• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Making It Up

as we go along

  • Home education: facts and contacts.
  • About me/contact.
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate links and disclosure policy.
    • Read52 – the challenge and the books.
  • Cookie Policy (UK)

Rebecca Elliott

From Skallagrigg to Wonder via Just Because, diverse disability books

30th October 2014 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

There was a great twitter chat tonight on the #SupportWNDB tags, focussing on disability representation in fiction. It got me thinking of the books I could bring to mind featuring disability or illness.

skallagrigg

Buy at amazon

(secondhand)

An old favourite is the Skallagrigg. Unites Arthur, a little boy abandoned many years ago in a grim hospital in northern England, with Esther, a radiantly intelligent young girl who is suffering from cerebral palsy, and with Daniel, an American computer-games genius I think this possibly does fall prey to the superpower compensatory principle, in which a disabled character has to have a balancing super attribute (radiantly intelligent v in wheelchair) but it’s one of the phew I can bring to mind which features multiple disabled characters, and there are no miracle cures. It’s a satisfying story, but not what you’d call a happy ending really. It’s stayed with me for years, so pretty powerful.

A series that cropped up in the chat is the Vorkosigan saga (amazon). Unusual in that they are SF featuring a character with a physical disability (series starts before his birth and is worth reading from the beginning), and while this situation changes throughout the series, there aren’t any easy miracle cures, despite the futuristic nature of the books. I have often highly recommended Lois McMaster Bujold books, and they always provide lots to think about, as well as being great ripping yarns – adventure stories that rocket along.

just because rebecca elliott

Buy at Amazon

Picture books – I love Just Because, and not only because we have a cherished signed version sitting on my cherished books shelf. This is a lovely story about siblings Toby and Clemmie, and what Toby thinks about his sister’s very special chair. It’s level headed and direct, in the way many children are, and for adults, knowing that these are the author’s own children might make it that little bit more special too.

In contemporary YA, Wonder is a book that is often mentioned. Born with a severe facial deformity, Augie has been homeschooled to protect him, but now his parents have decided it’s time for him to try school and getting along with other children. It’s heart warming, and well worth reading the Julian Chapter (review) too. (And keep an eye on blog, I’ve a Wonder related giveaway coming very soon.)

Invisible disabilities are sometimes more difficult to feature. Autism hit the headlines with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Amazon) which went down well with Small, but grates slightly for me – but then again I’m not a teenage autistic boy, so who am I to say whether it is realistic or not? It is, after all, meant to be fiction, and not all fiction can speak to all people.

By contrast, Whisper by Chrissie Keighery(amazon) felt painfully close to the mark. I’m half deaf – I should wear a hearing aid but I gave up when Big was born, as artifically enhanced baby screaming was just too much to cope with. (I really should go and get tested for a digital aid, I understand they are a lot better at only amplifying the speech sounds, and not the background as well.) Anyway, this means that total hearing loss feels like a very plausible thing for me, and it’s an utterly terrifying idea, so this novel about a girl dealing with precisely that hit close to home. Reviewed by Alison here.

Mockingbird(Amazon) is a complicated book, in which the protagonist’s sibling died in a school shooting. She has Asperger’s and is struggling to process the death of someone close to her. Reviewed back in 2012 and I can’t actually remember what I said! Might go back and look. The review was long before my own Asperger’s diagnosis.

One last one crept into my mind as I was wrapping up. Child of Silence is the first in a series of books featuring a Child Abuse investigator called Bo Bradley who has bipolar disorder. Again, this is something I have no personal experience of, but I remember quite clearly the lyrical descriptions in this book of sliding in and out of a shared reality, and they’ve stayed with me. Probably enhanced by the fact that the child in question is deaf (not blowing too much of the story there I hope) which gave me a connection with the story too.

So there you have it. A completely non comprehensive and very subjective list of books that seem to me to be diverse, but with a disability focus. What have I missed that absolutely should be featured? Let me know.

Tweet

Filed Under: Book club Tagged With: aspergers., autism, Bo Bradley, diverse books, Just Because, Rebecca Elliott, skallagrigg, SupportWNDB, Wonder

Read 52 – books for children from Templar books

15th March 2013 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

A reading challenge from https://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup

The background: I’ve challenged Big to read 52 books this year. She will probably be mentioning them over here on her blog. I’m also going to have a crack at reading at least 52 books myself, and more importantly, I’m going to keep track of what books I’m reading to the little ones. I’m going to do all of that in a weekly post, and I’ve also set up a google plus community which you’re very welcome to join. (If you need an invitation, leave me a comment using relevant email address – which will stay hidden.)

