Einin with one of my favorite toys from when I was little: a plush horse named Silky.

While Kaili was playing tea party with Alice and the Mad Hatter, Aidin was spying on her through the window.

So this week on Top Ten Tuesday we are listing out favourite characters in whatever genre we choose! Predictably I have chosen fantasy because I LOVE fantasy! Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Richard Mayhew from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere – I love Richard, particularly because he is a normal guy living in London with a fiancée and a career and then he is thrown into this world that is dangerous and magical and just so cool. I particularly love Richard because in fantasy it’s normally children/teens that go to mysterious worlds and its great to see an adult reaction to something COMPLETELY out of the ordinary.
2. David from John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things – I LOVE David’s journey through the book – from grieving young boy to brave almost man!
3. September from Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books – One of my favourite characters of all time, September is brave, funny and not afraid to stick up for what is right. And she has a too die for name!
4. Lyra from Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – Lyra is a scruffy, unwashed tomboy who slightly (and embarrassingly) reminds me of myself when I was a kid.
5. Link from Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia’s Beautiful Creatures – I love that he still talked to Lena and Ethan even when no one else would.
6. Anna from Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood – a murderous ghost who has a horrible past and falls in love with a ghost hunter? PERFECT!!
7. Bilbo Baggins from J. R. R Tolkien’s The Hobbit – The original reluctant adventurer and, in my eyes, the best. An icon in the fantasy genre.
8. Neville Longbottom from J K Rowling’s Harry Potter – From standing up to his friends in the first book, to standing up to Voldemort in the last Neville is really brave and courageous, even if he can never remember anything!
9. Percy Jackson from Rick Riordan’s Olympians – He’s cute, funny and saves the world again and again and he’s not even twenty!
10. Miss Cavendish from Claire Legrand’s The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls – I know she’s a villain – but she’s such a delightful creepy villain that I just had to include her!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks top tens! I have!!

Laura

Neely prentending to be in Upside Down World today.

Kess, Julian, Nell and Finn played a game of Cornhole today.  It was boys against girls. :0)

Lots of children, parents, Towner staff, volunteers and I made this yesterday as part of the BBC ‘Your Paintings’ Project.
It was made in response to the murky and mysterious Christopher Le Brun painting ’February 1982′  on show at Towner in Eastbourne. Apparently Le Brun made  the painting through intuitively working from a random mark. In a similar way children began from a randomly shaped and painted piece of cardboard and worked with what the shapes suggested to them.Our enchanted forest will be on show at Towner  until next Friday. Please come and see if you can.
Photos of everyone’s work below – participants are very very welcome to download and print out photos of their work. Thanks to everyone who helped and made this beautiful installation.

Thanks to everyone who helped and made the amazing work. xx

Aidin seems to have caught a cold and Einin has decided to nurse him.  I think she may feel bad for that whole bad hair do thing she gave him a few weeks ago… ;0)

City Shopper Barbie available at Target.  I’ve been wanting her for some time now and took the plunge today.  I wish she was articulated but other than that I’m very happy with her :0)

Kaili went fairy hunting today. :0)

On Valentine’s Day, Kess was home alone with Puff when they heard a knock on the door.  Puff barked happily in anticipation of a visitor, but Kess was puzzled; she wasn’t expecting anyone.
Just as she reached for the door knob a white envelope was slid under the door.  Puff sniffed curiously at it and Kess picked it up and carried it to her bed.  She sat down and examined it.  On the front was just her name printed neatly in all capital letters accompanied by two red hearts.  On the back, another heart had been drawn.  Carefully she opened the envelope and found a deep red card with a gold heart on the front. She opened the card and all it said inside was:
BE MINE
~S
Kess was puzzled.  She had no idea who ‘S’ might be.  Should she be flattered by a shy and secret admirer or should she be worried that this person may have not so honorable intentions?

Can you guess whose toes these are?….

:0)

First published December 2012 on The Speculative Salon.

At fifteen I was 5’8”, all knees and elbows, with a big mane of dyed red hair and army boots half way up my calf. I had started to learn the cello only a couple of years earlier. I was 12th (last) cello in the county youth orchestra, sandwiched awkwardly between the double basses and a gaggle of tiny eight year old cellists all far more accomplished players than me.

