Nosy Crow's Blog, page 106

Take a look at our latest books, coming out next month!

We’ve got a fantastic selection of books coming out this May – with new novelty, picture books, and middle grade fiction in shops next month, you’ll have plenty to choose from. By our count, it’s Nosy Crow’s biggest publication day of 2017 so far! Here’s what you can find from Nosy Crow next month.

First up is a wonderfully vivid and squashy book for the very young. Part of our new Tiny Little Story series, Park follows Baby Boo as they spend a day of discovery at the park. With bold images and the simplest of stories, this is the perfect first book to share with a baby. Created by Lisa Jones and Edward Underwood, it comes with a velcro-fasten buggy handle and special crinkly pages! Take a look at Tiny Little Stories: Park before it’s published:

We’re excited to publish two more additions to our Felt Flaps series, gorgeously illustrated by Ingela P Arrhenius. Can you find the friendly animals hiding behind the bright felt flaps? There’s also a mirror on the final page! A perfect book to share with very little ones. With flexible flaps that are soft to the touch, little readers will grow in confidence as they turn the pages and discover all the hidden animals. Here’s a look at the upcoming two titles – Where’s Mr Owl and Where’s Mrs Hen?

There is a new Violet Rose book in the series – just in time for some (hopefully!) summery weather. School’s out for the summer and Violet Rose and her friends are going on holiday! Help them to set up camp, decorate sandcastles on the beach and go on a nature scavenger hunt. At the end, make a holiday scrapbook to remember all the fun! Beautifully illustrated by Jannie Ho, and with over 175 stickers, press outs and free printable available online, there’s plenty to make and do. Here’s a look at Violet Rose and The Summer Holiday:

The latest instalment of our popular Press Out and Colour series, illustrated by Zoe Ingram, is coming soon! Each press-out butterfly is intricately decorated with foil and perfect for all ages to colour in. Featuring ten unique butterfly species, each with a contrasting pattern on the undersides of their wings, the press-out pieces can be easily slotted together to create cheerful hanging ornaments. From a stripy zebra longwing to a beautifully ornate blue morpho, these gorgeous butterflies look elegant in white and silver, but even better when you add colour to create a hanging kaleidoscope of butterflies! Take a look at Press Out and Colour: Butterflies:

We’re also publishing TWO new picture books next month.

We’ll be publishing The Treasure of Pirate Frank – a brand new picture book written by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham. A boy and his dog set sail in search of treasure, braving stormy seas . . . mountains snowy and cold . . . the forest where the monkeys swing . . . the swamp where the bullfrogs sing . . . and other challenging obstacles, before finally reaching the end of their quest. But wait – they might be in for a BIG surprise! Jez Tuya‘s illustrations are full of detail and humour, and the rhythmic lines will soon have you chanting along with the story!

Take a look inside:

That Bear Can’t Babysit will be out next month, too – a new picture book full of brilliantly naughty bunnies and one very dreamy bear, written by Ruth Quayle.

When Mr and Mrs Burrow hire a babysitter, they are not expecting Bear. And Bear is NOT expecting seven little bunnies who are full of mischief. Together, the bunnies persuade Bear to read a scary book, give them sweets and chocolate spread for dinner, and go crazy with the garden hose! But when the bunnies find Bear sailing the high seas in a make-believe ship, suddenly he isn’t such a bad babysitter after all. When Mr and Mrs Burrow return, all the bunnies are peacefully tucked up in bed… Well, almost all of them. Alison Friend‘s illustrations are simultaneously sweet and mischievous as the bunnies try to push the boundaries with their new babysitter – a real delight!

Take a look inside:

 

And in May we’ll also be publishing the first paperback edition of Pip and Posy: The New Friend, by Axel Scheffler. Pip and Posy are having a lovely day at the seaside, collecting shells and digging the sand. But when Posy has a nap, Pip makes friends with a boy called Zac who has lots more toys and beach gear. A funny and dramatic story about working out that two’s company and three’s a… PARTY!

Take a peek inside the latest in the Pip and Posy series here:

This May we’re publishing not one, not two, but FIVE new titles in partnership with the British Museum.

