Posts filed under ‘Books’
Promoting Chinese Books
January to February
Chinese Book List 2012 (Jan to Feb)
Special Promotion Book (Jan to Feb)
March to April
Chinese Book Poster (Mystery Fiction)
Chinese Book List (Mystery Fiction)
Global Book Report Competition
Book Report: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
By Mark Haddon
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
Written by: Foo Yang Yi (4I107)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time utilises a rather interesting means of expression compared to what one may usually find in a literary text. Written from the first-person-view of a fifteen-year-old boy named Christopher Boone, the story in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is written exactly like he sees it. Of course, first-person narratives have been done before, the main factors that enable this text to become a special and outstanding exception are the inherent traits of the protagonists – mainly, his behavioural difficulties in interacting with other people. Indeed, Christopher himself is quick to acknowledge this. In the start of the novel, he plainly says “I find people confusing.”
In this story, we follow his thought processes and actions as he seeks to solve the mystery of the culprit behind the death of his neighbour’s dog, Wellington. Beginning with finding the Wellington’s corpse, he eventually reaches his revelation. However, the story doesn’t end there. Initially believing his mother to be dead, he deduces from a stash of letters that she is actually alive, and his father lied about her death simply because he wanted to wait till Christopher was old enough before revealing to him that they were divorced. As such, Christopher gains an irrational fear of his father, as he learns at the same time that he was the one who killed Wellington. Therefore, he makes the decision to run away from home. By this point, the extent of Christopher’s behavioural difficulties is made clear – he had already hit a police officer because he didn’t like being touched.
Following these events, Christopher decides to make a trip to London to find his mother. What might seem like an ordinary trip to us is in fact an adventure to someone like Christopher. A lot of the human interaction skills that we usually take for granted must now be learned by Christopher. While previously having grown up under a sheltered environment that could adequately cater to his needs, he is effectively thrust into the wild, forced to take care of himself in situation where he no longer has the support of his father or mentor, Siobhan, to handle issues for him. In addition to that, he does not have the comfort of a different learning pace that his school would have set for him. When he learns new things when travelling on his own, he has to do so fast out of necessity, making this experience a challenging one for him.
While a trip to another place may seem to be a mundane experience for most of us, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time manages to turn this into a special and interesting journey, where Mark Haddon manages to engage his audience and allows them to keep up with the flow of the story easily without inducing boredom associated with details that we normally overlook. Christopher is a one-of-a-kind character. Due to his different methods of dealing with the people he meets, he has a tendency to miss the obvious details that most people would notice first, yet he is also able to notice things in places where we don’t usually look.
A good example of this would be how he reads many of the signs he passes, varying from signs like “CAUTION WET FLOOR” to “Your 50p will keep a premature baby alive”. In our day to day lives, one would usually think little of them – we always focus so much on the task at hand that we overlook such tiny details, which Christopher has managed to pick up. In contrast, when he speaks with a police officer, said officer expresses his shock at Christopher’s possession of a pet rat. Christopher tries to convince the officer that his rat was safe, and that it did not carry the bubonic plague. Said officer sarcastically replies that it was “reassuring”, but Christopher does not detect the sarcasm, simply replying with a “Yes” in response to the remark.
However, the brilliance behind the novel’s delivery lies not just within Christopher’s dialogue, but also in the intermediate thought processes that we actually read. In hindsight, this is also a clever move on Mark Haddon’s part. If the main focus of the story was in the dialogue, it could just as easily be written in third person, with vague references to Christopher’s feelings every now and then, which would not be particularly engaging for the audience since it would effectively be an over-glorified transcript. In the example of the police offer’s response stated earlier, it would be less interesting if it was blatantly stated that the police officer “sarcastically responded” to Christopher’s statement. By writing in first-person, it grants the audience slight amusement when we notice things that Christopher doesn’t. Simply put, the plot of the novel is made less dull when expressed in this manner.
