On the first day of September, my true love sent to me - well, perhaps not my true love, although 'Mother Nature's Goodies' does happen to be one of my favourite suppliers - Two Bottles of Liquid Castile, one bottle of Rosewater and the start of a new regime! I've been reading ebooks by Alison May (The Vintage Housekeeper, whose lovely blog can be found at brocantehome.net) and picking up ideas for making my life a little more 'pretty', while ensuring that Kevin doesn't feel like he is living in an antique shop (or a 'tart's boudoir', as he might well put it).
I have also spent this summer pottering around - reading my set books, anxiously waiting for exam results, submitting three poems to a magazine competition. As far as the latter goes, I was unsuccessful, as it turns out - which is a shame as they were offering a £500 prize for work by a poet who had never been published before.
As I have said before, I have chosen EA300 - Childrens' Literature for my penultimate module and this has meant a summer spent reading childrens' books - what could be better? I started with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and then moved on to Philip Pullman's wonderful Northern Lights. I had read both of them before, but thought it as well to do so again. I then moved on to Little Women and Good Wives, followed by Treasure Island before reading something that I had never read before - Swallows and Amazons. I loved this book - wondered why I had never read it before.
I then went back to following the order in which the books will be read once the module starts and read the 100 Best Poems for Children and I re-read Tom's Midnight Garden before looking at the two picture books, Voices in the Park and The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
The next few books dealt with some difficult themes - Coram Boy, with its heartbreaking story of abandoned babies and an unscrupulous child collector, all woven together with the true story of Captain Coram and his Foundling Hospital. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry which deals with racism and inequality in 1930s USA, Then The Other Side of Truth - the story of a Nigerian girl and her brother who, following their mother's murder, are sent by their activist journalist father to their uncle in the UK, what happens when they cannot find him and are caught up in the asylum system. Finally, there is Melvin Burgess' controversial Junk, which I still need to read. I also have the option of reading Mortal Engines as an alternative to Coram Boy.
The final book was Buffalo Soldier - this year's Carnegie Medal winner, usually selected as an option for the EMA. I found this to be an engaging read - the author (Tanya Landman) covered many of the questions that would come to mind when reading about a young girl posing as a boy - such as how she dealt with needing to use the latrine and how she coped with her periods.
At the time of writing, I am still waiting for my module materials to arrive - we get the text for Barrie's play, Peter Pan, as well as two critical readers. The despatch date was supposed to be 4th September but it can be up to ten days from this.
As a side note, one of my fellow A230 students graduated at Exeter Cathedral on Friday - Congratulations, Steph Lott - and seeing her in her gown brought home to me how close I now am to gaining my degree. Hopefully, that will be me in September 2017!
