The Best Reasons to be Cheerful: Summer Holidays (Vacations)
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More than 101 Reasons to be Cheerful are now in a book. Get it at your favourite book shop by giving them the ISBN, 978-0-473-54254-2, or click here to buy the ebook: https://books2read.com/cheerfulreasons
How my kids books about bullying came to be translated into Basque
In 2015 we went to live in the Basque country to learn Spanish because it was a region of Spain where English wasn’t widely spoken. Our planned year turned into two and we learned a lot of Spanish and a tiny amount of Basque. It is a very difficult language to learn as it has no relation to any of the Latin languages (or any language anywhere). But what an amazing place and culture.
I adored the small town we lived in (Hondarribia) and collected my sketches of life there into a book, A Basque Diary.
Whilst we were living there I started work on my trilogy of books about bullying aimed at kids 8 to 12 years old: FAB (Friends Against Bullying) Club. I shared the book with my Intercambio Spanish/English learning group as the reading level was good for many of them. One of my friends in the group (Itziar) is a teacher and she shared it with another friend (Eneko) who spent a lot of time reading stories to children. Both thought that the book would work really well in Basque (bullying is also a problem for Basque schools) and they began working on a translation.
In 2017 we came home to New Zealand and Eneko sent the book and its 2018 sequel (FAB Club 2 - Friends Against Cyberbullying) to the Basque publisher, Elkar, who have bookstores all over the region.
After a little back and forth, Elkar signed up to publish the two existing books in Basque as well as the third one (FAB Club 3 - The Big Match) which I published this year. They have just released the first two and I was really excited when Itziar found them in one of Elkar’s bookshops in downtown Bilbao.
Elkar contacted me to ask me to record a promotional video for the second book. Cool!
In Basque.
I find even reading the language so hard. Which is why it took me nearly a week to get close to being able to pronounce the translation of the script I wrote. Here it is – I am sure anyone who can speak Basque will wince at my pronunciation, but I tried.
It has been a really rewarding experience working with the publisher and my Basque friends. My hope is that the book ends up in the hands of a lot of Basque children and that it helps them have a better time at school than I did between the ages of 8 and 12.
Arctic Circle Cartoon - Phone a Friend During Mental Health Awareness Week (NZ)
It's Mental Health Awareness Week in New Zealand
The subject of mental health is important to me. A severe but acute period of depression (more on that in the link below) was what lead me to leave the pharmaceutical industry and become a professional cartoonist. That was 20 years ago and I haven’t had another depressive episode since.
One of the things I remember vividly from that time was how my friends divided into those who were there and those who disappeared. The ones who were there for me were the ones who kept me going, even if it was “only” through phone calls. Something that is particularly important now if people need to maintain social distance.
If there is someone who you have been thinking about, now could be a good time to call.
Arctic Circle Cartoons - Going Back to the Future in an Electric Car
The Arctic Circle penguins go back to 1967
I love time travel stories like Back to the Future. I used to subscribe to 2000AD, the classic British comic from the 1970s onwards. I wish I'd kept the first few issues! The time travelling storylines were a major draw and now I create a comic for kids with the same theme: Jack and Joni and the Time-Travelling Shed. So it was fun to dip into it for a short Arctic Circle storyline
The penguins are back in 2020 next week. Is it better than 1967?
There certainly is a lot more plastic.