The Boy With Eyes The Size of Miami Football Stadium

The Boy with Eyes the Size of Miami Football Stadium by Andrew Gilmore is an innovative and very funny take on traditional children's picture books. The story itself is about a little boy, named Kevin Eckleburg - who is having a very bad Saturday - forced to do chores while other children play - but when his parents take him to a football game things start to look up. That is until he feels a peculiar twinge in the whites of his eyes... Without giving too much away; his eyeballs inflate to gigantic proportions and a rag-tag group of brave, and loving, toys come to his aid. 

My favourite part of the story comes right at the very beginning when Kevin is described as a 'soggy cloth'. Absolutely fantastic. It was such a strange, brash, and unlikely description. It threw me completely offguard and was the first clue that this was going to be anything but a conventional children's story. 

In fact, this book reminds me of two books from youth; the first being 'The Oddkins' (1988) by Dean Koontz, which I read as a child, and 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories' (1997) by Tim Burton which I read many years later as a teenager. Both of the books embody a darker element onto the typical children's fable that widens the books audience, meaning older readers derive pleasure from it too, which is why this one was so difficult to suss out at first.

Another part that stuck with me was when the Grim Reaper was introduced as a 'moody individual, one-time dance champion' to then see him pictured wearing, what looks like, a spandex (or leather) skin-tight black suit. Instantly his voice became that of the Goblin King from 1986 classic family film; Labyrinth. Though perhaps this is just me. The bright, acryllic illustrations were done by Gilmore himself and were inspired by paintings by Clive Barker and drawings by Tim Burton.

The Boy with Eyes the Size of Miami Football Stadium is available from Amazon and through iBookstore, and can be read on mobile phones and Kindle Fire through many free apps. Personally, I think the story would be better received as a paper copy, rather than on a technical device, as then the reader can enjoy it in full; with pictures alongside the words.

Andrew Gilmore is an writer and artist based in Manchester. His fine art has been shown at venues around the UK including The Cornerhouse. While his illustrations have featured in magazines and been used by bands. His first horror novel Gate will be published this autumn.

Where The Wild Things Are

My week was made on Wednesday when I was reading to the children before dinner time. I had four books in my lap and I chose a child to come and pick which story they wanted me to read, I was praying that someone would choose my favourite book, a story that I have never grown too old to love: 'Where The Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak.

Alas, after two stories it still hadn't been chosen. My heart sank as I ask them if they wanted another story or if they would like to sing some songs, as usually they love having a sing and I thought they wouldn't want another story, but to my surprise they demanded another! I was overjoyed and silently prayed that it would be chosen. And it was! It was like he had read my pleading mind.

They absolutely loved it! I think they even loved it more than I did, if that's possible! We all held up our own terrible claws, gnashed our terrible teeth, rolled our terrible eyes, and roared our own, very cute, very terrible roars. During the Wild Rumpus the children even told me that the Wild Things were jumping to try and catch the moon. I absolutely adore my job.

Where The Wild Things Are is about a little boy named Max who, when he put on his wolf costume, starts acting wild. His mother sends him to bed without his dinner after he shouts 'I'll eat you up!' at her and a mysterious forest grows in his bedroom and sails away to the land of the wild things. At first the fearsome looking beasts look to eat Max but he proves he is the most wild thing of all by staring into their big yellow eyes 'without blinking once', he is crowned King of the Wild Things and they all dance together in a Wild Rumpus until Max gets homesick and returns home to find his supper waiting for him, still hot. My favourite line from the story is when the Wild Things try to make him stay; 'Oh, please don't go, we'll eat you up, we love you so.'

Tribute has to be paid to such an incredible man that is Maurice Sendak who unfortunately passed away on the 8th of May 2012, but will live on forever through this fantastic story - and many other great works - that will carry on changing children's, and adult's, lives.

The Most Relevant Book of my University Life

I rediscovered this book when rifling through my book box in the porch some nights ago.





