Josh Lacey

Grk and the Phoney Macaroni

2011-11-20T11:29:00.004Z

The next Grk book, the eighth in the series, will be published in the UK in March 2012.

Tim and Grk go to the land of pizza, pasta and the leaning tower of Pisa...

Grk in the Evening Standard

2011-09-24T07:19:00.003+01:00

I was amazed and delighted to see Grk on the front page of the Evening Standard yesterday...

Review of The Island of Thieves

2011-09-08T14:11:00.001+01:00

There was a lovely review of The Island of Thieves in The Times last week, written by Amanda Craig.

Josh Lacey made a name for himself with his charmingly Tintinesque adventures about a boy and his dauntless dog, Grk. In The Island of Thieves, Tom Trelawney is foisted on his irresponsible Uncle Harvey while his exhausted parents go abroard for a week.

Uncle and nephew share the same nose - not least for mischief. Harvey, an inept conman, just hapens to have stumbled on a tantalising diary about treasure buried by Sir Francis Drake in Peru, so the pair head to South America. Harvey, however, owes a criminal a lot ofmoney and is told he must repay him with the treasure, or die. Luckily the vital clue is being used in a remote Peruvian toilet...

Funny and action packed, this well-paced, smartly written crime caper is just the thing for boys of 8+. Uncle Harvey is a wonderful comic creation; more, please.

If you're a subscriber, you can read the whole article behind the paywall.

Kindle

2011-09-04T20:29:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to say that I've now got a book available for the Kindle: my novel Bearkeeper can be bought from Amazon for the frankly bargain price of £1.99 (or just over three dollars if you're in the States).

Books for Keeps

2011-07-22T13:32:00.002+01:00

The Island of Thieves is "book of the week" on Books for Keeps; in their (lovely!) review, they describe it as "one of the best children’s adventure stories of the year".

Death in children's literature

2011-07-14T13:44:00.006+01:00

I've written an article for We Love This Book, a new magazine published by the Bookseller. Here are the first three paragraphs.

There comes a moment in every child’s life when they understand that everyone dies: not just pets, or neighbours, or relatives, but even themselves. It’s a terrible, terrifying realisation – life is never the same again once you know that you have to die – so it’s no wonder that children’s books are full of death.

Without death, many great heroes of children’s literature wouldn’t even have a story to tell. If their mothers and fathers had lived, Harry Potter wouldn’t be banished to 4 Privet Drive, the Baudelaires wouldn’t suffer a series of unfortunate events, Mary Lennox wouldn’t come near the secret garden, and James would never grow a giant peach.

But death is much more than a plot device. From a surprisingly young age, most children want to know the answers to questions about death and the afterlife. Why do I have to die? What will happen to me? Fiction allows children to articulate the fears and anxieties about mortality that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

You can pick up the magazine in bookshops, or read the whole article on the website.

Winchester

2011-06-17T06:39:00.001+01:00

New event: I'll be at P&G Wells Bookshop in Winchester at 3pm on Sunday 3rd July, reading from The Island of Thieves and signing books. See you there!

Kew

2011-06-13T20:07:00.003+01:00

I'm going to doing several events over the next few weeks to mark the publication of The Island of Thieves. If you're anywhere near the lovely Kew Bookshop on Thursday 7 July, please come along and say hi.

The Island of Thieves

2011-06-06T13:03:00.002+01:00

How long does it take to write a book? I've just written a short piece here about the length of time that I took to write my new book, The Island of Thieves.

The book itself is published next month; here's the cover...

The Glass Collector

2011-04-07T08:41:00.004+01:00

I recently reviewed The Glass Collector, Anna Perera's second novel, a story about the Zabbaleen, the rubbish sifters and collectors who inhabit a Cairo slum named Mokattam.

My review is here, but if you're interested on the book or its subject, I'd suggest you read Leslie Wilson's review first. As she explains, she has visited Mokattam and knows the subject well:

I was with my husband, who is a consultant in Wastes Management with a special interest in the informal sector, and a group of waste experts that included some informal recyclers from India and South Africa. We were welcomed into the workshops and saw the recycling of plastic and textiles; we also visited the 'recycling school' where boys and girls can earn a living as well as learning to read and write. It's a cheerful building, whose bright blue paint made a brave show in the November sunshine. I was deeply impressed by the Zaballeen's expertise, their hard work and cheerfulness, and their hospitality - and moved by their problems.

Her review is in Armadillo magazine; you'll find it here. I wish I'd read it before I wrote my own.

