Thursday 19 March 2015
Just a Note to Say...
That school is hard. Really hard. But I'll be back soon. 6 weeks. Tops.
I'll see you soon okay?
Sorry.
Evie x
Sunday 8 March 2015
British Book Boy Stereotypes
I read a lot of books. No surprise
there, right? I mean this is after all a book blog. But it’s true, I do. I eat
up books at an alarming speed, barely pausing for breath between each paperback
and fiction. Well, apart from to shove my nose in the pages and inhale that
rich scent of a good story (Seriously, I would wear that smell as perfume).
Recently though, I have had no new books to read. I was scanning my bookshelf
looking for an old favourite instead, when I realised something. Hardly any of
my books were British?
How peculiar. Where was the UK in these
stories? Where was London and Cardiff? Glasgow and Belfast? Where was my home
country? How as a 16 year old British girl, who bought her books from almost
solely British sources (Does Amazon have a nationality?) could I have so few
books actually set in Britain? And if Britain wasn’t here, what was?
America. I may not have had London but
my bookshelf was jam packed with places like Chicago, New York, Detroit and
Walmart. I’ve never been to America but somehow I have managed to accumulate
rather a large amount of American fiction!
And that was fine by me! I mean I love my American fiction. A lot of it is
warmer and sunnier than the UK with all of its cloud (In January I forget what
the sky even looks like) and by now I’m used to the American terminology and
school system, so the plotlines are just as good to me as any other country’s.
But I realised as I began to re-read my
American fiction that maybe my country wasn’t entirely misrepresented in my
bookshelf. There were Brits living in
these American worlds, whether they were exchange students or recently moved
families. The problem was, they were horribly inaccurate. For starters, all
these Brits were boys, where were all the British girls? And of course, they
were horribly stereotyped. Let me give you an example.
Your typical American Fiction British boy:
American
Fiction tends to feature two kinds of British males. The Rich Brit and The Poor
Brit.
The Rich Brit talks like he was raised
on a diet of caviar and liquid gold, which of course he was. He walks with his
nose in the air and treats you like one of the many maids that doted on him as
a child. He is from London, and before he was unfairly removed from his
extravagant home in Kensington Gardens and shoved into your American high
school (which he openly despises) he went to the biggest and best British
boarding school ever built, where they rode ponies in the yard and played
quidditch and had secret midnight feasts in their dorm rooms with lashings and
lashings of ginger beer. The Rich Brit craves scones like no one’s business
The Poor Brit is more common, in more
ways than one. Though he may not necessarily be poor he still has an air of it
about him like Bert from Mary Poppins. He does not eat scones but instead will
talk about Earl Gray and big English fry-ups that he once consumed every
morning. He talks fairly posh as well (we all do in Britain, don’t we?) but his
language is littered with phrases such as ‘Cor blimey’ and ‘bloody ‘ell’. The
American girls all laugh at the way he says ‘ass’ but cannot resist his crooked
smile and British charm. He does not know what a T-Shirt is dressing instead
like some kind of time lord. The poor Brit is also from London (because that is
the only British place American fiction seems to be aware of) and likes to
reminisce on the cobbled roads, and double decker buses and his old job as a
chimney sweep. Those were the days. The Poor Brit is always the love interest.
The Real British Boy:
The Real British Boy does not talk
posh, even if he is from London. If he has an accent it’s Yorkshire, or Glaswegian
or Geordie. He goes to a normal school, just like everyone else, and may never
have played hockey in his life. The thought of buying a tea and scone for lunch
is absolutely alien and he sticks instead to a cheese sandwich and an apple.
His diet would not be affected if he moved to America, nor would his clothes
seem out of place. In fact, most of the brands he wears are straight out of
America anyway. He likes Harry Potter but the closest he has ever gotten to
Hogwarts is the Warner Brothers Studios. He was probably raised in your average
suburban house on a very ordinary street. He is barely distinguishable from an
American boy… although he probably does say ‘arse’ instead of ‘ass’
Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating the
American Brit a little bit (or an awful lot), but my point still stands. I
don’t expect American fiction to be absolutely chock-a-block with British kids,
but a little less of a stereotype would be nice. The thing about London, in my
readings anyway, is generally true. It would be nice to have the British kid be
Northern Irish or Scottish just once.
Can you tell the difference? |
It’s not a huge problem, (I still love
American fiction anyway) and maybe Britain does it to American kids too but
that issue doesn’t seem so apparent. But maybe before an American writer makes
the British kid a crucial part of their plotline, instead of marathoning every
BBC series ever made and using J.K. Rowling as your guide they should visit
Britain, or even just talk to an actual Brit. I love America, but us Brits
don’t like it when you see us as all the same, especially when that all the
same is so far from the truth. So, America, don’t be an arse, let’s stop the
stereotypes!
So, what do you lot think about this
issue, especially all you Americans and Brits? Have you noticed this? Do you
mind? If your view is completely different to mine, then say so! I love
different opinions! Go on, let’s get a good ol’ discussion going down in the
comments section!
Sunday 1 March 2015
Wreck This Journal Art Update!
Sometimes, I do things that aren’t
reading… Shocking, I know! As a book blogger should I not spend every waking
hour spaced out and high on literature? You would think so, but this is not the
case!