I was fed up with my small bookshelf being filled with books that I never read; the seven 'Harry Potter' books and the 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' books (thirteen in total) taking up the entire shelf, and so I sought my university book box from in hope to find some hidden treasures. 

Inside holds an array of over 120 notes collected by O'Hagan, through what means she got them I am unsure, all from different people during their time living together. The notes range from the lovey dovey; shared between couples living together (clearly during the honeymoon stage of their relationship), to the dirty, unhygenic routines, onto the cut-throat furious! 

Anyone who has ever lived with someone, be it your best friend, loved one, or a complete stranger will  know that sooner or later that person will start to grate on them, and vice versa, and the only way of venting frustrations to one another is in note form. So many of these notes made me laugh when thinking back to my time at university; during class my friends and I would go through a small packet of post-its a day just talking to each other or drawing pictures (my favourite was Emma's Starfish story which I will find and scan in soon) and only ever occasionally being used to take the notes we thought were essentially needed in order to pass. As well as my three years living in student halls, with all the stupid notes my housemate and I would pass between each other, though scarcely ever heated I'm sure we got on each others nerves from time to time.
My favourites being:

• 'I hate you more than life itself' - A TAD overdramatic but still hilarious.
• 'I needed that ham, I really needed it.' - Never used this one directly but I think anyone who has shared a flat/house can relate to finally having some decent food in only to discover someone has eaten it and left you with toast again. 
• 'Get off the phone, you are talking pap!' - Brilliant one that reminds me of all of the surreal times my flatmate and I helped each other send flirty, or witty texts. 
• 'Everyday shopping list: Beer, Beer, More Beer, Ciggies  and if there's any money left; Wine for the Oddballs' - this list pretty much sums up mine and the flatmates three years in student halls. I will never forget the month I ate nothing but 10p noodles because I spent my money going out with my friends.

And many, many more but you will have to see for yourself! It is definitely worth a flick through, it is guaranteed to leave any reader smiling. I will finish off by leaving you with a 'note' that I discovered one day after yelling at my friends to be 'bloody quiet!!'

Menaces.

Book Quiz!

Found this on a friends blog and had to fill it in myself! 

The Rules:
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover
3. Answer the questions below
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you've tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you've taken part!
I tag any one who loves books! Please let me know if you do it so I can have a nosey.

What are you reading right now?
Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?  
I’ve got a rather large pile to get through but I just received a parcel with a copy of 20^th Century French Poems so I will be tackling that in-between novels.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge right now?

The Rolling Stone that made me cry three times with just one article.

What’s the worst book you've ever read?
Game Girls by Judy Waite

What book seems really popular but you actually hated?

The Twilight Saga. I didn’t mind them at first and once I read one of them I had to see the series through, but the final book really drove me mad. I don’t think that the author needed to have Edward say the words; ‘darling’, ‘sweetheart’, or ‘love’ in every sentence just to suddenly drive home that he is a hundred years older than Bella.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

Throughout my degree I fell in love with Angela Carter so I’d recommend all of her books.

What are your 3 favourite poems?

I’m not actually the biggest fan of poetry but I do love ‘Rain’ by Anne Hébert

Where do you usually get your books?

Waterstones, Amazon, other independent bookshops in towns or cities when I go to visit, and during book swaps with friends.

Where do you usually read your books?
In bed, or whilst travelling.

When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?

My main reading habit as a child was my love for anything horror; from Goosebumps, Creepers, Point Horror, as an adolescent and then onto the Victorian Gothic. I just remember having a losing battle with my mum, in the teenage section of the library, forever begging her to let me read the only Goosebumps book they had (The Haunted Mask). At eight years old I had a stack of them and reoccurring nightmares.

Have you ever “faked” reading a book?

I have a degree in English literature, of course I have!

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
On multiple occasions! Sometimes the old saying rings true, but other times I am pleasantly surprised.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?
The Forbidden Game Trilogy by L.J. Smith

What book have you loved that you expected to hate?