Most commendably, the revelations that we, as the reader, gain from this novel enable us to empathize with Christopher’s reasoning. In most other circumstances, running away from home simply because your father killed your neighbour’s dog would be viewed as absurd. However, we can observe the fear displayed by Christopher. From our point of view, he is established as an innocent boy who really doesn’t know any better in such situations. Apart from the insight into his character, we also recognize the volatility of his mood. Events like seeing 4 yellow cars in a row would cause him to turn moody to the point that he is unwilling to speak to anyone. To most of us, this dislike of the colour yellow would simply be a triviality that most would be able to withstand with no issue. However, due to the extent that this upsets him, we soon regard such fears with a relatively neutral stand, without asking any further questions as to why Christopher has this irrational fear of the colour.
Regrettably, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time also demonstrates in full force how society stigmatizes boys like Christopher. For one, Mr. Shears, the man who moved in with Christopher’s mother following her divorce, is unwilling to shelter Christopher. When Christopher first arrives at his mother’s home, Mr. Shears already shows signs of hostility, treating Christopher’s arrival with the assumption that he brought his father with him. In addition to that, he shows impatience over Christopher’s presence in his flat, stating that the flat was meant to accommodate two people rather than three. In addition to all of these actions, Mr. Shears eventually leaves Christopher’s mother as a result, which in turn also shows the audience the tremendous patience Christopher’s father has demonstrated in raising him till he was fifteen, a trait that Mr. Shears sadly lacks.
In addition to that, Christopher has also met and talked with many adults on his way to London. A rather memorable case would be his experience with the police officer – an authority figure who was viewed by Christopher as a source of help and assistance. Instead, when Christopher asks questions, the policeman derides him with laughter before actually answering his question. In the incident where he laughed, Christopher did not return with laughter since he did not like being laughed at, suggesting a betrayal of Christopher’s trust on the policeman’s part, even if Christopher may not think so himself.
In general, while Mark Haddon has stated that he is not an expert on this subject, it suggests an accurate portrayal of the issues that children like these have to deal with, as well as the respect deserved by the parents who were willing to stay with the child while they grew up with this disadvantage. Some adults, like Mr. Shears or arguably, Christopher’s mother, lack the patience of others like Christopher’s father. Of course, it also shows the amount of stress these adults go through. As a result of an argument between Mrs. Shears and Christopher’s father, he eventually succumbs to pressure and kills Wellington, the very dog in the mystery that Christopher initially wanted to solve.
As for the viewpoint of the child himself, Christopher is unique in that he recognizes that there is a conflict as a result of him, but he does not fully understand the extent of this conflict. As far as he is concerned, he has solved his mystery, thus the title of the book. However, I believe that there is a reason why Mark Haddon chose to extend the book to cover the entire conflict regarding Christopher’s journey and the subsequent argument between his parents. In terms of the mystery, the book would have ended within the first few chapters, for the mystery was indeed solved. However, the probable reason why the plot of this book was extended was because this societal stigma and behavioural difficulty is indeed a very real issue in modern society, and thus an underlying message has to be sent.
I believe that although this book is laudable for its efforts in demonstrating these underlying issues, critics may attack it for its choice of genre – is teenage fiction a truly suitable genre to discuss such a topic, where there are many other genres that could be explored that would better the execution of conveying this message? Personally, I believe that if the target audience is indeed teenagers, then Mark Haddon has met his goal in writing this book, because the language is in no way exaggerated, but in fact the opposite – it is simple to understand, and it conveys its point in a powerful manner.
Pseudo Book Club: “Or Else, The Lightning God “
Written by: Foo Yang Yi (4I1)
Photographs: Tan Hong Kai (2A3)
On 18th February, a Pseudo Book Club session was conducted by the Library Club at the Jurong Regional Library from 3.00pm to 4.00pm. This session is conducted on a monthly basis and is open to the public, but its intended audience mostly consists of teenagers. The text discussed was “Or Else, The Lightning God”, a short story from a collection of works, “Or Else the Lightning God and Other Stories” by local author Catherine Lim.