This week I don’t seem to have had much time to read for myself. But in keeping with my aim to do more things particularly with the younger children, today has been a Big Reading Day.

I was lucky enough on twitter the other day to win a competition to win a parcel of goodies from Templar Publishing. I had no idea at the time I won what a fabulous selection they had to choose from! And the books were sent out by UPS so they got here really quickly. Smallest was thrilled with Naked Trevor from Rebecca Elliott and Sidney, Stella and the Moon, a debut picture book from Emma Yarlett. Both Tim and I have had to read about Trevor (including his naked bottom!), and I’ve read about the Moon three times now. I can see that becoming a firm favourite. It’s a simple story, about siblings who struggle with sharing and accidentally break the moon, and it’s beautifully illustrated, with lots going on in the pictures that you can talk about. As we read the front page she asked me why there were two Os there, so we talked about how you write Moon, and then you get to a page where one of the Os is broken, so that led to a good discussion too.

The real hit of the parcel though was the book for Tigerboy. Touch and Play is described on the website as an activity centre, and they aren’t wrong. Every page has got inviting textures, colours, and pictures. Tigerboy adores it – he shakes it to hear the rattle and has already identified his favourite page, with the squeaky black nose on the teddy bear. I’ve got pictures, but because my phone was charging they’re on Tim’s, so I’ll add them in tomorrow.

So, given today’s post has been all about the children’s books, I think it had better be a children’s book competition. What’s your favourite children’s book? Can be one from your childhood, or one you read to your children now, I don’t mind. But leave me a comment letting me know. The prize will be either a picture book or YA book, depending on what the bookshop down the road has in that I like the look of – I’ll update the post during the week with a title.

The competition closes next Thursday 21 March at midnight so that I can announce the winner next Friday. And you can have an extra entry for sharing this post, using the badge or joining the linky with your own Read52 post – but you must leave an extra comment for each thing you’ve done, telling me what it is. As I’m doing the posting, I’m afraid it’s only open to UK – but if you’re international and happy to arrange to have it posted on you can do that – I’m only sending to a UK address. Draw will be made using the lovely plugin and the winner is, which relies on separate comment entries.

Grab the badge

Enter the linky.

Last week’s winner was Anne-Marie from Child Led Chaos – congratulations!

Tweet

Filed Under: Book club, giveaway, It's where it is, review Tagged With: Emma Yarlett, Naked trevor, Rebecca Elliott, Sidney stella and the moon, Templar books, Touch and Play

FridayReadAlouds – Author Feature: Rebecca Elliott

4th March 2011 by Jax Blunt 1 Comment

A couple of things have come together recently to inspire this post, which I hope is going to be the first in a series. First of all, as part of my 100 books challenge, I was sent Cub’s First Winter by Rebecca Elliott, from Top That! Publishing. As a result, I found one BecElliott on twitter and got chatting.

Also on twitter, there’s a meme called FridayReads hosted by TheBookMaven. I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to do a FridayReadAlouds – picture books, chapter books, books to share with families, books that need to be savoured.

So here you are, just squeaking in on a Friday, the inaugural FridayReadAlouds post, and I’m starting with an author feature on Rebecca Elliott. Rebecca has three picture books out atm, and more in the pipeline, and her books are absolutely luscious, the pictures just welcome you in and envelope you.

The stories are simple, but the use of language eloquent – I particularly like the narrative in Just Because, narrated by a little boy, about his very special big sister and her special chair. It’s a sensitively told story about a little girl with special needs and is a wonderful introduction for children who might not have come across this type of situation before.

Milo’s Pet Egg is beautiful too, though the story is not an unfamiliar one. I enjoyed the illustrations a lot, and I’m guessing Smallest did, as I had to read it three times in a row the first time I picked it up, and several times since too.

And so to the interview – as I had quite a few questions, I’m going to just give you a couple here, and finish the rest off next week. If you’ve any questions you’d liked to put to Rebecca, please stick them in the comments box.

Jax: How did you get into illustrating/ writing – was it a lifetime dream – did you want to do this as a little girl?

Rebecca: A recently unearthed school project entitled “All About Me’ which I created at the tender age of 6 has in it the not unpretentious line “When I grow up I want to be a writer and a artist”. I remember endlessly boring my long-suffering family with stories I had written about rabbits wearing flat caps and aliens flying around in suitcases. This ambition never truly died, although it did take some knocks along the way, and now, many years later, I find I have to pinch myself because it seems this long running daydream of mine is finally coming true.

