#maree coote

Spellbound is a really difficult book to make a decision on. It is a really clever concept. The idea that any word can be turned into art and showing that to younglings in a way they are going to understand. The book doesn't know what it wants to be is it a showcase for Coote's work or a book on how to do it yourself? There is too much interaction with the reader for the former but not instruction for the later. There is an introduction that says how Maree Coote does it (she has limited herself to a set of fonts but will play around with them, direction, colour, mix and match fonts until the feel right) but no real step by step something that could have been very useful for readers and educators alike. Because I can see many teachers and other educators using this art with kids.

The pictures themselves are amazing for some it is hard to believe they are just made up of the letters of the word. The locations are well done The Palace of Westminster (using the letters of Big Ben) Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House but it is very Melbourne centric (go figure given the author and publisher). But my personal favourites are are the people, Tim Minchin, Dame Edna Everage, Lady Diana, George Washington and Frida Kahlo.

I wanted this to be 5 stars but I feel like it can't be, it's too confused. But it is a gorgeous book definitely one for the creative types and those who want a project.

This is the fourth edition of The Melbourne Book published in 2013. as such and as one may expect it has date likely a decade since the research things have changed. Something greatly some minorly. That said it is a good read. It is a succinct as possible history of a city and some of its important/ notable people. It is well-formatted with a mix of write-ups, photography and full-page portraits with quotes. It is fairly well balanced and the portraits break up the blocks of writing well. It's relatively difficult to discuss this in individual sections so I will do dot point of some of my fave not worthy sections, which will likely be long.

The writing at times can come across as highly critical of the changes made by the Victorian governments over the years. It feels like more than nostalgia. Some of the information is just plain wrong, not outdated wrong. The section about the Spirit of Tasmania and the Devilcat would have been easy to be fact check. Broadly the book is broken up into four sections Opportunity, Sanctuary, Passion and Beauty. I found that Beauty was the weakest of the four, beauty just doesn't have the pull of the others. That said some of it was interesting. There is a section on fashion that can read as downright catty if you are so inclined. There are some great descriptions sections on the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne (including its origins), the weather, the Shrine of Remembrance and sport (though I had some serious reservations about the content of that section).

I never knew the origins of Buckley's chance. William Buckley, who survived in the bush with aboriginal people well longer than he should have.

"There is no use having a perfect voice unless you have brains, personality, magnetism, great willpower, health, strength and determination." — Dame Nellie Melba.

"It is the responsibility of Capital to provide work. If it fails to do this, it fails to justify itself." — Sidney Myer. We really need more men like Sidney Myer in business now. Also, this is more about him and Myer than I've ever known.

I'm so glad Ferdinand von Mueller is heavily discussed. He deserves to be better known. Not only did he doa lot for the Botanic gardens. But he was very generous in his donations of cuttings to new gardens and cemeteries. I didn't know of him import to the Zoo either. He pairs well Guilfoyle (his successor) but we lost that generous spirit.

"A history lesson of Melbourne is this: here, this time, we all get a chance to get it right. Let's not forget our origins and need a third chance. It's highly unlikely there'll be one." — This is really just a nice idea.

In the chapter on bridges and ferries there is a mention that the first ferry company was run by a father-daughter enterprise, The Charon. Why oh why would you name ferry The Charon, Charon the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the river Styx. He is neutral neither good nor bad but there are so many cultures that believe in the harbingers of death, Charon would count.

"Home of Australia's very first Luna Park, St Kilda is where Melbourne keeps its sense of humour. Like Toyland on acid, it is wacky, novel, was once bohemian and is always slightly nuts." — I mean fair. How did I not know Luna Park was designed by the same people who designed Coney Islan. Also, the suburb is named after a yacht? Just why? Some creativity, please.

Ellis Rowan I have no words for how much I respect this woman. She was a woman in a man's world and walking to the beat of her drum. If she lived even a bit later she may not have married Charles Rowan, not had her son, Puck. I can't help but think that might have been a good thing, married life was not = for her. Puck's end was bad partially due to his absentee mother. He wasn't even mentioned in the book I read about her, not a shock given its demographics. But Charles Rowan is a legend, a 19th-century man wife's unusual passion.

"Along with the art came explosive liaisons, love triangles, infidelity and abandonment, in a set of complex relationships as intense and complex as the paintings themselves." — This is about the Heide a country homestead and art collective. All I could think was can someone please make a soap opera about the Heide, it's begging for it. And oh good lord Sweeny Reed had a strange and potentially bad upbringing. His early death is not a surprise.

To be honest the write up for Ned Kelly just made me laugh a little. And I make no apologies for that, the author is clever about how she writes it. Included in something I'd never seen or if I had taken I've never taken the time to read. An article from The Argus on the sentencing, including essentially a transcript between Judge Redmond Barry and Ned Kelly. Ned Kelly was an intelligent man the Jerilderie letter was not a once off. The last line Kelly says to Barry at the sentencing is "I will go a little further than that, and say I will see you there where I go.". Redmond Barry died only 12 days after Ned Kelly hung I didn't know that.

"Melbourne's temperature range is more conducive to reading than sunbaking — which contributes to its intellect more than Sydney, where the sun beats down and turns people into lizards that lay basking. I always enjoyed Melbourne's winter. It increased my reading exponentially." — Phillip Adams

Helena Rubinstein is not a woman I'd ever heard of but she's an impressive woman. Successful woman, entrepreneur and philanthropist who left the world a much better place than she found it by establishing scholarships, trusts and prizes for her causes. Oh, and at 68 she married a Prince 20 years her junior. Good for her.

I'm going to be honest and say this is nowhere near as good as clever as Coote's previous typography book, Spellbound: Making Pictures with the A-B-C. While the ideas are the same and the execution is probably similar it just isn't as good. Dogs feel like a good choice, popular with children and variable/ distinct in appearance. But in practice has lead to a feeling of duplication Pug, Bulldog and Boston Terrier are all very similar, Cavoodle and Labradoodle are executed in a similar way. The speech bubbles are a nice addition. Like "Me? I like old-fashioned script, And a bubble bath before I'm clipped." for a Schnauzer, "Spots are boring! — I prefer that letters decorate my fur." for a Dalmatian and "I'm spelled so fierce and pointy-eared, No wonder I'm so widely feared." for a Doberman (are they though? only because of poor perpetuated stereotypes, see also staffies or anything brindle). I quite like the images in themselves. For some it is a simple portrait, for others there are multiple images some in movement and some are a face on one page and the whole dog on the other. This was a clever choice and I liked seeing the slight differences between the executions. There are teaching notes included the fonts and breeds of dogs used.