Authors Electric

‘Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.’ This quote was recently posted on Facebook and attributed to Albert Einstein, but such attributions tend to be random. I don’t know where it comes from, but I like it – especially now I’m so old in years I can hardly believe it. It chimes with a poem I’ve known for years but now can’t find, which, after a catalogue of sorrowful things, contains the lines ‘still let me live as love and life were one. Still let me turn on Earth a childlike gaze and trust the whispered charities that bring tidings of human comfort. Still let me raise on wintry wrecks an altar to the spring.’ I’m not even sure I’ve got it right, but I think the sentiment is clear, and like the Einstein(?) quote, it invites us to seek joy and trust and wonder. If that’s childlike, I’ll take it. It is much needed in these times. Being childlike rather than childish informed much o...

Hey, I landed a gig with a 'proper publisher'!   Super Scientists by Susan Price Rising Star are the publishers and it's one of an extensive series of 'Game Changers' aimed at different reading ages. There are books about game changing entertainers, computer pioneers and 'hidden heroes' or people who did great things but were never given their due. Initially I was offered a choice between writing about game-changing sports people or scientists. An easy decision for me. Sport has always left me cold but science has always fascinated me. Writing the book was difficult and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a strict word number but Rising Stars wanted eight scientists, which worked out at about 1,500 words each. The brief was: a short introductory account of each subject's early life, followed by a broad account of their main achievements. This was easier for some than others. As an exercise, try covering Einstein's achievements and li...

A relevant jump by Daisy The Times recently ran a front-page story on the demise of the nursery rhyme: schools are teaching these rhymes less and less apparently, as they are ‘no longer relevant.'  This did make me laugh. At which stage in our history, exactly, was a cow jumping over a moon relevant? Or four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?   The wonderful thing about children is that they don’t give half a pound of tuppenny rice for relevance; Blackbirds are no longer baked in pies      what they can recognise – which, sadly, some education experts apparently can’t – is the magic of strange words and bizarre ideas woven together to stretch both their vocabulary and their imaginations.   It doesn’t matter that the rhymes make no sense, or refer to a piece of long-forgotten history. My 22 month old grand-daughter has no idea that Rock a Bye Baby may refer to the ousting of James II by William of Orange in the Glorious Revolu...