“Or Else, the Lightning God” covers various themes relating to filial piety and the duty of both children and elderly parents to respect and consider the interests/feelings of the other. In a nutshell, the story depicted a long-term conflict between a woman and her mother-in-law due to clashing personalities, resulting in the woman evicting her mother-in-law. The presentation itself was rapidly started by a quick introduction session where everyone present introduced themselves, followed by a summary of the events of the story in a chronological order. The presenters were Foo Yang Yi (4I1) and Kervin Tay (3I2), and during discussions other members of the Library Club assisted in getting the ball rolling.
Once the audience was familiar with the events of the text, the presentation mainly centered on the circumstances of the eviction, and which party was more responsible for causing it. There was also a discussion over what would happen if such an incident actually happened, and how the law would respond. There was also a discussion on the Maintenance of Parents Act, as well as its criticisms.
After the presentation was concluded, the audience and the presenters split into 2 groups to discuss certain questions on their own. For example, one of the teams was acting as a Commissioner for the Maintenance of Parents and they had to mediate between both the woman and the daughter-in-law. Each group drew mind-maps and once the discussion period was up, both groups had representatives to present their groups’ thoughts and ideas, and it was evident that the audience was enriched after the discussion.
Book Launch: Towerhill Reclaimed
Written by Justin Foo Min Hua (2P408)
Photographs by Mr Jason Erik Lundberg
On Thursday, 19 April, for the final 2011 Library Week and World Book Day afternoon event, junior college members of the HCI Young Editors Club — Ephraim Tan (Co-Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Contributor), Lee Kah How (Artistic Director), and Joel Zhang (Prose Contributor) – launched their new publication, an anthology of poetry and prose entitled Towerhill Reclaimed.
Initially the editors thought of naming the book Parnassus, after the hilltop home of the Greek Muses of music, poetry, and knowledge, but reconsidered when they realized that the obscure reference would be too difficult to comprehend for the general reader. The anthology contains poems by our very own students, from both the high school and junior college, many of whom are our seniors from several years ago. The cover art has a monochromatic theme, which Artistic Director Lee Kah How chose because of its aesthetic elegance.
The anthology is split into two sections. The first section contains traditional elements and cultural themes, while the second section is about the progression into the future. The editors also felt that the book illustrates the movement from past to present, showing how the contributors’ writing has improved over the years; the symbolism of the clock imagery on the front cover contributes to this theme.
Another thing I learned from the YEC members was that we can get our creative inspiration from our surroundings. As students, there are many things around us that we may be unsatisfied with, and we can express our feelings through poetry and prose. Editor Ephraim Tan also mentioned that, “Writing is to express, not to impress.” I agree with this statement, as whenever I feel upset and emotional, I turn to literature and writing for an outlet and release. Joel Zhang said that as we practice writing, we will know what works and what does not. Many people have this personal fear of being mocked when other people look at their writing, but I think that this might show that the writer may not be putting in all his effort when writing, and thus he or she is afraid that other people would despise their work. If we have tried our best, yet still get laughed at by others, perhaps we can look at this criticism in a positive way, as a platform for improvement.
Each copy of Towerhill Reclaimed was sold for only 10 dollars. All proceeds collected from selling the book will go to disaster relief for Japan, following the recent earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear mishaps. During the Q&A session at the end of the talk, a Sec 4 student asked why each Hwa Chong student couldn’t have a copy for free. Ephraim replied that people would treasure the book more if they use their money to buy it, in addition to the good feeling that comes from donating to a worthy cause.
(N.B. Copies of Towerhill Reclaimed are still available; interested students and staff can contact Mrs Laura Ng for acquisition details. -JEL)
Library Week & World Book Day Photos
Following are photos of some of the events conducted during 2011 Library Week and World Book Day.
The National Library Board brought over more than 800 books for the Mass Book Borrowing on Tuesday at Oei Tiong Ham Hall:
All week long, the winners of the Microfiction Writing Competition were displayed near the library staircase (click to enlarge and read the entries):
On Thursday, the annual Scrabble Challenge was conducted by Mrs Yeong-Loke Lai Fun and Ms G. Kalavathi, with the result that the high school winners beat their junior college counterparts!
Big Book Sale: Ongoing Through This Week
Don’t forget to visit the Library each afternoon for the Big Book Sale located in the main reading area, with many titles as low as $1.00 or 50¢, and all proceeds to go toward the Needy Pupil Fund. I managed to find a like-new hardcover copy of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma for only $5, which was a steal!
