Chumbalina the Plump Princess by Christopher Holley

'Chumbalina was not like the other princesses. 

She did not care for looking beautiful. Nor did she want to fall in love with a handsome prince and live happily ever after.'

Chumbalina also loves to eat sweets and cakes and as a result she is plump. This is not considered a suitable trait in a princess so she is shunned by all the other princesses and her only friend is her plump grey cat.

When her father bans sweets from the kingdom in an attempt to try to make Chumbalina lose weight, she leaves home and runs away to the forest where sweeties grow on trees.

Meanwhile an ogre attacks the kingdom and Chumbalina rushes back home to challenge the giant to an eating contest. Will she be able to defeat the enemy? Will she be able to win friends by her efforts? Will she learn to love vegetables?

This is a fun read, with lively illustrations full of details that add to the written narrative. It's a great book for showing children that everyone matters and that everyone has talents that make them special.


Chumbalina the Plump Princess by Christopher Holley, illustrated by Giedre Seniuniene

**

I recently reviewed Christopher Holley's book A World Without Water over on my Crafty Green Poet blog here.  

 Disclaimer, I was sent free e-copies of these books to review.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Calton Hill

more photos on Crafty Green Poet

The Scottish National Monument was built in memory of the Scottish soldiers killed during the Napoleanic wars.

You can read more about the other monuments on Calton Hill here.

Moonlit Edinburgh Castle

My Riastrad by Kevin Hogan

In this collection, Hogan muses on topics including relationships, gay and bisexual identity, loneliness and ageing. It also includes a poem about shovelling snow and A Lovelier World in which a dog that

has never caught more
than tennis balls

dreams about 'furrier prey'.

Hogan offers occasional sharp insights as when he meditates on night terrors in Off My Chest

I would rather 
see the demons
than suddenly awaken 
one day blind

He has skill with rhymes  as here in Oh, Wicked One
 
On the day I should have drowned 
in the ocean's lost and found 

(though on some occasions it feels as though lines are distorted somewhat by the rhyme.

I particularly liked Hogan's ability to make interesting connections as in Fitting Room when confusion over the labelling of clothing sizes leads on to thinking about the labels he has endured as a bisexual man.  Even more unexpected a connection is made in Party Split Ends when shampoo and conditioner are compared to opposing political parties.

And the title? Riastrad is the Irish Gaelic term for battle frenzy. You can certainly sense rebellion coursing through much of this book, and well channelled into verse.

My Riastrad by Kevin Hogan, can be purchased here.

Open Air Chess / Draughts board

This nice little table was installed in 2013 in Roseburn Park, today would have been a nice day for a game of outdoor chess or draughts, if you had remembered to take your pieces along with you!

The park also has an outdoor table tennis table.

for Shadow Shot Sunday

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy

Maud has dementia and struggles to remember things, but she does know that her friend Elizabeth is missing. She struggles to get other people to believe her and is constantly frustrated in her search for her friend by her own inability to organise her thoughts.

Interwoven with Maud's attempts to find out what has happened to Elizabeth are her memories of her childhood, specifically of the time when her sister Sukey went missing. The two narratives play against each other in enlightening and thought provoking ways.

As well as being an excellent crime novel with a convincing unreliable narrator, this is a beautifully written, moving exploration of memory and family connections that convincingly details Maud's decline in her memory and abilities. A heartbreaking book.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy published by Penguin

The Ball's in Your Court - Learning a Foreign Language e-book

This short guide is intended to inspire and direct your language learning. Covering topics including learning styles, the origin of languages and the importance of learning about culture alongside language, this is an energising read for anyone learning or thinking of learning a language.

