviews and updates here at Reading Upside Down. So, brace yourselves for some regular posts and a few minor changes in the layout and content here at Reading Upside Down. More details soon.

Harry Potter has been credited with many things – not always accurately. Turning kids onto reading and/or the Dark Arts, adding “muggle” to the lexicon, a rise in broom related injuries –  The Boy Who Lived is responsible for a lot of pop culture phenomena of the past decade.

Now I’ll come clean here and say that my family are massive fans of both the books and films. While we resist other child-targeted marketing with the jaded cynicism of Gen Xers who came of age to the tune of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, both my husband and I were as entranced by Harry as our kids are. And my favourite Potter legacy is that reading kids literature can be cool for adults as well.

So here are my favourite kids’ books that adults can enjoy:

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)- along with its follow up Catching Fire, The Hunger Games was a cracking read, with romance, action and suspense. I’m waiting with baited breath for the final instalment next year. At 11 my daughter is perhaps a little young for some of the themes, but I know she will find a wonderful heroine in Katniss when she is a little older.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – I started the first in this series with my daughter 3 years ago. We have slowly made our way through all thirteen in the trials and tribulations of the Baudelaire orphans, and are feeling a little crestfallen now we have finished. While I delighted in the word play and literary and cultural allusions, she loved the dark nature of the stories and the cliff-hanger endings.

The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) – The Jungle Book with ghosts! Beautifully written fantasy, this will be my holiday reading with my daughter. I’m sure she’ll love it as much as I did.

The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster) – I read this with my 9 year old son last year. I adored this book as a child, and was hoping that it would stand up to an adult re-reading. Oh yes – this geeky gal loved the puns and plays on words. Maths Boy particularly loved the Digitopolis scenes, with the number humour. Yes, we are a nerdy bunch.

Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer)- Oh is my little tech-head boy going to love these. I’ve read the first one and have the next three lined up in my “To Be Read” pile. Boy and I just started the first one last night – he can’t wait to get to the farting dwarf. Typical.

The Complete Winnie the Pooh (AA Milne) – That Pooh Bear was a clever fellow, and I’ve tried to live by many of his words: “We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.” And (one for Susan) “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?””

What kids books do you love?

Title: Lenny and the Big Red Kinan
Author/Illustrator: Faith Baisden
Publisher: Binanbar Books, 2008 (16 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-98053-591-4
Suitable Age: 3+

Summary (back cover)

Awabakal is the language of the Aboriginal people from the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Lower Hunter region of New South Wales in Australia. As Lenny takes his walk and collection insects, we learn some words that relate to the bush, to the landscape and the little creatures that would be found there.

Comments

I came across this book when I was helping my daughter research a school project on Aboriginal ceremonies and customs. We decided to focus on the ceremonies celebrated by the local Aboriginal people for our area, the Awabakals.

Our search for information led us to the Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association, where we also found this lovely little story book that features words of the Awabakal language in a simply story about a young boy taking a walk through the local bushland.

The story is very basic with Lenny taking his big red kinan (bag) with him on his walk so that he can collection interesting things to bring home to show his tankaan (mother).

The illustrations are stylised and bright, the text has a familiar, repetitive rhythm and the Awabakal words scattered throughout the story are clearly listed on each page. There is also a detailed pronunciation guide and a glossary listing of 61 words related to bushwalking.

My 5 year old son now insists on referring to any bag he sees as “kinan” and my daughter is keen to take this book to school to share with her class.

Lenny and the Big Red Kinan is a fantastic way to share the Awabakal language with children. The book itself is a great resource for students learning about the Aboriginal people, especially the Awabakals from the Newcastle area, and the glossary of words would assist students with writing their own bushwalk adventure as an extension task after reading the story.

Reading this story and helping with my daughter’s project research as highlighted how little I know about the Awabakal people. I must confess I am a little disappointed with this fact given that I was born and raised within the Awabakal lands. I’m looking forward to learning more now that I have discovered the wealth of resources available at the Arwarbukarl CRA.