(Photographs by Lu Wen Hao (2I314))
A Conversation with Dave Chua and Koh Hong Teng
Written by Kean Patrick Murphy (2O412)
Photographs by Lu Wen Hao (2I314)
On Monday, 19 April, for the first 2011 Library Week and World Book Day afternoon event, writer Dave Chua and artist Koh Hong Teng participated in a Book Talk about adapting Chua’s prize-winning novel Gone Case into graphic novel format, with Mr Jason Erik Lundberg as moderator.
I learned many valuable lessons from the talk. For instance, Mr Chua mentioned that a writer gets many inspirations, especially from other authors. He or she mainly uses past experiences as a reference in writing stories, while adding scenes from the imagination along the way. A good example would be the very book they were talking about, Gone Case. Mr Chua described the setting of the book as coming out of his life experiences and the HDB block that he lived in as a boy. He used the issues that he encountered in his home as a focal point for his story. This interests me as when I write narratives in school, I often do the same thing. Which means that this way of writing is constant not only from published authors, but anyone who writes. A writer also has to read widely to gain inspiration. Thus, if you don’t read many books, you can’t become a good writer.
Mr Chua brought up the fact that there is a difference between comics and books in terms of people buying them for the first time. Books are harder to assess at first glance, while comics are easier as people are able to judge them immediately by the quality of artwork. The artwork needs to be striking enough to attract the reader’s attention, while the first chapter of a book needs to be engaging enough to motivate the reader to continue on. Mr Lundberg added that sales are also affected by the stigma of self-publishing, with books suffering from it more than comics. I think this is so because many people have the mindset that a book is only self-published if established publishers have rejected it, and so it must be rubbish. I disagree, as some self-published books that I have read are very good, and certainly worthy of a publisher, but for a variety of reasons the author has chosen not to go the traditional route.
A good tip that I picked up was that no matter how unrealistic the story is, you must always remember to keep the story believable. If the story stretches your imagination, people enjoy it, but if it is ridiculous, they won’t like it. On a related point, you must make sure the scene fits the setting. For example, many student writers describe gun fights in Singapore, but guns are banned in Singapore, so the situation seems out of place; writers must be careful to avoid falling into this trap. Another tip is a good way to kickstart your drawings: Mr Koh takes reference photos of a scene he might want to draw, then goes back to the drawing board, takes the best photo angle for the scene or panel, draws it in his own style and adds in more personal details. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Mr Chua encouraged us to write what we enjoy! If you are writing about something that you have no interest in, the story will turn out bland and won’t be interesting. Once you write about something that captivates you, you can spend a long time on it and your passion for it will come through in the writing.
The issue of memorable characters was also brought up here. Some characters will stick in the reader’s memory long after the story has been read. Sometimes, they may not even be the main character, and may have a short “page life.” Mr Lundberg described the Malay barber in a scene from Gone Case being one of the most memorable characters for him in the graphic novel, despite the barber’s appearance lasting only a mere three pages; I can recall a few characters just like that from other books.
The graphic novel adaptation as a form has always puzzled me, as conversion from a prose work always seems to twist the story into something else, shortening the scenes and taking out some of its true meaning. Now I know that this technique is actually purposefully intended by comics creators. Mr Chua gave Mr Koh free reign over the story, letting him plan it like a director doing storyboards for a film, and then collaborating on the dialogue and other details.
In conclusion, this talk was very informative for me, and a valuable experience. I can’t wait for the next time authors come to HCI to give a talk. I am especially interested in two Singaporean authors, Jeffrey Lim and Wena Poon, whose writing I enjoyed after reading an anthology which included short stories by them. I used to think that Singaporean literature was a waste of time and of poor quality, but talks like these have broadened my vision and changed my views.
2011 Library Week and World Book Day!
“I Read, Therefore I Am”
Next week, 18-21 April, celebrate 2011 Library Week and World Book Day at Kong Chian Library!
