Thanks for the explanations about R McK. I checked our county library 'on-line' section and they don't seem to have any of her books in stock, although this could be because they don't seem able to deal with McKinley and can only come up with MacK words. Even as a child I was not happy with fairy stories/make-believe and much preferred true-to-life books. As for names I think in the UK we are tending to go the way of America . . what you do today we will probably be following before long. I can't say I have ever heard an English girl called Brooke or Sydney and Tracy, along with Sharon has become attached to 'Estuary' England. Did you know that Wendy was 'invented' by J M Barrie in Peter Pan and the boy's name 'Barry' along with 'Clive' were originally surnames . . .probably dozens more egs. The name 'Sandy' is always short for either Sandra (for a girl) or Alexander for a boy, particularly in Scotland. Also quite popular for dogs! We certainly don't have your rich mix of 'first' names (or Christian names are they are still known over here). Can someone please tell me why it is that American women often use a couple of surnames rather than dropping the first when they get married; something we seldom do over here?

I agree with looking at the Newbery list (not just the award winners, but the honor books as well). It contains a diverse range of books that should appeal to this age group. I'd also like to recommend Michael Ende's The Neverending Story if your son hasn't read it yet. It's classic fantasy, IMO, and can be read on different levels -- overall, a very transcendent piece of literature. I've recently discovered Nancy Farmer's books, too, and am a big fan of hers. Sea of Trolls has a boy protagonist and would make a nice tie-in for learning about Norse mythology. John Bellairs' Lewis Barnavelt or Johnny Dixon books are good for the age 9-12 range (sort of creepy, gothic mysteries for kids). I enjoyed them as a kid (and they are fun, nostalgic reads for adults, as well).

Just finished a quite enjoyable read called "The Great Filth: The War Against Disease in Victorian England" by Stephen Halliday (2007). (The same author wrote "The Great Stink" about that hot summer in London when the Thames smelled horrible and affected the politicians at the Houses of Parliament enough to get them in gear about the city drainage system.) The topic was great and I'm always up for a delve into Victorian times, social history and medicine, and so most of this was truly fascinating. And I liked the approach that Haliday took which was more of a big-picture approach and gave appropriate kudos to engineers and architects and some reform-minded politicians who all helped to make public health safer. One ongoing thing that kept annoying me (and this is my permanently switched-on Editor self talking) was the actual format of the book. You could tell that Haliday had done his research - this is good. However, you could also tell that this book was a bunch of essays written at different times and then patched together. There was a lot of repetition and only some vague continuity between the different topics, and I think it's a bit lazy for an author to do this instead of finding new material or reworking the info differently. The thing that galled me the most was that Haliday (writing in 2007, mind you) kept referring to men and women in different ways. When males were first referenced, they had both their first name and their last name (surname) and then after that first mention, were called by their last names only. The women, on the other day, were first mentioned with first name/last name, but then referred to thereafter by their first names. This struck me (as an editor) to be infantilizing for these brave and smart women of the times in comparison to the male characters who were featured. I saw this early in the book, and then saw that it continued as a formatting choice throughout, and it started to quite irritate me. I don't know why Haliday made this choice (or perhaps his editor did). Published in 2007 means that it is recent enough for people to be aware of gender bias in writing, so I don't have an explanation for this. I know - nit-picky, but it affected my overall reading experience. Why not first name/last name as first ref and then revert to last names for everyone regardless of gender? So - content was good (apart from the repetition) and there was a nice bibliography at the back for further reading. And I learned things - but it was all a bit marred by this gender bias thing that has little excuse for existing in this day and age. Speaking of Victorian medicine, whilst we were in London, we visited the Hunterian Museum (housed by the Royal College of Surgeons) and packed with historical medicine artefacts. Fascinating. Here is a link that might be useful: Hunterian Museum (London)

America is funny about measurements as well - around here, everyone is very focused on old measurements (like foot and inches), and I tend to think that way as well except for very small measurements when I think cm and mm... Weather is always 32 is freezing... Reading-wise: read three books last weekend: * The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie --- never read any of hers before, and have not really read much mystery so this was fun even though you have to keep track of five million different characters! * My Jim - Nancy Rawles -- a new perspective on Huck Finn and his friend Jim... This is from the POV of Jim's wife who he left when he went down the river w Huck.. and told through a generational perspective. Reminded me in parts of "How to Make an American Quilt" as the book was structured around the sewing of a quilt... Once I got used to the strong dialect, this book was really good... * The Doctor's Wife - Sawako Ariyoshi -- the fictionalised story (but based on true events) of the first doctor in seventeenth century Japan to use anasthetic (sp?) forty years before Western docs found the use for chloroform. Interesting to read about how life was organized for the hierarchy of feudal Japan and its families... Now reading Elisabeth Bumiller's The Secrets of Mariko, a NF that follows the life of an ordinary Japanese family from the wife's perspective in the late 1990's... (Interested to see if much has changed in the few centuries between the settings of these two books..) Plus curious to see if it's like that new NF out right now about the parenting style of a Chinese-Am family... Trying to read more books from other countries and about other countries (i.e. non US, non Canada, non UK)... Aussie ok. :-)