Consequently I felt ever so slightly conspicuous as I guessed at tuning my instrument, struggled to find my place in the score, and fudged my way through rehearsal after rehearsal. Despite a week’s intense practice I didn’t get much better, and my confidence plummeted. I was so worried about playing the wrong thing and ruining the piece, that when it came to the eventual performance at Buxton Opera House I mimed through most of it.

I gave up the cello shortly after that. I have grudgingly had to accept that I am just not a musical person. No one in my family is musical. Words are our thing. And food.

The Power To Mesmerise

Music seems a kind of magic to me. It has the power to mesmerise; to alter moods; to bring exultation or despair, or unlock hidden memories. It is wreathed in a strange coded language that I don’t understand. Allegro con molto means as much to me as Abracadabra.

Those who are musically gifted seem very mysterious. I view them with a mixture of admiration, envy, and a sort of distrust – they must be witches! How else could they control and harness that amazing power, and bend it to their will?

I feel it as a terrible loss in my life that I’m not musical. I love music – all kinds of music. But I don’t understand it in the least. What is a fugue? A partita? A canon? A gigue? What is the difference between a rhapsody and a fantasy? A concerto and a symphony? What makes something a prelude? Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun always confused me. I expected there to be a longer piece called ‘The Afternoon of a Faun.’ There isn’t.

When I used to sit at the back of the orchestra I couldn’t hear myself play. I had no idea how to pick my own sound out from the multitude of sounds around me. I had no idea if I was in tune, or if I was in time…

The ability to make music; to create one beautiful sound and then to weave it around other sounds, and to build a coherent, wonderful whole seems hardly less astonishing to me than the ability to move objects with the power of the mind.

Given this wonder and envy, it is perhaps not surprising that I have allied music with magic in much of my writing. In Darklands, Inkling is a powerful magician with a particular affinity for music. But he doesn’t play a violin, a flute or a piano. He plays the wind. He plays the dry grasses and the branches of trees. He sends the wind whistling around sculpted rocks, creating fluttering arpeggios. He conjures a soft, shushing rhythm from the treetops, and a mournful, clattering tune from living bamboo.

In my work in progress, a musician unwittingly exerts power over the ghostly protagonist, Kikimora. Her magical powers weaken whenever she hears him play, and she becomes visible to humans – which causes problems for them both.

His Inhuman Skill

Music has a long history of association with the uncanny, the fae, the devilish. One of the best known and most evocative examples must be the Pied Piper bewitching the children of Hamlin with his playing, and leading them astray. Celtic lore has fairies closely tied with musicians, particularly pipers. Musicians are far more likely than other mortals to be taken to fairy land.

Some, such as the blind 17th century harpist, Turlough O’Carolan, were said to acquire their musical prowess after spending a night on the fairy knoll.

This echoes the story of the violinist, Nicolo Paganini, widely believed to have sold his soul to the devil in return for his inhuman skill and virtuosity. Early Blues musician Robert Johnson was similarly said to have sold his soul to the Devil – down at the Crossroads.

Both of these musicians knew a good story when they heard one, and they played up the unearthly aspect of their personas – Paganini by growing long wings of hair, and dressing all in black, Robert Johnson by singing such songs as Hellhound on my Trail, Me and the Devil, and Crossroads Blues.

And let’s not forget the role music has played in religion down the ages, from Gregorian chants, via plainsong, liturgy and mass, to American gospel music and beyond. Would religion grip the hearts and souls of so many without the uncanny power of music in its arsenal?

To Muddle And Misplace

Some music is so evocative of a certain time, mood or place that just hearing a short passage transports you instantly back there. Much of our unconscious musical associations come from film and TV. There is a certain type of English romantic music (typified by Vaughn-Williams’ The Lark Ascending) which never fails to make me yearn for an idyllic rural past that probably never existed. This is thanks to its use in countless period dramas on TV: Tess of the D’urbervilles; the Mill on the Floss, Precious Bane.

Another well used piece is the thrillingly dramatic Carmina Burana, which conjures everything from King Arthur’s knights riding into battle (Excaliber) to demonic murder (The Omen) to sexual ecstacy (The Doors).