She also discusses a film called Garbage Dreams, which sounds fascinating; a documentary about the Zaballeen which Leslie describes as "sensitive, moving, and totally engaging". It's the sort of film that should be on TV, but probably won't, so I'm going to have track down a DVD.

(The amazing picture is by a photographer named Bas Princen: I don't know him, or anything about him, but I took it - without permission, I'm afraid - from this website, which has more of his fabulous photos.)

Some books

2011-01-17T13:29:00.002Z

I went into a bookshop recently and spent a long time wandering through the fiction shelves, searching for a novel to read. I went through crime, sf, children's books and general fiction, skimming titles, reading a few pages here and there, but nothing sprang out at me. I don't know where the problem lies; have I become tired of fiction? Are novels losing their fizz? Or was I looking at a particularly uninspiring selection? I don't think so: this was a fairly big bookshop with long lines of shelves.

I eventually left with two books. Both were in the Psychology section, although neither should have been; they're both what would probably be described as "creative non-fiction" and so, perhaps, unclassifiable. One has proved to be brilliant; the other interesting and worthwhile.

The first was a wonderful book by Tim Parks about his struggles with illness: Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing. It's funny, clever, illuminating, intriguing, surprising and highly recommended. Teach Us to Sit Still describes how he lived in a state of agony for many years, trying all kinds of conventional medical techniques, before finally, reluctantly, sceptically, turning to meditation. To his astonishment, it worked. To my astonishment, this book actually made me want to start meditating. I haven't yet. It also made me want to read more Parks; I've read a couple of his non-fiction books before, but none of his novels; I'm now going to remedy that.

Then I read The Case for Working with Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good by Matthew Crawford. (Which was published in the US as Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work; the British title was changed because we have no idea what "shop class" means.) Not a perfect book by any means, but fascinating in places; he mingles some neat description of his own working life - as an electrician, a philosopher and a mechanic - with a polemic on the failings of modern industrial society.

I've also reviewed a couple of good books for the Guardian: a new biography of Romain Gary by David Bellos - author of the wonderful biography of Georges Perec - and his translation of Gary's strange book, Hocus Bogus, which could also be called "creative non-fiction" too, although in a very different way to these other two.

Reviews

2010-11-06T14:24:00.004Z

A couple of recent reviews, both for the Guardian: one for children, The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight by Jenny Valentine; the other for adults, A Russian Novel by Emmanuel Carrère. They're two very different books, aimed at very different readerships, but I loved both of them.

Pseudonyms

2010-09-21T13:05:00.002+01:00

I've written a short piece here about writing under two different names.

Westfield

2010-08-08T13:28:00.002+01:00

I'm doing an event in the Foyles in Westfield - in Shepherd's Bush - next Saturday, August 14th. I'll be there at 2pm.

If you come along, make sure you bring a copy of this voucher, which gives you 20% off all children's books in Foyles till the end of August.

I'm going to be doing another event in London next month too: on Saturday 18th September, I'll be at the Chiswick Book Festival.

Have you seen this dog?

2010-08-05T13:57:00.004+01:00

Seen last night in Notting Hill while I was waiting for some friends outside the tube station... this poster pinned to the wall...

Grk Down Under

2010-08-03T14:51:00.002+01:00

The seventh Grk book is published this week. (I've seen it described as the eighth and even the ninth, but it's definitely the seventh. I've kept count.) If you live in the UK, you can order a copy from amazon or (I hope) buy it in your local bookshop. As you can probably tell from the title, it's the story of Tim and Grk's adventures in Australia.

Guardian Podcast

2010-07-24T09:14:00.003+01:00

I was interviewed for the Guardian Books Podcast, talking about Grk Down Under and reading a couple of pages from the book. You can listen to the podcast here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/jul/23/childrens-summer-reading

My bit starts after about thirteen minutes. Before that, Julie Eccleshare talks about her favourite books coming out this summer.

The power of reading

2010-07-21T16:35:00.001+01:00

The guardian has a fascinating article on a scheme in Texas where prisoners join book groups rather than going to prison.

The initiative was initially met with an inevitable flurry of criticism in the US. Waxler and his supporters were described as "bleeding-heart liberals".

"They were shocked at the idea of offenders going on to university campuses to read books for free while the students were paying their way through education," says Waxler. "Some even thought the offenders would steal from them. It only takes one person to prove them right, but it's never happened."

In Texas, the public have been largely won over by the success rates and how cheap the programme is to run. Instead of spending a lifetime in prison at a cost of more than $30,000 (£19,520) a year, Rouse's "rehabilitation" cost the taxpayer just $500 (£325).