First up, we have two books in our new British Museum: First Concepts series for little readers. Featuring amazing objects from the British Museum, this series of captivating board books encourages children to engage with early learning concepts. In 123, inquisitive toddlers will enjoy learning to count from one to twenty. In ABC, they’ll discover the alphabet from A to Z. With gorgeous photographic images on every page, and an informative index at the back (and a QR code to scan and find out even MORE!) there’s a lot to discover, whatever your age. Here’s a look at the two upcoming books:

Get creative with a new book in the The Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes series. Publishing this May, in partnership with The British Museum, Fabulous Flowers and Perfect Patterns, is an amazingly innovative colouring book, full of beautifully designed cards and envelopes to tear out and colour. Rachel Cloyne‘s twenty-four gorgeous designs are inspired by patterns found in the British Museum and are perfect for all ages to decorate and send to family and friends. Take inspiration from the museum objects themselves or get experimental – try unusual colours and different materials to make each card truly unique! With enough blank space inside for a message, envelopes to customise and stickers to seal your card -this is the complete creative package! For the curious – there’s also an informative index at the back of the book so you can discover the historical inspiration behind the intricate designs! Here’s a look ahead of publication:

Discover the ancient art of Origami with the British Museum’s Origami, Poems and Pictures, and learn how to make your own, too! This stunning book features three beautiful Japanese art forms in one gorgeous gift format. For each animal or object, children will be able to read the haiku, enjoy a painting from the British Museum collection… and then make the origami figure. With fifty sheets of origami paper, you can fill your home with your very own paper creations! Here’s a sneak peek at the cover:

Who ever said History or Museums were boring clearly hadn’t read this – Maurice the Museum Mouse’s Amazing Ancient Book of Facts and Jokes is out this May, published in partnership with The British Museum. Written by Tracey Turner and wittily illustrated by Mark Beech, this joke book is full of side-splittingly hilarious jokes and fascinating facts about civilisations found in the British Museum. Full of bite-size facts about amazing ancient worlds and jokes that will have you howling, Maurice the Museum Mouse’s comical collection is just as entertaining as the British Museum’s own collection!

Take a look inside:

The Secret Diary of John Drawbridge, a Medieval Knight in Training will be in shops next month! This is the first in our National Trust: Secret Diary series, illustrated by Jamie Littler, and the latest book from Philip Ardagh, author of The Grunts.

John Drawbridge has moved to Widemoat Castle to learn to become a knight. And there is a LOT to learn. . . How to charge with a lance on horseback without falling off. Why the spiral staircases always go up in a clockwise direction. How to defend the castle against invading parties. Why the plates served at banquets are made of stale bread (and why you shouldn’t eat them…). And much, MUCH more. So it’s no wonder that John decides to keep a diary (even if it is only an imaginary one…) of his time at the castle. Things REALLY liven up when the castle is attacked by an invading Welsh party – but can John foil their plot before it’s too late…?

Go on! Take a look inside:

And finally – this May we’ll be publishing There’s a Werewolf in my Tent!, the exciting new instalment in the award-winning and utterly hilarious Izzy series. Another brilliantly funny longer read for the newly confident reader from the best-selling, award-winning, author-illustrator team, Pamela Butchart and Thomas Flintham.

Izzy and her friends are SO EXCITED about their school trip. They’re going camping and there’ll be marshmallows and no washing and everything. But then WEIRD things start happening! There are howling sounds at night, and some sausages have gone missing, and it’s nearly a full moon… But it’s when they see their new teacher’s hairy legs that they KNOW! There’s a werewolf on the school trip and they’re all DOOMED!

Take a peek inside and prepare to HOWWWWL with laughter:

If you’d like to stay up to date with all of our book news, you can sign up to our books newsletter at this page, or with form below, and you’ll never miss a thing.

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Translating Murder in Midwinter

Today’s guest post is by Fleur Hitchcock, author of Dear Scarlett, Saving Sophia, and most recently, Murder in Midwinter, on the experience of having her work translated.

On 10th of Feb of this year, this is how it all began- a Facebook message from a man called Tomasz:

Hello ☺i’m translating you book from english and i want to ask about few things because i want to make a good translation ☺would you like to help me just a little bit?☺

And at the end of March this is how it finished:

T: I know everything ! Translation is done and I just sent it to the publisher ! :)

But in between there were more than 100 emails between us, many of them with photos. Sometimes he misunderstood me, sometimes I misunderstood him. Here is a little flavour of those emails:

T:  “The princess thing’s wearing a bit thin, Ollie, I say.”  To be honest I have no idea how to understand it :P

F: The “Princess thing” is Ollie’s continuous making fun of Maya for coming from the city – he imagines her as a Princess, with delicate sensibilities like someone from a fairy tale, rather than as a real person.   Does this help at all?

