Some local authorities, obviously suffering from mad cow disease (sorry ® cerebrally challenged bovine disorder), have asked their employees not to wish clients a Merry Christmas, on the grounds that it might cause offence to non-Christians. Several non-Christian organisations have made it clear that they would not be offended at all...
Moves, mergers, and all the rest of the industry news.
Longlists, shortlists and announcements of winners.
We've been making some changes to the Armadillo website since issue 8.3 was published. The banner adverts for reciprocal links have been updated - you can copy these and place them on your webpages providing a cheery armadillo image when you link to us! There's also a new embedded search engine to help find archived reviews and other content.
For one mad moment I consider not interviewing Eoin Colfer at all, wanting instead to ask him just to be funny for half an hour. The day before, my two children and I had seen Eoin with Angie Sage at a seminar on children's fantasy novels as part of the programme offered by the Gothenburg book fair Bok och Bibliotek. Thinking back, it seemed that it had not been so much of a seminar with sober discussion, but more of a one man show...
I have to start this article with a confession: I don't like Peter Pan. I never have. I find his cockiness and self-absorption repellant, Wendy pathetic and the stuff about believing in fairies quite yucky. Most of all I hate the idea of the boy who won't grow up, which is the problem with too many of the people that form 49% of the population. It's fear of death, really; if you don't grow up, you don't grow old and therefore become immortal. Personally, although I like some children very much, as with kittens, I find the grown-up version even more attractive...
Armadillo is edited by Mary Hoffman, written by a host of generous reviewers and web-edited by Rhiannon Lassiter. The original Armadillo image was created and donated by Jane Ray.