The book usefully helps the reader to identify and overcome their own barriers to language learning, whether lack of self confidence or difficulties with hearing spoken languages. It also helps you decide whether you would be better learning in a classroom (and if so, how to find a good teacher) or by yourself with books and tapes and how much time you can afford to devote to your studies. It goes into some detail on selecting learning materials (including recommending some individual programmes. It also offers some useful techniques for learning and using a foreign language - including circumlocution (rephrasing what you want to say to avoid coming up against words you don't know) It offers suggestions for how to build up your fluency, including suggesting reading a magazine of interest to you (for example, I read the Italian version of Focus magazine, which not only helps me develop my understanding of Italian but also gives me plenty of genuinely interesting articles, many of which are about science.)

The Ball in the title of the book, refers to BALL, an acronym gor Brain Activated Language Learning.

Though by the end of this book you won't have learnt a new language, you will have your mind thinking about how best to go about it. Which is a very important place to start.

The Ball's in Your Court - Learning a Foreign Language by Aurelia McNeil is available here. 

Disclaimer  - I recieved a free review copy of this e-book. 

Calton Hill

The Shoeshine Killer by Marianne Wheelaghan

At the opening of The Shoeshine Killer, Detective Sargeant Louisa Townsend (who we first met in Food of Ghosts which I reviewed here) arrives in Fiji to attend a conference on money laundering, just as a military coup is announced.

The coup means that Louisa can't stay in the conference hotel so she ends up staying in a small bed and breakfast, where she quickly makes friends with the owner. Unfortunately the owner is soon killed and rather than being a conference attendee, Louisa finds herself faced with a murder to investigate, if only the local police would let her help them, or perhaps they think she's a suspect?

Meanwhile what about the shoeshine boys, who live all together in a communal house and are overseen by a domineering boss. What is their connection with the bed and breakfast owner? Do they know anything about the murder?


Louisa is a very well-drawn, realistic character, grumpy, impulsive and obsessively clean. She's not entirely likeable but the reader can't help but be on her side, as she's so very human in all her failings and we very much feel for her as she struggles against her difficulties. It must take a lot of determination to face eating from a communal pot let along coming across a murder scene when you're obsessive about cleanliness and tidiness.


Throw in a corrupt church minister and local opposition to plans to build a gay holiday resort and there's a lot to keep the reader's attention in this story. 

The Shoeshine Killer by Marianne Wheelaghan, is available to buy for Kindle here.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Beyond Expectations

 

Beyond Expectations, a theatre show from Untold Theatre revisits Charles Dicken's classic great Expectations and re-tells the story from the perspective of Estella.

The story starts with Estella as a youngster, living with her mother, a passionate gypsy and her father, Magwitch, a drunk who beats her mother. She is then taken into the care of Miss Havisham, during which time she meets Pip. Although Pip loves her, she coldly rejects him, flirts with many other men and ends up in an unhappy marriage. Miss Havisham taught her well how to destroy men's hearts, demonstrating by ripping off the wings of a moth. At the same time though, she never taught Estelle the art of self preservation.

It's really interesting to see this well known tale told from a different perspective, though I felt it didn't really give a huge amount of insight into Estella as a character, over and above what we already know from the novel.

That aside, this is a wonderful production. The use of music and film add a great deal of atmosphere, whether it's restless ocean or scudding clouds or the forbidding gates of Miss Havishan's Satis House. The acting is consistently excellent and there is a good balance between humour and pathos. There's great attention to detail too, for example, I loved the puppets that were used to represent Estella and Pip in their very young years.

 So all in all, a definite recommendation if you don't know what to see in the mass of theatrical possibilities that is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 

Information on the show: 

• 7 - 15 August 2015 at 4.10pm (Run time 50 minutes)
  
  Forest Theatre, Greenside Venues
  Southbridge Resource Centre
  6 Infirmary Street
  Edinburgh EH1 1LT
  
  Tickets £8 (£6 Concessions). Ages 12+

  
  Book online: tickets.edfringe.com.
  Phone: 0131 226 0000
  Visit: 180 High Street, Edinburgh

Disclaimer: I received a free review ticket for this show.