T: I was rather asking about “wearing a bit thin” cuz I had no idea what it is :)

F: Ah! Ok, so “wearing a bit thin” is an English expression that means something is starting to become less. So if someone took you to the cinema every day for a week, for the first few days it might be exciting, but by the end of the week, the joy would have gone and you might say: “the joy of going to the cinema is wearing a bit thin” – you can use it to mean anything is getting less enjoyable, or less funny, or less interesting. ☺

T: “(Samson) feels sprung.”  I’m trying to google it but it doesn’t help me to find good meaning.

Now I don’t know what’s more difficult to write a book or to translate one ;)

F: Like a coiled spring? Like you get in a clock? Incidentally, I couldn’t translate a thing!

T: Hmm… that slate mountain in my imagination is like big hill / mountain of slate in which the top was destroyed and because of that it looks like lets say horns or batman’s mask :P

F: Yes – like Batman’s mask!  Kind of. ☺

T: “I’ve cleaned the  spark plugs, rewired the wiring. Made a cog.” – Maya made a cog? Or in this context she fixed that cog? :) and “It used to drive your gran mad, although  she was just as bad….” – I’m thinking what drove gran mad and how to understand “she was just as bad”

I’m reading my translation of that chapter and I feel that some parts sound very bad :P

F: I think Maya is boasting when she says she “made a cog” – and it’s not necessarily true. She says afterwards something about most of it being true.  As my husband says, making a cog is really hard – but I think she’s stretching the truth a bit to impress Ollie.

Gran was driven mad by all the bits of mechanical mending that Granddad did around the place – but she did it too.  When we say driven mad, we mean “really annoyed”.

I suspect you may have to be a bit less exact with the translation in order to make it flow?  I think it must be very hard to translate my words as I use short sentences and I don’t always make things clear! ☺

T: “I yank the door and step forward into the stable, but the floor sags under my foot and a flaming plank that runs under the door falls away.”  I think I see that scene in my imagination, but I want to be sure :)  Maya opens door and step forward because she wants to reach Samson. Floor sags under her foot, she wants to make another step and that burning plank breaks and her foot almost falls into burning hole? :)

F: Yes! That’s right!

T: Hooray for me ! :D Now I’m starting to think that don’t suck at translating :P ha ha :)

T: Hmm…. Aunt V and Ollie has horses or ponies? Because you use both words :)

F: Do you have words for small horses in Polish?  They are really ponies.

T: In Polish generally big or small horse is still a horse, pony is pony :) we don’t say pony=small horse :)

F: Ah  – so for us, at fully grown, if a horse is smaller than 14.2 hands high then it’s a pony. A young horse is a colt or a foal. But pony trekking is usually done on small horses or ponies as they are more sure footed. Use pony.

T: OK, so I need to change every “horse” for “pony” :)

But then later I found an article about pony trekking in the High Tatras mountain in Slovakia, and they called them horses so…

T: Ok so not Poland but i don’t think they make a distinction between horse and pony – so use horse….

T: Oh… Samson is dead :(

F: No! No! He isn’t!

T: I’m reading page 220 so he has about 35 to return in glory ! :)

T: “Her or one of her meatheads. She knew Georgio’s heart wasn’t in it…. ” It means that Georgio and Peter wasn’t close? They were brothers but there wasn’t strong relationship between them?

F: It means that Georgio was close to Peter, and didn’t really believe in the deals surrounding the painting. He would give the painting back to its owner, not hold it to ransom.   He wasn’t committed to her plans. Does that make sense?

T: I’m not to write very long sentences so I simply wrote: She knew that Georgio wasn’t involve. My brother wasn’t a thief, he was real art historian :) Sounds good?

T: “A little later, when Helen’s made about a thousand phone calls and fed me the police supply of emergency chocolate hobnobs, Gethin’s dad arrives on a tractor with Auntie V following behind on the quad bike.”   I have problem with “hobnobs”. In Polish it means “to hang out / be in touch with sb’s being at higher position / rank” something like that

F:  Ha!  In the UK – hobnobs are a type of biscuit.