Powerful music has the ability to imprint a mood into your soul; a mood which can be instantly recalled by hearing the music again. On a more humdrum level this is demonstrated when we hear music from our youth and become misty eyed over all the memories and associations it brings back – even music you didn’t like at the time.

When I was sixteen Brit-pop was all the rage; everyone loved Oasis – but I thought they were boring and whiny and not a patch on Sonic Youth or Pixies. I hear Oasis now and I don’t remember how I used to complain about them and groan and roll my eyes. I remember how it felt to be sixteen, and think that the world was my oyster; to not wake up every morning with back ache; to be full of hope and dreams and chutzpah that hadn’t yet been tempered by dusty reality…

But hang on – is that really what it was like? Or is the music fooling me? Didn’t I spend much of my teenage years paranoid and miserable? Didn’t I spend long hours obsessing about my intense ugliness, the dullness of my life, and dreaming that one day things would be better?

Music can deceive. It can muddle and misplace, and convince you of things that never were.

It can also inspire. Artists of every sort find inspiration in music. Marcus Sedgwick has described how Midwinter Blood is based on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. My above-mentioned work in progress, Kikimora, was directly inspired by a ‘fairytale for orchestra’ of the same name by Anatoly Lyadov.

Magic

Music can be mind-altering, reality-altering. It can affect the listener mentally, physically and spiritually. It can transport you through time and space. It can unlock memories long forgotten; it can sometimes trick us into believing things that never happened.

If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

This post was first published in December 2012 on The Speculative Salon. I have reproduced it here as I have something to add.

Thanks to Howard Goodall’s excellent Story of Music I now do know the difference between a symphony and a concerto,* and much more besides! If you haven’t seen the six part BBC TV series, I thoroughly recommend looking it up. Goodall is excellent at explaining musical concepts. Admittedly some of it goes over my head a bit. But then, so do books about string theory and the quantum universe. I read them anyway, because each time I try to understand I get a bit closer to actually doing so.

Howard Goodall, I salute you!

* A concerto showcases one particular instrument with the rest of the orchestra as backup.

1. Liesel and Rudy from The Book Thief – This book is SO great, if you haven’t read it please do! I love the little romance in this book because it perfectly captures that time when boys are mean because they like you and kisses are a big deal! Also is anyone else freaking out about the upcoming movie adaptation!?? I am very very excited for it.
2. Tris and Four from Divergent – One of my favourite couples, and another upcoming movie! Four is one of my main literary crushes, and I cannot wait to see where there relationship goes in book 3.
3. Hazel and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars - AHGRHHHHH is all I have to say about this relationship. Heartbreaking
4. This list wouldn’t be complete without a little HP action; Hermione and Ron from Harry Potter – I LOVE this couple, Ron and Hermione are my favourite couple from HP – they have so much chemistry and I am a little bit fangirl over them!
5. September and Saturday from The Fairyland Series – such a sweet innocent relationship that will hopefully grow with the series.
6. Lena and Ethan from Beautiful Creatures – A great YA love story, Ethan is swoon worthy and I AM SO EXCITED FOR MY VALENTINES DATE WITH HIM
7.  Celia and Marco from The Night Circus – A forbidden romance with magic – PERFECT
8. Lyra and Will from the His Dark Materials – Another, kind of tragic, romance between two kids from two different worlds – beautifully written by Phillip Pullman.
9. Tristran and Yvaine from Stardust – Beautiful, fairy tale romance between a Victorian boy and a star.
10. Buttercup and Westley from The Princess Bride – a great novel, with a great pair of star crossed lovers to boot!!

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my Top Ten Tuesday this week and I hope you have a lovely valentines day!!