On Monday, writer Dave Chua and artist Koh Hong Teng will conduct a Book Talk about adapting Chua’s prize-winning novel Gone Case into graphic novel format. In addition to discussing the challenges of adaptation, they will talk about other graphic novels and prose books that have influenced them, and the state of graphic literature in Singapore.
Tuesday will see two events: the Chinese Share-a-Book will be conducted in the Seminar and Conference Rooms, as an extension of the Chinese reading done during the Term 1 sabbatical week. The NLB Mass Book Borrowing will take place at Oei Tiong Ham Hall from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Mrs Rosalind Lee will soon post the schedule for the lower sec classes on the EMB, and upper sec students are highly encouraged to drop by during lunch time.
The annual Scrabble Challenge will be conducted on Wednesday once again by Mrs Yeong-Loke Lai Fun and Ms G. Kalavathi, with the winners competing against students from the junior college to determine ultimate HCI Scrabble supremacy!
During lunch time on Thursday, the Young Editors Club will launch their new publication, an anthology of poetry and prose entitled TOWERHILL.Reclaimed. YEC members will be on hand to answer questions, recite poetry, and sell copies of the anthology; copies will be sold for $10 and all proceeds will go directly to the Disaster Relief Fund of the Embassy of Japan.
All week long, our afternoon Big Book Sale will be located in the Reading Area and feature a variety of titles; the money collected will go toward the Needy Student Fund. Also during the week, we will facilitate the Know Your E-Resources Online Quiz, the Lower Sec Door Wrapping Competition, individual class Book Swap, and a special exhibition of the winners from the Micro-Fiction Writing Competition.
Stay tuned here and at our official Facebook Event Page for up-to-the-minute details, and join us next week in the celebration of books and reading!
Genre Focus (April 2011): Everyday Economics
For the month of February, Kong Chian Library will be focusing on the literary genre of Everyday Economics.
April 8, 2011 at 5:15 pm Jason Erik Lundberg Leave a comment
Words Go Round 2011: TellTale and Fiction in Singapore
Written by Yau Chun Shin (4H131)
Photographs by Mr Jason Erik Lundberg
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” —William Wordsworth
As part of the Words Go Round program organized by the Singapore Writers Festival, editor Dr Gwee Li Sui and contributors Dave Chua and Jeffrey Lim recently discussed the anthology TellTale: Eleven Stories and the state of fiction writing in Singapore with the students of Hwa Chong Institution. The event was hosted at Kong Chian Library on 11 March 2011.
The session was a lively and fascinating one, with the guest speakers providing insights on the nature of writing as well as their personal motivations for putting pen to paper. Mr Chua, for one, quoted as his inspiration a desire for showing how people simultaneously tried to fit in and stand out in society. Dr Gwee also spoke at length about the current state of Singaporean literature, commenting on how the local literary scene was dominated by well-known, established writers like Catherine Lim, leaving fewer opportunities for other budding writers to gain recognition. In ruminating upon this, the guest speakers also provided the captive audience with a brief list of other Singaporean writers, such as Alfian bin Sa’at, encouraging our students to check out these writers’ works.
Yet the speakers were not the only ones providing material for discussion. Our students proved themselves more than equal to the task of contributing to the engaging and evocative exchange. Proof of this could be found in the incisive questions that they posed, such as: “Does the interpretation of your works ever go beyond what you imagined in the first place?” and “How do language and its inherent concepts affect literature at a fundamental level?” This made for a dynamic and compelling session, with both the speakers and the audience playing an active role.
Of course, all this would not have been possible without the help of Mrs Laura Ng, Mr Lucas Ho, Mr Woon Wei Seng and Ms Crystal Ang. Without the astute choice of these guests, and without Mr Ho’s energetic facilitation of the discussion, the event might not have come to pass, and would certainly not have been of the same standard as it was on that day.
The session was certainly of great benefit to our students, by both introducing them to Singaporean literature and the mechanics of writing, as well as encouraging them to air their views and thus improve their understanding of writing. Given the quality and caliber of the opinions shared, from both the speakers and the audience, such a session in the future would most definitely be welcome, as it would allow us to expand our horizons and develop a love for the arts.