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It does also mean to hang out, but….

And so they went on…

It’s not the first time I’ve been contacted by a translator, I have had long telephone conversations and short email exchanges with a lovely French woman called Catherine Guillet who has translated both Dear Scarlett and Saving Sophia.  but mostly, we authors hear nothing until a freshly minted copy of a book drops through the letterbox, which unless you’re very unusual you can’t check or read or engage with in any way.  Tomasz has made me look much more closely at the words I use – regret some of the expressions I used. Regret some of the place names I invented. I have learned that a truck is a lorry, not a Landrover, that hugger mugger doesn’t actually mean what I thought it did. That in Tomazs’s words, “English is very simple language and in few words you can describe some things. Unfortunately polish isn’t so simple :)”

But, it’s been fun. And I’m pretty sure that children in Poland will be reading a very faithful copy of Murder in Midwinter – I wonder how that translates?

And I will give Tomasz the last word:

“For me translating Murder in Midwinter was fun and challenge at the same time. It was my first book I’ve ever translated and that was really exciting. At the beginning I was afraid that I might be not good enough, but book is written in a very simple and easy way. My english isn’t perfect and I had some problems, but the author was so kind and she explained me everything. Using pictures was very usefull and helped me a lot. Using colloqial speech or idioms was a little diffucult for me because I didn’t know these phrases, but thanks to Google and the autor I made it. I want to thank Fluer Hitchcock for being so kind and helpful.”

:):)

Thank you, Fleur and Tomasz! You can take a look inside Murder in Midwinter below:

Buy the book online.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our book news, you can sign up to our books newsletter at this page, or with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing:

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Ines, fairy tales and reading

Today’s guest post is by Carolyn Howitt, on sharing stories with her daughter Ines.

My father taught me to read when I was tiny using a ‘Teach Your Baby to Read’ scheme, getting me to crawl to the appropriate word. I used to be very proud of this when I was a child, I felt that it demonstrated a) my undisputed love of books and b) my superior intelligence. How wrong I was – it was only during my time as a primary school teacher that I realised that you can learn to read at any age. And that it doesn’t matter if you learn at 2 or 12, what matters is that it remains a joy – and this will only happen as long as you are not made to feel a failure during the process.

Which brings me to our daughter. Ines is 10 years’ old and has Down’s Syndrome. She has  a severe learning disability (SLD), and a limited and emerging vocabulary: she uses Makaton signs to support her speech. She is still in nappies. She makes loud dinosaur noises, eats with her hands and likes to spin around on the spot. She is relentlessly cheerful, hyperactive (officially ADHD), affectionate and demanding – everyone has to have a ‘big cuddle’ about once an hour (this can lead to embarrassment if we are spending time with people we don’t know that well). She can be violent when unable to express her needs. She is frequently in peals of laughter, when asked why just says ‘It funny’. As well as being firmly glued to her iPad she absolutely loves stories, in particular fairy tales. And the relationship between this love, her emerging speech and her first steps in reading is a close one.

Bedtime is story time and Ines adores this. The ritual has to be the same every night. Her father and I take it in turns to read to her but her favourite thing is when we are both there; one reading, the other one joining in as part of the audience. It is absolutely crucial that she feels ownership of this time and that she is in control. She places us in the correct part of the room. She personally and carefully selects each story from the small pool of about 12 books (this can take a while). If we suggest a story it is usually dismissed and she goes back to pondering afresh, so we have to sit there with our mouths firmly shut. Introducing new books is extremely tricky, we often have to sneak them in and then wait for her to be feeling particularly adventurous. And the books that she does like have been read literally hundreds of times: we are on our second copy of Nosy Crow’s Jack and the Beanstalk. She has a bookcase of lovely stories which she will not look at, but we don’t mind this as we have time on our side – we will get round to them all eventually. Current favourite books include Green Eggs & Ham, Hairy McClairy and Mr Underbed, plus a number of Tweenies stories (Ines loves the Tweenies),  and of course Frozen.

