So I’ve decided, rather than letting Ms Moonlightquill go to waste, I would rehash, reinvent and revive her as my new personal blog. I’ll just post fun stuff on here that I’m interested in, or am looking at during the week. It should kind of follow the same vein as my previous entries, but will instead now be good practise for my writing skills. The audience, you, will be a bit more general than before; rather than encourage high schoolies to read, I’ll encourage friends and friends I haven’t met to read.

Cheers! Here’s to a continuation of the blog!

I know ‘Burtonesque’ is not an adjective, but I think it should be.

Let’s face it, I’m a romantic at heart, and I just love regressing to my teen years (which incidentally were spent in paranoid terror of being seen as a nerd. Duh.) and getting that feeling of endless possibilities: which is something I can sense in characters in YA fiction too.  Plus, YA fiction is becoming deeper, more articulate and more interesting than some of the adult fiction I’ve sat down to read lately.

I’m also looking forward to churning through a couple of the CBCA short listed fiction for this year. My tip for the winner of the Older Readers award is Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia which is a gorgeous book that I absolutely adore. Shaun Tan is a very, very talented man

Hurrah for teens! Hurrah for YA fiction and the continuation of brilliant reads for teens (and me!)

We’re open on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon for homework centre, but we have been decidedly short of punters of late. I thought that perhaps students needed a little bit of incentive to come along.

I got myself a big plastic tub, a box of tea, a tin of chocolate powder, sugar packets and two boxes of biscuits which were on sale. All up I spent about eighteen dollars, the majority of which was the plastic tub. 

The first week we had about three students,  one of whom had to be there as part of a suspension agreement. I fed them with hot chocolates and biscuits. The next week we had five students, and last week we had a record eight students. Let’s see how this week goes- word is out that I have Tim Tams this week.

What a simple and easy way to get kids working! And it’s not bribery, it’s diplomacy!

It was wonderful to see our workshop going well, with a lot of students focused and sharing ideas for a creative project. If you are one of the lucky schools who has a visit with Richard booked for the future, enjoy!

Not sure about Eric for the role of Henry deTamble- a friend of mine and I agreed a while ago that Christian Bale was a much more haunted and therefore appropriate option- but we shall see.

The release date in Australia is 5th November at this stage. November is shaping up to be movie month!

In the mean time I guess I’ll just have to hang out for the next Harry Potter.

It just makes my nerdy heartstrings twang.

The prospect once this day is over is much more daunting. Presenting the idea of using these tools in the class room to my colleagues at school. But I can see how important it is for everyone to get on board especially with the new laptops coming in a matter of weeks.

The students need something that they can contribute to and feel is worthy or at least worthwhile learning about.

One of our activities is to create an edublog, so I have here, and I’m planning on making it just about books. So this blog will be big picture, cool tools and interesting pop culture and the books will be at bookgeek.

My next tool I’m going to work on is a wiki. So I’m off to learn about them, and I’ll blog again later hopefully with a great link.

New Moon teaser

Enjoy! Can’t wait to see this one…

I got to page 264 and there was no more! The disappointment was intense. Knowing how this draft got released, makes it even more disappointing, knowing that we may never hear the rest. I would have preferred to wait for the shiny, polished, published story.

What is it that makes these characters so appealing? They are Mr Darcy and Miss Bennett reworked for sure, but there’s that fabulous extra dimension to them which makes their story all the more compelling.  Edward is a fascinating character too- I thought after reading Twilight he was a picture of Darcy-esque reserve. Now after reading Midnight Sun I’ve seen through all of that into a person who is squirming, agonising and emoting much more than his outward appearance would suggest. Plus you get that wonderful element of seeing Bella for who she actually is, not how she sees herself.

*sigh* When will Ms Meyer publish it? Unfortunately, it might never be. Until then I wait with baited breath for New Moon to be released in November.