It was by a rather scrappy route that I find myself here though – I’ve met many illustrators who, fresh out of their Illustration degree were picked up by a publisher at their final degree exhibition and go on immediately to big things in the picture book world. Not me though, my degree was in Philosophy. Why? Why not. And indeed it’s that kind of insightful clever reasoning that got me through the degree. Anyhoo, at University I also took some ‘wild’ courses in digital design, which in turn got me into designing the university magazine, which in turn got me into using Photoshop and Illustrator, which in turn got me into digital artwork. Soon enough I found that childhood ambition rising in me again and I spent hours and hours trawling the internet for advice on putting together a children’s book illustration portfolio.

I graduated and started working in an excruciatingly dull office job which served to fuel my ambition to break out of the bland and into the world of children’s illustration. So I continued to work on my digital illustration style and sent off various book ideas and samples to publishers. When I look back at these embarrassingly inept samples now it’s so very very painful – not to mention inexplicable that I considered them publishable. The publishers I sent them to, of course, shared my current opinion that they were, at best, laughable excuses of incompetent daubings and I have a file full of rejection letters to prove it. But I didn’t give up and slowly my samples got a little better and eventually some work for a couple of mass-market publishers came trickling in.

Luckily I’m married to an extremely supportive husband and a year after graduating I gave up the dull office job and went full-time freelance. I meandered along for some time with my mass-market work but it was without doubt my partnership with the then fledgeling Bright Agency a couple of years later that finally gave my career the push it so desperately needed. With their help I worked and worked on my style and eventually gave up the digital illustration in favour of getting down and dirty with some real paints.I’ve been illustrating books now for around 9 years but my true ambition of writing the books as well as illustrating them only became a reality last year when three of my books were published in August – Just Because, Cub’s First Winter and Milo’s Pet Egg. I have two more coming out in May/June this year and more in the pipe line. I am one extremely fortunate lady.

Jax: Were you good at art at school?

Rebecca:I’ve always loved art – as did my two siblings although it’s a little inexplicable because neither of my parents were at all arty. And because I drew all the time, in school and out, I guess I was pretty good at it. My artwork at GCSE level was quite strange though, when my parents walked in to the final exhibition show the teacher sidled up to them and said, ‘Just look for the weird pictures’ – and sure enough amongst the gentle paintings of flowers and sparrows were my disturbing offerings involving tree-like hands growing out the ground holding bulging eyeballs. I clearly have issues.

It’s amazing how many people I meet now who tell me they used to love art at school but haven’t done it in years – and I never understand why. Don’t let the kids have all the fun – if you loved art at school chances are you still would now so go pick up a paintbrush, do that potato print, make something out of a toilet roll. Go on, you know you want to.

***

And it’s me again. That’s fabulous advice to end with for this week, whether you loved art at school or outside of it 🙂 I’m going to leave the interview here for now, but please, I’d love to know what you think of Rebecca’s work, and of this series, and most of all, I’d love to know what you’re reading aloud to your children. Please let me know – comments box, via twitter, or on your own blogs, and drop me a link.

small print – affiliate links in this post are assigned to the 100 book challenge fundraising account. And if I can track down where we’re up to, I’ll add these two books to the list! ETA These are books 72 and 73 🙂

Tweet

Filed Under: 100 book challenge, It's where it is Tagged With: 100 book challenge, 100books, Cub's First Winter, FridayReadAlouds, Just Because, Milo's Pet Egg, Rebecca Elliott, top that publishing

Cub's First Winter #100books

24th January 2011 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

Cub’s First Winter by Rebecca Elliott was sent free of charge by the publishers Top That! Publishing to support our 100 Books Challenge.

This is a lusciously illustrated storybook about winter, which has a mother fox explaining the season to her curious cub as they enjoy a last forest walk on the first day of winter. There are kind of two strands to each page – one is a question and answer between the foxes, and the other is a description of the weather, from the first snowflake falling, through to the snow getting deeper and deeper. There is even a moment of mild peril when we wonder if they will make it safely back through the white wintry landscape to their warm den.

I love the illustrations in this book, although they don’t seem to have held my toddler daughter’s attention in the same way as some simpler books. I would guess that this book would suit a slightly older child, perhaps around 3 or 4, who is beginning to notice the changes in the world around them and this could be used as a starting point for discussion. Equally it would work well as part of a season table or set of books themed around the changing seasons in a nursery setting.

Book 21 of 100. [Read more…] about Cub's First Winter #100books

Tweet

Filed Under: 100 book challenge Tagged With: 100BookChallenge, 100books, Build a library, OxfamUnwrapped, Rebecca Elliott, top that publishing

Primary Sidebar

This site contains affiliate links.

Archives

Categories

Affiliate search on bookshop

Footer

Copyright © 2022 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimise our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Preferences
{title} {title} {title}