It's worth reading the full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/21/texas-offenders-reading-courses

twitter

2010-07-19T11:47:00.002+01:00

If you're on twitter, you can win ten books - including three of mine - by following Scholastic. Full details here:

http://www.scholastic.co.uk/2222-followers?utm_term=yUqfTImrld

Shakespeare

2010-07-06T14:14:00.002+01:00

Here's another addition to the sub-sub-genre of children's books based on or inspired by plays by Shakespeare: Fool's Girl by Celia Rees. I reviewed it in last Saturday's Guardian. Other books in this category? Well, my own Bearkeeper springs to mind. And Mal Peet's Exposure. Any other suggestions?

Second Nature

2010-06-01T14:48:00.001+01:00

I've reviewed Jonathan Balcombe's Second Nature for the Guardian.

Balcombe tells us that he's been a vegan for more than 30 years – and, unsurprisingly, he recommends that his readers become vegetarians – but there's a more radical message at the heart of his book. In order to heal ourselves, he suggests, we have to reform our relationships with animals; we will "live in better, more caring societies when we treat all feeling individuals with compassion and respect".

Full review here:

Three Diamonds review

2010-05-04T22:11:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday, the Financial Times had a nice review of Three Diamonds and a Donkey, written by the novelist James Lovegrove.

Josh Lacey's Misfitz adventures starring the extended Amis/Fitzroy clan, a tangled thicket of half-siblings and step-parents, read like a dream. They are at once traditional and modern, with Blytonesque youngsters thwarting crooks and thieves in the era of computers and mobile phones.

The setting for this third instalment is Marrakech, where young Ben Amis's stepmother-to-be, Hollywood actress Celia, loses her hugely expensive engagement ring. The obvious culprit is a Moroccan street kid, Tariq, whom the police duly arrest. Ben, however, convinced of Tariq's innocence, sets out to clear the boy's name and recover the ring.

In addition to its mystery-solving aspects the novel explores moral conundrums, the grey areas between right and wrong. But its target readership will principally enjoy the exotic location and a plot that sees children consistently outwitting adults.

2010-04-29T14:22:00.002+01:00

I've just been correcting the proofs for the seventh Grk book, which will be published in the UK in September. Here's a snapshot of the cover. I really like the way that the artist has shown an iconic building from an unusual and usually unseen angle.

An island under the sea

2010-03-26T14:17:00.002Z

At the end of Operation Tortoise, the Grk adventure set in the Seychelles, I wrote that, because of global warming, the islands might suffer the fate of many low-lying islands throughout the world and sink under the waves. That has now happened to a tiny island, the cause of disputes between India and Bangladesh, which has now gone forever. See this BBC report for details: "A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say."

Grk and Gruk

2010-03-09T14:13:00.007Z

Three of the Grk books have now been published in French. The third, Grk and the Hot Dog Trail, is coming out this week as Gruk Sur la Piste des Hot Dogs.

As you’ll have noticed, Grk’s name has been changed to Gruk.

The books themselves have been beautifully produced by Gallimard Jeunesse; they’re full of lovely little drawings of Grk/Gruk.

Dogs

2010-02-22T13:03:00.003Z

I've reviewed an excellent book about dogs for the Guardian: Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz. The title comes from that old Groucho Marx joke: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

The book is definitely worth reading if you're a dog owner or dog lover. Here are the first couple of paragraphs of my review:

Even in the middle of a busy modern city, we're surrounded by all kinds of animals that share our space and our food, but only one of them bothers to study us. To rats, crows and cockroaches, we might be a source of tasty snacks, but we're mostly an irritation and sometimes a threat. Dogs are different. They inspect our actions, interpret our emotions and, over time, learn how to please us and control us, persuading us to provide them with food, shelter and a nice warm basket.

Alexandra Horowitz describes dogs as "anthropologists among us", and in this engaging book, her first, she studies them with the same intensity and affection that they devote to us. She has her own dogs – the pages are punctuated with little snippets of a diary from her 16 years shared with Pumpernickel – but she also watches dogs for a living: she's a psychologist who studies dog behaviour and was hired by Sony to make their Aibo dog-robot more cutely canine in its interactions.

Full review here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/inside-of-a-dog-review

2010-01-20T19:56:00.004Z

I was walking in the New Forest last weekend and came across this donkey. He was looking rather gloomy, as donkeys often do. It was raining, and had been all day, so his hair must have been soaked, and his raised ears and long face gave him an expression of profound pessimism.