Laura

Other fantasy series have their own ways of differentiating magical lands from ordinary ones. Piers Anthony uses “Mundania” in his Xanth books, although I don’t believe he invented it. Bill Willingham’s Fables comics have the Fables using the similar “Mundy.” In Harry Potter’s wizarding world, non-magical folk are called Muggles. There’s often a sense of insult inherent in these terms, as when generic space aliens call us “Earthlings.” Incidentally, the word “Earthling” was apparently first used in this sense by Robert Heinlein in 1949, but it previously existed as a way to refer to mortals as opposed to the inhabitants of Heaven. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me. Ozites sometimes use “Earth person” to refer to people from the Outside World, as seen when Ugu the Shoemaker calls Dorothy an “Earth girl.” This designation is a bit odd, however, as Baum usually presented Oz as part of our Earth. A magical part, yes, but the idea that it’s in some other universe or dimension is a considerably more recent one. Jared Davis addresses this subject in his post on Oz as other-world. I think this might reflect the time in which Baum wrote more than anything else, as an unexplored part of our globe would have been easier to accept in the early twentieth century than it is today. Also, if you’re considering the Thompson books, she introduces another whole continent in Captain Salt. Wherever its physical location, however, Oz is definitely a fairyland, both in the sense of being magical and of having been enchanted by fairies.

Sisters of course!

Kaili has been busy in the kitchen.

Kaili is thrilled that she and her favorite Lalaloopsy have matching pajamas.  Well…. almost ;0)

Valentine’s Day Lalaloopsy Target exclusive.  Found in the Valentine’s Day section with all the candy.

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Omnomnom! ;0)

Kess & Julian Tangled

I have recently finished reading Catherynne M. Valente’s current Fairyland books, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making  and its sequel The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and led the Revels there; I was sucked into them to the extent that, even though I had other books to read, between finishing the first one and the release of the second I could not read another book. I was so involved in Fairyland that I had to read the next one before I read anything else. And so I pre-ordered the sequel and squealed in excitement when it arrived.

I really enjoy these books.

Not many series that I have read recently have concrete endings to each of their titles so I was pleasantly surprised after reading the first and learning that it did, in fact, end. The same is true of the second. But that is not the point of this entry, neither is fawning over these books. Well, maybe it is a little bit.

It is in reading these books, and beginning the book I am reading currently, that I realised something about myself (and perhaps about children/young adults and publishing along with it). After my frolic through Fairyland, I picked up China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun and I am completely in love with that too. It was in my love of that and my ideas for my Major Project (which were also floating around at the time) when a thought struck: my favourite books, and even films, are mostly about unsuspecting men/women/children (but mostly children) being swept away and taken somewhere else, somewhere fantastical.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Stardust, Coraline, C.S.Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan, L.Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart Trilogy, John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things. 

Labyrinth, Pan’s Labyrinth, MirrorMask, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ink, The 10th Kingdom, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (in all of its screen incarnations, though I’ve not yet seen them all, but particularly the National Ballet version, at the moment), the list could go on.

My reading (and film-watching) life is immersed in tales of ordinary (or seemingly ordinary) people being taken to wondrous places. It’s an archetype which never fails to impress and inspire me. Why? It’s nice to imagine that things like that can happen to normal people, though, saying that all of the characters are in some way ‘chosen’, except perhaps Deeba in Un Lun Dun who ends up where she is out of loyalty to her friend (or possibly being too scared of going back home in the dark…). So maybe it’s nice to imagine that you could be chosen if being chosen and taken to some magical place was a thing which existed.

It seems to work for publishers too, there is so much that can be done with these stories that it’s hard to find fault in the release of a new one. The fact that it took me so long to realise my very obvious reading trend is credit to the ability of authors to make them unique (I am 2 months shy of 22 and have been reading for most of my life). With the sheer number of such stories, it’s clear that children like them too. What’s better than to imagine you’ve been pulled into an adventure by a wind in a dashing green jacket or that you’ve wished your brother be taken away by the Goblin King (even if you later realise that it wasn’t the best idea to do so)?

These are stories which don’t become boring and, while it’s a trend, they’re nothing like the paranormal boom of the last few years. These are slow things, steady things, pushing themselves forward until they’re in exactly the right place on the bookshelf for little (and not-so-little) hands to reach.

In the spirit of sharing (in which this spirit is selfish and one-sided, he has no left half, it’s very strange), if anyone has any favourite books, films or tv shows with similar themes, leave a comment! And with that, I flee to have my own adventure, which involves making my throat feel better by drinking orange squash. It’s not going to work but I’m going to enjoy it anyway.

Make me some boots!…. Please :0)

The PukiFee Crew in their hats today.  I didn’t realize they all had a hat- some more than one!

Aidin has found my NaNoWriMo Project and has decided he’d like to add a few things…