Creativity when reading and...

Sure thing, reading is a creative process when the images created by the author's language form into a picture inside the reader's mind.

Thanks, Jane Urquhart, your style is extraordinarily creative and triggering off wonderful images. Unfortunately (or thanks God, depending on the point of view), these images are individual ones, i. e. each reader has his/her own images in mind. Working with pupils on a book means talking about these images, pictures, scenes as well and trying to make the others  understand these individual pictures and thus the story as well.

Sometimes it's quite easy to ask "Whom of your favourite Hollywood actresses or actors does your protagonist resemble?" Up come loads of names and within a short time discussions about Hollywood films are going on.

No thanks, don't want that, I'd like to learn about your individual pictures. "Which of the persons in class resembles Mary/Moira?" The answers are all alike:

Maike looks like Mary on Rathlin Island - and luckily Lotte goes off with Maike, shooting

pictures of Mary being away & away & away & away & away & away & away & away & away & away

And what about Eileeen? "I know someone from grade 13, Jann", Regina suggests and gets the digital camera to shoot

pictures of Eileen

Unfortunately there are only two boys in the course, fortunately enough they are willing to pretend they were Osbert and Granville Sedgewick, they just need some costumes! Off goes Lotte with them (on a free afternoon) to shoot

pictures of the Sedgewick brothers

I was fascinated by the description of the "white house" which becomes an obsession to Liam. On a sunny & warm (lazy) Sunday afternoon, re-reading chapters 2 & 3 in the garden, white North-American wooden houses spring up in my mind, paintings of lighthouses and white houses by Edward Hopper as well! Grabbing a Hopper book and doing some research on the net finally ends late at night with a collection called: 

Edward Hopper and Liam's white house

Looks a bit like Hopper did these paintings especially for AWAY, but sure he's long dead. Anyway, his cold and lonesome depictions of lonesome people, mainly women, fit perfectly in with Jane Urquhart's description of Eileen, waiting for her beloved Aidan in the room with the view of the Lake.

Seeing these paintings on the course's website, Maraike comes up with three books with paintings by Sisley, Corot and Renoir and very quickly adds suitable passages from the novel, so here we have

impressionists' eyes on passages from the novel.

Finally, René Magritte's surrealistic painting resembled the description Liam gives when his mother seems to disappear among the trees.

Another finally: Two months after this project Lotte brings in a wonderful painting by J. W. Waterhouse: "Miranda - the tempest" and it really looks as if Mary was waiting for her sailor after the shipwreck.

Last not least: Rockwell Kent's painting "And Women Must Weep or
Shipwreck, Coast Of Ireland" (1927-28) would be another one which fits perfectly to this novel. Rockwell Kent plays quite an important role in "The Underpainter" (1997) by Jane Urquhart.

Bottom-line: Excellent book, creative and becoming an obsession. There are much more paintings and images which could refer to AWAY, but enough is enough. I nearly forgot: Paintings by Gainsborough are mentioned in chapter one when Osbert needs to raise money to send the tenants to Canada and... no, let's stop it here before all artists of the last two centuries are linked to AWAY!

BTW: Making web-pages after having read a very impressive book is a creative process as well. So finally we've got a wonderful combination of traditional reading and modern technologies when presenting impressions, images and ideas which came up during the process of reading AWAY. Thanks, Jane Urquhart, this was more than just a rewarding experience, it turned out to become an obsession and took me @way for a couple of weeks!