Cheer up, I wanted to say. At least you’re not in Morocco. Don’t you know how they treat donkeys there?

There’s a Moroccan donkey in my new book - as you’d probably guess from the title - and I remember looking at donkeys in Marrakech and feeling deeply sorry for them.

Wandering through the narrow streets, I’d often come across a donkey standing against a wall, waiting patiently for his owner. Some were tied to drainpipes or lampposts. Others were strapped to carts stacked with bricks or lanterns or rubbish. Their legs were covered with old bruises and half-healed sores. Their fur had the texture of a moth-eaten carpet.

When I was writing the book, I was sent this picture by a friend of mine, Richard Hammond, the travel journalist. (Not the driver.)

He took it in Marrakech. It’s on the wall of a donkey sanctuary. I didn’t go there myself, but I hope I will one day.

2010-01-02T19:56:00.003Z

A wonderful piece of news for the New Year - the last dancing bear in India has been rescued.

When I was researching Bearkeeper, I went to Agra to see the work of Wildlife SOS. It was a fascinating and inspiring experience.

To mark the rescue of the final bear, the BBC has made a documentary about the bears and the work of a British charity, International Animal Rescue, and their Indian partners, Wildlife SOS, who have built sanctuaries to house the freed bears.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pwryf

Be warned: this documentary contains some horrible footage of bears being abused by their “owners”.

If you don’t want to watch the footage, you can find out more about Wildlife SOS and their British partner, International Animal Rescue, by following these links:

www.internationalanimalrescue.org
www.wildlifesos.org

2009-11-26T15:00:00.004Z

I’ve just reviewed a novel set in Latin America, Daniel Finn’s Two Good Thieves. The book is set in an unnamed country, not quite Brazil or Argentina or Venezuela or Mexico, but a mixture of them all. Mal Peet has done the same thing with his Paul Faustino novels, Penalty, Keeper and Exposure.

I wonder whether Latin American writers are producing their own children’s books set in their own countries. If so, when will they be translated into English?

To brush away those wintery blues, here is a picture of Grk nestling between two coconuts on a Brazilian beach named Imbassaí. Many thanks to Nigel for the photo.

(If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, of course, you’ll be enjoying the spring right now. But here in the north, the nights are long, the days are short and it’s getting colder every day.)

2009-11-20T13:31:00.002Z

I went to Belfast last week and took part in the kids lit quiz, which was a fabulous occasion, hosted by Wellington College and compered by Wayne Mills, the energetic New Zealander who created the quiz and now darts around the globe from his home in Auckland to heats in far-flung countries, wearing his inimitable hat.

I was baffled by most of the questions. (I can't remember many, but Wayne has posted some previous questions on his website.) Luckily, I was on a team with Tanja Jennings, the librarian at Wellington, who has an astonishing knowledge of children’s books past and present.

In the end, a nerve-racking tiebreak was won by Wellington, who will travel to England to participate in the final in Oxford on 27th November.

After the quiz, I stayed in Belfast for a couple more days and went to four more schools - Thompson, Kells & Connor, St Paul’s and St Bernard’s - many thanks to everyone who organised the visits and came along to hear me speak.

Istanbul

2009-10-29T14:41:00.006Z

I’ve always wanted to go to Istanbul. I was planning to go there this autumn, in fact, and read a lovely little book to prepare myself: The Bridge by Geert Mak.

He’s a Dutch journalist who spent some time - weeks? months? - hanging around the Galata Bridge in Istanbul. If he’d been a clumsier writer, he could have turned the book into a heavy-handed discussion of the bridge’s symbolic position between West and East, Europe and Asia. Instead, he describes the scene and the locals with a wonderfully light touch. One day, I’m going to see it for myself. One day...

I remembered The Bridge this week, because I was sent a copy of one of my books in a language that I couldn’t recognise, let alone understand. I had to open the title page even to discover that it was a Turkish translation. The thought of Grk in Istanbul made me want to jump on a plane and go there myself.

Here are the Turkish editions of A Dog Called Grk...

...and Bearkeeper...

2009-10-19T17:57:00.002+01:00

In last Saturday’s Guardian, I reviewed Scat, Carl Hiaassen’s latest book for children.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal condemned Hiaasen for polluting young minds with ecological propaganda. In Scat, he even points his readers towards Edward Abbey's classic novel of eco-terrorism, The Monkey Wrench Gang. (I'd be fascinated to know if any of them actually read it; Scat's teenage protagonist does track down a copy, but falls asleep after a few pages.) Whatever your political alignment, you'll find nothing dreary or didactic about Hiaasen's writing; Scat is a funny and furiously fast-moving novel populated by engaging characters and fuelled by a strong sense of moral outrage.

