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The long list from which this year’s Man Booker Prize winner will be chosen, has been announced.

It is…

Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold – Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry – The Secret Scripture
John Berger – From A to X
Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif -  A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher – The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill - Netherland
Salman Rushdie – The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
Steve Toltz  – A Fraction of the Whole

It’s good to see two Australians on the list – Michelle de Kretser(below left) and Steve Toltz (below right). A Fraction of the Whole is his first novel.

The short list will be revealed on the 9th September and the winner announced on the 14 October.

Mrs Sweeney

Images: http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/downloads/Reading_Victoria/de_kretser_michelle_lost_dog.jpg 31/7/08

http://www.australianfestival.com/images/SteveToltzCPrudenceUpton.png 31/7/08

I thought this was a good book, although it was rather short. I recommend it to other young readers. 

Voldemort HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Lets do some fun poems! Put some poems in like the example:

There once was a man called Bill.

His best friends were jack and jill.

One sunny day,

They went out to play,

And fell down a great big hill.

Have fun!

Bunks

You’ve all written book reviews. Have you written Haiku – the traditional form of Japanese poetry written in 3 lines; the first line with 5 syllables, the second line with 7 syllables, and the third line with 5 syllables?

Here’s your chance to combine your skills. Try writing a book review in Haiku form.

eg. Mutiny on the Bounty by John Boyne

Fourteen year old John

Caught up in a mutiny

Will he live or die?

Add your haiku to the comments on this post, and I’ll publish the really good ones as posts in their own right. A prize for the best one will be awarded during the last week of term.

(Apologies to the insideadog team from whom I pinched this idea).

Mrs Sweeney

Image : http://www.scotlandschool.org/staff/mbakken/images/haiku-plaque-01-s.jpg 30/7/08

Fourteen year old John Jacob Turnstile is a convicted pickpocket and instead of going to prison is co-opted to be the cabin boy for Capt William Bligh on “The Bounty”. John Boyne’s research is meticulous as our narrator Turnstile takes us through the voyage to Tahiti, the temptations in this tropical paradise and the subsequent mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, who is portrayed as an ‘egocentric dandy’ and is the villain in this tale. As Bligh and those loyal to him head off on the perilous return journey we see Capt Bligh in quite a different light to so many other versions of this story. To the narrator Turnstile, it is Bligh’s heroism and leadership that save all but one of the 19 men who choose to go with their Captain and face the improbable odds of survival. This book has it all – adventure, action, drama, history, humour and a satisfying ending. Boys will love it!

Ms Boyd

In his latest novel Breath, Tim Winton returns to Angelus, the fictional area in coastal south Western Australia. The setting is a small logging town on the coast and the time is the1970’s. The novel’s main character, Pikelet, is a young surfer devoted to riding the waves. One summer he and his mate Loonie meet the charismatic Sando who introduces the boys to a series of secret breaks with more and more improbable waves. Winton’s evocative language creates a sense of time and place–the surfing culture and a young man’s risk-taking during his transition to manhood, that is immediate. Highly recommended.

Mrs Chrisfield

There is little talk on poetry, which I assume is incorporated in this blog, though I do concede that there has been a bit.

One of my favourites is:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Does anybody else have any good poetry to share?

Image : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/267079735_1004c1c585.jpg 28/7/-8

Have a look at this promotional video for a dramatic production of Lord of the Flies in the USA last year. There’s so much implied violence, power and impending doom. Powerful stuff!

Pilot Theatre: Lord of the Flies (You’ll have to watch this at home because Youtube is blocked on the student system at school).

Mrs Sweeney

Joe Bennett is a New Zealand author. He was previously an English Master at Christ’s College, Christchurch, New Zealand ( rather similar to Melbourne Grammar – an Anglican Boys’ Boarding School. He also writes a column for the Christchurch Press – the daily newspaper for Christchurch. He has written a number of books which have been very successful. His latest book is a real hoot – describes his quest to discover where his five pack of “made in China” underpants in the NZ supermarket come from. He is intrigued to know how anyone can produce garments so far away and make any money out of it at all. He goes to Shanghai then to the remote cotton fields of Xingjiang province on the border with Afghanistan. Along the way he discovers how global trade works and the history underlying the Chinese economic renaissance, a renaissance that is rapidly elevating China to the status of world economic superpower. He also grapples with chopsticks, as well as his own prejudices, and marvels at the contrasts in one of the world’s oldest, but fastest changing societies. It is an easy and enjoyable read.

Mr Connew

I think that the portal really needs two more categories. one for ideas to make the portal better and one for stories and things like that.

Bunks