East Lynne by Helen Beck, definitely not my usual type of novel but once I had started it I found I couldn’t put it down, and was even more shocked when I cried at the end (I won’t spoil it, I promise).

What is your favourite passage from a book?
There are far too many that I love, but my favourite from my current read is as such;

‘... Yet none of this had altered to any great degree the invisible child inside the man, who indeed remained the same dauntless lad who used to haunt Fisherman’s Wharf hungrily eyeing the tangled sails upon the water until at last he, too, went off with the tide towards an endless promise.’ Angela Carter – Nights At The Circus.

What are your top five favourite authors?
In no particular order:

•  Robert Louis Stevenson
• Angela Carter
• Jeanette Winterson
•  Franz Kafka
• A.S. Byatt

What book has no one heard about but should read?
Sexing The Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. Absolutely fantastic book, it blew my mind.

What 3 books are you an “evangelist” for?
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Time Waster Diaries – Robin Cooper

& The Forbidden Game Trilogy – L.J. Smith

What is your favourite classic book?

It’s a toss up between ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ by Robert Louis Stevenson and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley.

5 other notable mentions?
Just Friends by Robin Smith
Someone Like You – Roald Dahl
Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood
Night Watch – Sergey Lukyanenko
& A Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Final Preparations For The Big Day

World Book Night is FINALLY on the horizon! Only one more sleep (who am I kidding; there's no way I'll be sleeping tonight) until the big day! 

Having written in and inserted my extra note into all of the books, and re-read a copy of one of them so I can confidently suggest my favourite story to new potential readers tomorrow, I decided that I wanted to test my rubbish art skills yet again in order to grab peoples attention. As such, my new t-shirt was born:




Where it might not look like much to anyone else, I couldn't be happier with how the t-shirt has turned out. So to anyone wandering around Manchester City Centre tomorrow; if you see me wearing this then, dear lord, come over and say hello! You might even get a book out of it! I'm keeping my fingers well and truly crossed that I meet a lot of new and lovely literary enthusiasts and even manage to create a few new ones.

I'll be ending the day at the Deansgate Waterstones for their World Book Night event that includes readings, of their favourite books/stories, from variety of authors such as; Sam Mills, Rodge Glass, Chris Killen, Joe Stretch, Socrates Adams, Simon Savidge, and poets; Carola Luther, Evan Jones, Grevel Lindop and Helen Tookey. It's free to attend and starts at half past six. 

See you all tomorrow, have a wonderful World Book Night!

World Book Night Update!

I officially have my books! HURRAH! I am now the proud owner foster parent of twenty four copies of Roald Dahl's 'Someone Like You'. They are the prettiest books I've ever seen, they even have a sonnet printed on the inside of the back cover to commemorate William Shakespeare (in birth and death) as the date was chosen specifically because of him. i won't tell which sonnet is in this book, but it complements the overall theme of the collection perfectly! I tried to suss it out beforehand but just couldn't!

Anyway; I got a little camera happy and took many photographs of them:



I was so excited that I ripped open the packaging and then sat in awe (and mass amounts of mockery from my friends; damn them).

After writing my name, point of pickup, and the unique Book Crossing tracking number in them all, I stacked them up and took another photo. They ARE on a table as well as myself being sat on the floor when I took this. 

  

Being the nerd I am I decided that I wanted some pictures of the books in the daylight (as flash and the yellow glow from the houselights distorted the image too much), so there we have it! My beautiful World Book Night books that I just cannot wait to give out!

This one even jumped into my bag and is dying to get out into the world and bring someone the same happiness that it (and it's brothers) has brought me.

I really am hoping that this 'random' approach to giving them out will work as well as it does in theory! If someone were to, randomly, hand me a book in the middle of the street, or a pub/cafe, or if I were so lucky to stumble across one in my city (which Lord knows I pray for on a daily basis) I would be overjoyed! I would read it, treasure it, no doubt blog about it... I hope that other people share my enthusiasm on the day! I have a lot planned for the day! More information tomorrow!