You can read the full review here.

2009-10-12T19:12:00.002+01:00

Publishing a book often feels like throwing a stone into a pond: there’s a little splash, a few ripples, and then it’s gone. If you’re lucky, the splash will be reviews and even a prize. Perhaps the ripples will include some letters from readers or visits to festivals. And then... nothing.

But books have a life of their own. Long after the book has been published - sunk to the bottom of a pond, languishing among the weeds, forgotten - someone will read it. They’ll find a lone copy languishing on a dusty shelf in a library. And, once again, your words will come alive.

I recently got an email from a friend, a composer. Many years ago, she asked me to write some words to accompany her music. Two actors recorded the words. The piece was performed. And that was that.

Now, she wrote to me to announce, it has been performed again at a festival in Toronto.

The fate of these words - written and recorded so long ago that I can hardly remember anything about them - made me feel enormously optimistic. It was as if this particular stone’s ripples had bounced back and forth across the pond, never fading, never disappearing, continuing for years.

If you’re interested, here is some information about Juliet, who wrote the music, and here's an intriguing picture on a flickr page of someone who went to the festival.

If you're in Walsall on Saturday...

2009-10-05T17:17:00.005+01:00

...come to one of my events at the Central Library. Several writers are appearing - and all the events are free!

(Click the picture to make it bigger.)

2009-09-30T13:54:00.003+01:00

I’ve just come back from a fantastic day in Winchester, where I talked to a hundred and fifty children from several schools in the city. Many thanks to everyone who came along - I hope you had fun - and to P&G Wells, the excellent independent bookshop, who organised the event.

Earlier in the summer, I had a fantastic few days at the Edinburgh festival. I did three events, which were great fun, but only managed to see one; the extraordinary exploits of the Gruffalo, performed by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler and a large cast of their friends and relatives: a joyous hour of songs, sketches and costumes.

Over the next few months, I’m going to be visiting schools and libraries in London, Belfast, Andover, Walsall and as many other places as possible. See you there? And if you’d like me to visit your bookshop, library or school, please get in touch.

The Philosophical Baby

2009-08-10T13:06:00.007+01:00

I've just reviewed Alison Gopnik's fascinating and provocative book, The Philosophical Baby, for the Guardian. Here's the first paragraph...

Like any proud father of a small baby, I seem to spend half my life staring into her eyes, wondering what she's thinking and feeling, trying to imagine how she experiences the world. Until fairly recently, scientists and philosophers would have told me that the answer was simple: I might as well stare at a pigeon, because babies are no more intelligent or profound than the dumbest animal. But, as Alison Gopnik explains in her inspiring new book, "there's been a revolution in our scientific understanding of babies" and we now know that, in many ways, "young children are actually smarter, more imaginative, more caring and even more conscious than adults".

You can read the full review here.

How would you start?

2009-07-29T14:29:00.001+01:00

A couple of days ago, I received this email.

Hi Josh
I have read a lot of your books and really do like them.
How would you start writing a book?
I am now on an edge of writing a book do you have any good tips for me?
Thanks
Kirsten

It’s a very good question and one that puzzles me regularly. I wish I knew the answer. And it raises all sorts of other questions too. Where do you start a book? With a character? A situation? A scene? A snatch of dialogue? And why do you start a book? Aren’t there enough books already? Why should you add to the pile? What can you do that someone else hasn’t already done better?

I’m just about to start a new book myself and I hardly know how to begin answering these questions. Or how to begin the book.

Whenever I start a book, I spend days, even weeks, pacing around, peering out of the window, washing dishes, flicking through books, playing on the internet, and doing just about anything apart from sitting at my desk and putting words together to make a story.

I have to remind myself that all this uncertainty is not merely creative, but necessary.

Order comes out of chaos.

Eventually.

And if you’re lucky.

When I talk to my friend Eric about starting a book, he always says the same thing: just start writing. Let your subconscious take over. You’ll be surprised by what comes out.

I can’t really offer any better advice.

Anyway, I do know how to start writing a blog: answer an email that you’ve been sent by a stranger. Thank you, Kirsten, for your message. And good luck with your book. I hope the words flow fast, the pages pile up and publishers come clamouring to your door.