Some books to chew and digest

Part I:

Come September the interest in the magical world of books is kindled; everyone is eager to find out about the latest line ups in the literary world. As the entire month is recognised as the Literary Month there are festivals, exhibitions and sales organised by book printers and publishers in many parts of the country. And, it is carnival time for book lovers! However, in order to make the most of the wide range of books available in the market today it is necessary to be literate; have the ability to read and write.Unfortunately, many people around the world are not able to do so even in this modern micro-chip world. And it is in this connection that International Literacy Day is observed around the world on September 8 to create an awareness about the importance of being literate and afford opportunities for everyone to educate themselves.

If you were not literate you would not have been able to know the joy of reading. However, reading seems to have taken a back seat these days , especially among young children , with the introduction of the Internet and also the escalating cost of books. But , children must not distance themselves from reading books and miss out on the wonderful world a book could transport one into.

There are many classical and modern books written for children in English by world famous authors and some of you may not be even aware of them or the famous books they wrote. Of course, books such as Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Alice in Wonderland are famous apart from the numerous fairy tales most of us have read. There are also a host of fascinating children's stories written in Sinhala and also in English by our own local writers which many of you may cherish.

Today we feature some interesting facts about a few such English authors who wrote for children and the books they became popular for. If anyone of you have still not read these books, do so because they are really fascinating.

Facts and pix :Internet

Paddington Bear

by Thomas Michael Bond

Thomas Michael Bond, OBE (born January 13, 1926) is an English author, most celebrated for his Paddington Bear series of books.

He was educated at Presentation College, a Catholic school in Reading. During World War II he served in both the Royal Air Force and the Middlesex Regiment of the British Army.

Bond began writing in 1945 and sold his first short story to the magazine London Opinion. In 1958, after producing a number of plays and short stories and while working as a BBC television cameraman (where he worked filming Blue Peter for a time), his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published. This was the start of Bond's most famous series of books, telling tales of a bear from "Darkest Peru", whose Aunt Lucy sends him to England, carrying a jar of marmalade. The Brown family found the bear at Paddington Station, and adopted him, naming the bear after the station.

Paddington's adventures have been published in nearly 20 countries, and have inspired pop bands, race horses, plays, hot air balloons and a TV series.Bond stated in December 2007 that he did not plan to continue the adventures of Paddington Bear in further volumes.Bond has also written another series of children's books, the adventures of a guinea pig named Olga da Polga, as well as the animated BBC TV series The Herbs.

In 1997, Bond was awarded the OBE for services to children's literature. On July 6 , 2007 the University of Reading awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Letters.

Bond is married with two adult children and lives in London, not far from Paddington Station.

Paddington Bear Series;1958 A Bear Called Paddington,1959 More About Paddington,1960 Paddington Helps Out,1961 Paddington Abroad,1962 Paddington at Large,1964 Paddington Marches On,1966 Paddington at Work,1968 Paddington Goes to Town,1970 Paddington Takes the Air,1972 Paddington's Garden,1973 Paddington's Blue Peter Story Books

Paddington Takes to TV,1974 Paddington on Top,1979 Paddington Takes the Test,2008 Paddington Rules the Waves,2008 Paddington Here and Now. He has written many other books too;1972 The Day the Animals Went on Strike,1975 Mr. Cram's Magic Bubbles,1992 A Day by the Sea among others.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe ( 1659-1661 - 1731) , was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man's shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures. Robinson Crusoe first published in 1719 is a fictional autobiography of the title character - a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.

However, some believe that the story was influenced by Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Mas a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile.

The details of Crusoe's island were probably based on the Caribbean island of Tobago, since that island lies a short distance north of the Venezuelan coast near the mouth of the Orinoco river, in sight of Trinidad.It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon.

"Although inspired by a real life event, it was the first notable work of literature where the story was independent of mythology, history, legends, or previous literature.

Born Daniel Foe later he added the aristocratic-sounding "De" to his name. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and is among the founders of the English novel.His novels include:Captain Singleton (1720),Journal of the Plague Year (1722),Captain Jack (1722),Moll Flanders (1722) He wrote more than 500 books, pamphlets and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural).

The place of his birth and dates are uncertain with sources giving dates of 1659 to 1661.

Daniel Defoe died on 24 April 1731, probably while in hiding from his creditors. He was interred in Bunhill Fields, London, where his grave can still be visited. Defoe is known to have used at least 198 pen names.

Peter Pan

by J.M.Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (1860-1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist born in Kirriemuir, Angus.

He is best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. It is a "fairy play" about this ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan became his best-known work. The first appearance of Peter Pan came in The Little White Bird, which was serialised in the United States, then published in a single volume in the UK in 1901.

Barrie's most famous and enduring work, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, had its first stage performance on December 27,1904.

His birthplace at 4 Brechin Road is maintained as a museum by the National Trust for Scotland.He died of pneumonia on June19, 1937 and is buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which continues to benefit from them.

He left the bulk of his estate (excluding the Peter Pan works, which he had previously given to Great Ormond Street Hospital) to his secretary Cynthia Asquith.

Some of his other books;Quality Street (1901),The Admirable Crichton (1902),The Little White Bird; or, Adventures in Kensington Gardens (1902),,Little Mary (1903),Peter Pan (staged 1904),Peter Pan in Kennsington Gardens, Peter and Wendy (novel) (1911),A Kiss for Cinderella (1912).

Rip Van Winkle

by Washington Irving

Washington Irving ( 1783 - 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. In a pleasant village, at the foot of New York's "Kaatskill" Mountains, lives the kindly Rip Van Winkle, a colonial British-American villager of Dutch descent.

Rip van Winkle is a very interesting bookabout a lazy man who loved to help others instead of doing his own work. One day, he wanders off with his dog Wolf into the Catskill mountains to escape work and Dame Winkle'˜s nagging. He falls asleep. for about 20 years. Even though almost all his friends including his wife are not at the village, Rip finds his daughter, her husband Mr. Gardenier. The village accepts him and he lives the rest of his life with his daughter.

Rip Van Winkle is a meek, simple easy going person with a good nature but a very lazy man,who took the world very lightly, and would go with what was the easiest.

The story in a way teaches many a lesson and helps see how bad it is to drink and be lazy.

Washington Irving who was born on April 3,1783 made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819.

He continued to publish regularly throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of George Washington before his death in Tarrytown, New York.

On the evening of November 28, 1859, only eight months after completing the final volume of his Washington biography, he died of a heart attack in his bedroom at Sunnyside at the age of 76.

The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame ( 1859-1932) was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England.He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films.

Kenneth Grahame was born on March 8,1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland.Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, They had only one child, a boy named Alastair (whose nickname was "Mouse") born blind in one eye and plagued by health problems throughout his short life. While still a young man, Grahame in his 20s began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette.

Some of these stories were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893, and, two years later, The Golden Age. These were followed by Dream Days in 1898, which contains The Reluctant Dragon.

There is a ten-year gap between Grahame's penultimate book and the publication of his triumph, The Wind in the Willows. During this decade Grahame became a father.

The wayward headstrong nature he saw in his little son Alastair (also known as "Mouse") he transformed into the swaggering Mr. Toad, one of its four principal characters in the book. Despite its success, he never attempted a sequel.

The book was a hit and is still enjoyed by adults and children today, whether in book form or in the films, while Toad remains one of the most celebrated and beloved characters of the book.

Wind in the Willows won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. In the 1990s William Horwood came up with a series of sequels.

Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire on July 6, 1932. He is buried in Holywell cemetery, Oxford.