Related Links
Review of Lenny and the Big Red Kinan at Suite101.com
I Am, You Are, We Are Australian post at Oh, The Thinks you can Think

Title: Ox-Tales: Earth, Air, Fire & Water
Author: Various
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN:
Earth – 978-184668-2582 (207 pages)
Air – 978-184668-2612 (208 pages)
Fire – 978-184668-2599 (206 pages)
Water – 978-184668-2065 (208 pages)
Genre: Short Stories

Summary (Profile Books website)

A major publishing event, Ox-Tales is a remarkable collaboration between Profile Books, the Hay Festival, Oxfam and 30 of the leading fiction writers based in Britain and Ireland.

The project launches with a set of four stunningly produced books, each containing eight original stories. Each book is themed on one of the elements – Earth, Fire, Air and Water – and features work from a dream cast of authors. The big idea is to raise money for Oxfam and along the way to highlight the charity’s work in project areas: agriculture in Earth, water projects in Water, conflict aid in Fire, and climate change in Air.

The four books will play a central role in the first ever Oxfam Book Fortnight, a new annual event launching in July 2009. The fortnight will be co-ordinated by Hay and bring together dozens of UK literary festivals, who are each being asked to put on one Oxfam event during the fortnight.

Comments

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship going with short stories. I often read for only 10 – 15 minutes and I enjoy being able to dip in and out of an anthology or book of short stories at times. On the other hand, I’m often left wanting more – more story, more character development, more information – and can be left feeling frustrated that I’ve only been given a snapshot when I want the whole photo album.

Having said that, I quite enjoyed this four book collection of short stories published as a fund-raiser for Oxfam. There were several authors that I hadn’t read before and I have now added several new names to my ‘must read’ list.

One of my favourites was Marti Leimbach’s Boy’s in Cars (in Ox-Tales: Earth) which I found quite touching, both as a mother and someone who has several friends with children with Austism Spectrum Disorder.

Other favourites included:

• Fieldwork (Ox-Tales: Earth) – Ian Rankin’s 200 word contribution
• The King Who Never Spoke (Ox-Tales: Fire) – John Le Carre
• The Jester of Astapovo (Ox-Tales: Earth) – Rose Tremain’s fictional account of the final days in the life of Leo Tolstoy.
• The Importance of Warm Feet (Ox Tales: Earth) – Marina Lewyca’s

In addition to the fantastic collection of short stories, each book begins with a poem by Vikram Seth and includes information about relevant aspects of the work done by Oxfam in developing countries.

This collection of books would make a great Christmas gift for any avid reader with the added benefit of supporting important Oxfam projects internationally.

Related Links

• Suite101 Review – Ox-Tales series
• Oxfam International
• OxfamDevelopment Projects highlighted in the books

Title: The Many Conditions of Love (Marriage Bureau for Rich People series #2)
Author: Farahad Zama
Publisher: Abacus, 2009 (308 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-349-12263-2
Genre: Popular Fiction/Romance

Summary

Can true love triumph in the face of fierce family opposition? Mr Ali’s marriage bureau is flourishing but trouble isn’t far away once son Rehman begins secretly to woo TV journalist Usha in the small cafes and on the beautiful beaches of South Indian Vizag in an ill-advised romance.

Meanwhile the lovely Aruna has a problem or two all her own. She enjoys being Mr Ali’s right-hand woman at the marriage bureau, having a wonderful husband Ram, and living in a mansion a far cry from her parents’ cramped one-room house; but how long can Aruna remain happy once her spiteful sister-in-law Mani comes home to stay?

When Usha’s father finds out about Rehman, a Muslim, the fat is in the fire. And what will Mr and Mrs Ali have to say when they discover too their son has been dating a non-Muslim?

Comments

I really enjoyed Zama’s first book, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People, and I was looking forward to reading this sequel. Generally speaking, I’m not a huge fan of frothy chick lit and what I love about this series is that it offers the relationships and social activity with enough information and more significant themes to keep me turning pages.

This book carries on smoothly from the first book in the series and there is such a diverse cast of characters and cultural issues to explore that I can see plenty of potential for further books.

If you’re looking for relaxing read with just enough substance to make it memorable, both The Marriage Bureau for Rich People and The Many Conditions of Love fit the bill perfectly. The great blend of personalities, humour, culture and deeper issues means I am looking forward to further books in this series with anticipation.

Related Links

• Farahad Zama author website
• Suite 101 review – The Marriage Bureau for Rich People
• Suite101 review – The Many Conditions of Love