A relaunch

My first blog here for four years though I haven't stopped writing. Now it i time for a new title and a catch-up. Barack Obama is gone and we are now in a world of fake news, mostly on twitter, and 'alternative facts'. It is time to commend and support responsible journalists who are able to show an 'alternative fact' to be a lie. I refer to both sides of the Atlantic.

I remind new readers of my areas of interest.

• education and motivation to learn
• children's literature
• gardening
• religious studies.

Links to my various writings can be found on http://stephenbigger.blogspot.co.uk .
I have a new Amazon page, for which open the Amazon home page and enter Stephen Bigger. There are details there of a new book coming out over the summer, title Living Contradiction (Crown House Publishers) written with my PhD graduate Sean Warren. There will be a detailed blogpost later, but enough to say here that it is the story of his journey from being an authoritarian teacher to becoming an empowering and motivating teacher.

Also on my Amazon page are details of my collaboration with Vivian Bartlett titled Nurturing a Healthy Human Spirit in the Young (George Ronald Publishers) describing a project called Tranquility, a meditative approach to working with pupils aged 8-14. Again I will blog on this later.

On children's literature, my paper of Rupert Bear in World War 2 is being serialised in Nutwood News by the Followers of Rupert society. It tracks through newspaper serialisation in the Daily Express between September 1939 and summer 1945 with an epilogue on the Cuban missile crisis. It was fun to write and episode 3 (out of 4) is about to come out. Google Stephen Bigger Rupert to find it.

Seven articles for the Malcolm Saville Society discuss the seven books, based loosely on James Bond, of thrillers for teenagers. I will gather these together in time into a self-complete volume. I am currently writing the Introduction to the Girls Gone By edition of the second of these, The Purple Valley (1964) out later this year.

My approach to literature is sociohistorical, setting the stories in their historical context. The blog http://1930-1960.blogspot.co.uk covers miscellaneous things relevant to these years, and http://fiction4children.blogspot.co.uk goes beyond these years.

On gardening, see my photo blogs on our own garden throughout the year, and the Kelmscott Manor Garden (March to November).

My most recent religious studies reflections are on the blog 4004BCE? (http://4004BCE.blogspot.co.uk). The title is a humorous comment on Archbishop Ussher's insistence that earth was created in September of this year.  More elderly are introductions to Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.