One of the things I love to do in my spare
time is actually art. Art? I hear you
say. Art is not a book! Picasso is not
Rowling! This is a book blog - I came here for books! Well, art may not be
a book, but Wreck This Journal by
Kerri Smith is and a damn good book too!
I have always loved Wreck This Journal, giving them away left right and centre for
various birthdays and celebrations… But sadly I’ve never owned one – until
now!
Recently my craving for Wreck This Journal
got so strong that I just had to bite the bullet and go out there and grab one
for myself! I started filling it up straight away and let me tell you – it has
been fun! I’ve worked quite slowly,
because I wanted to really take my time making it lovely, but I thought I’d
show you some of my work today… Because even though I’m not an artist and I
don’t take art at school, I’m still quite chuffed with myself! Let’s get
wreckin’!
Acknowledgements/Copyrights
They may not have been the first
pages I did but it makes sense to start at the beginning, yes? The page on the
left is my copyrights page and I went through all the magazines I own so I
could cover it in clippings! The next page I decided not to plan so much,
because I tend to over-plan my art, so I just kind of went for it and it turns
out I quite like swirls… Who knew?!
This
page is a sign, what do you want it to say?
This one was really fun to do! I was
originally going to do just a regular old protest over something I really cared
about, but I kind of realized that sometimes people get so caught up over
really pointless stuff. SO - the obvious solution? A happy protest! I used
newspaper in the background to be ironic ‘cause I’m artsy like that… J
Float This Page
I got a new set of watercolour
paints for Christmas, and I’ve been practicing like mad with them through my
wreck this journal. A word of warning, they do buckle the paper, and colours
like black or navy tend to bleed through to the next page, but you are supposed
to wreck the journal so I suppose that doesn’t really matter! This was another
fun one – I never draw anything but people so it was cool to give myself new
subject matter!
Can you see her?
Cover This
Page in Dirt
This guy right here is
unfinished. He is supposed to be a soldier and I am going to rub the dirt on
his cheeks. I decided to break out my old water-colour pencils and I find
them just so frustrating as a medium… I have the basic outline of a little boy
on the other page out of shot and I’ll put dirt on his cheeks too… They soldier
and the boy were meant to be each other but art is hard so maybe not…
That’s
all from me for now folks! I hope you had fun reading this blog because I
definitely had fun making all the art for it! Let me know if this is the kind
of thing you might be interested in seeing again or on the other hand if you
rather my art just got lost off my blog! Communication is key my little
addicts…
I hope you all have a lovely day!
This is Evie, over and out!
X
Tuesday 17 February 2015
The Blog Revamp
Okay… So now I’ve been blogging for a
while now I kind of have to stop trying to excuse the overall
humbly-jumbly-rambliness of my blog by telling people that ‘I’m new!’ and that
‘I’ll get the hand of it’! The fact of the matter is, I’m lazy. I’m rubbish at
properly proof reading my blogs and editing them into a more readable state,
I’m a terrible rambler and if I don’t get my act together quick then I’ll never
be a blogging superstar! Okay, I don’t actually care about fame, I just want my
blog to be a bit prettier. So here it comes, my Chinese New Year Blogging
Resolutions! (That’s a thing right?)
The Perfect Excuse... |
1.
Short and Sweet
Every
Tuesday I essentially post a 1000 word unstoppable rant onto my blog and it has
come to my attention that that might be a little hard to swallow. I barely have
the attention span to sit down and read 1000 words on some book I’ve never
heard of, so why should I expect you guys to as well? I want to make my blog
more accessible and this I think is the first step. That’s not to say I’m
banning the epic Lord-Of-The-Rings-length post, I’m just going to try and trim!
2.
Structure
As
I said, I’m not good at editing my blogs and it’s time for that to change.
Perhaps not with discussion posts but I realize I don’t actually write many reviews
because it’s so hard to write an 1000 word review and keep it somewhat interesting. Most bloggers have an
easily-readable structure to their posts and those are the blogs I usually like
best, so I plan on making my thoughts and opinions a little more structured
too!
3.
Routine
If
you haven’t worked it out, I post a new blog every Tuesday at about 5pm and
that is just impossible! So far I have kept very strictly to my schedule
however what with Tuesday being a school day and an after-school rehearsal day for me. So I might (I haven’t quite decided) move my post day to a Sunday, just
to make things a little stress for myself!
4. Makeover Time
I'm not even gonna pretend to know anything about web design. I want my blog to look prettier - I'm not talking Vogue style perfection. I mean, I want my blog to undergo that process in the teen movie where the cool kids take of the dorky girl's glasses, give her some lip gloss and teach her to smile and oh look she was pretty all along! So if any of you know how to work that kind of movie magic... let me know
5. Connect more
Last,
but not least, I want to put myself out there! I don’t speak to you guys nearly
enough! I’ve never done events or buddy-reads (yet!) and I think that should
change. I vow to at least try and
remember to answer my comments, update my goodreads and make myself known in
the community. Soon enough, I promise, I’ll be tweetin’ like a little bird!
So
there we have it, a makeover-to-be! But I’d like to know whether these things
were ever issues for you guys or was it just me? Let me know if there’s
anything I can do to make this blog a better place that I haven’t already mentioned.
Let’s get started guys-
Talk
to me! I promise I’ll talk back!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)