While we read she concentrates hard and joins in enthusiastically, especially enjoying the funny bits and any rhymes. She cackles and shouts, does all the actions (and Makaton signs) and sings. Some of her favourite bits are rather inexplicable. The word ‘goosery’ in Jack and the Beanstalk, for some bizarre reason, is said with relish every time. More understandably she loves the giant’s rhyming couplets and will join in on the final word  ‘Winner’…’DINNER’! And when Cinderella’s stepsisters shriek ‘Fetch my tiara!’ she is quite literally falling about with mirth. All stories conclude with a satisfied ‘THE END’.

Ines’ development is in many ways a mystery to me. I find myself staring at her wondering what exactly is going on in her head (it’s probably just ‘Chips!’ or ‘Big cuddle!’). Whatever it is, there is no doubt that language is power, and the more she can express herself verbally, the fewer behavioural problems we have from her. Then other achievements follow as she learns along her own path. So Ines’ love of story must be cherished as it will lead to everything else for her, it will literally make her life unfold. I do not believe this to be an understatement.

I first learned about the link between reading and language development when I took Ines to  specialist speech therapy sessions, which she attended weekly between the ages of 4 to 7. These are run around the UK by the organisation SYMBOL, and are aimed specifically at children with Down’s Syndrome. They are absolutely brilliant. Based on the premise that DS children are visual and sensory learners and find phonics tricky, words are matched with pictures, their shapes are memorised, their pattern is clapped and a useful core vocabulary is built up. Reading is THE starting point: the gateway to speech. The core vocabulary chosen is always of personal interest to the child. Watching my daughter in these sessions was a revelation – first attending as a hyperactive non-verbal child, she became able to sit and concentrate, she learned and delighted in it. Her language gradually increased alongside her reading and comprehension.

Recently I have been trying to continue the Symbol approach at home. For this to be effective I select words that Ines wants to learn and mix these up with a useful basic core vocabulary. For example, photos of our family are teamed with ‘and’, the characters from Frozen are teamed with ‘I’ and see’ and the characters from Red Riding Hood with ‘in’ and ‘the’. Ines is making slow but rather wonderful progress. Have a look at the film clip below to see this in action:

Ines also likes to sit and leaf through a book, often ‘reading’ to herself some memorised words, or just making them up. This is quite interesting as she loves the process of reading even when not really understanding the story. I had always assumed that young children are captivated only by story, but this is apparently not all of the enjoyment. She glances at the illustrations but it is not these that reel her in either – it seems to be an innate love of the language, the actual words themselves:  she particularly enjoys rhyming couplets, words with rhythm, onomatopoeia. Maybe this is partly why she enjoys classic fairy tales so much – their words resonate; ‘Fee, fie, foe fum’, ‘What big teeth you have’, ‘Not by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin.’

Reading up on why fairy tales have such timeless appeal, I have come across a number of scholarly theories around their universal themes of impossible adversary, life/death, rags to riches, longing/desire etc. But Ines won’t understand any of these. She lives utterly in the present and has no understanding of money or death, for example. So I’m still at a slight loss to explain this. It could just be down to their simplicity – clear heroine, big problem, nasty adversary, happy ending. That ebb and flow of the key aspects of what makes a good story will ring through, even if you do not understand the finer workings of the plot.

For Ines in particular, the humour is a pull. Some fairytales are actually pretty dark but humour is highlighted in the Nosy Crow reworkings of the fairy tales and this may explain why these are her favourites. And then the apps reinforce the stories and allow the stories to be explored independently. Ines is a modern tech-savvy child, able to easily navigate an ipad, and the apps have her screeching out loud with laughter. Not always at the parts you would expect (or even want) – she loves the crying Snow White baby, for example, which can be hard to listen to for half an hour. The part that she finds the funniest is when Jack has to try and get the bats out of the castle, she literally shouts BATS and is wiping her eyes. What is it exactly? Who knows but it is wonderful.

Despite her SLD she is extremely independent, often doing exactly the opposite of what is requested purely for the fun of it. This can be awkward but it is a secret relief to me that no-one will ever make Ines do anything that she doesn’t want to do. However it can make teaching her impossible as if she is not in the mood as she will totally refuse to co-operate. For this reason it is important to only ask Ines to read when Ines wants to do it. Sometimes this means waiting weeks between sessions but she always comes back to it without fail. If we push this then she won’t want to come back and we will have lost her. And after all, what’s the hurry? There’s too much at stake.

So this brings me back to the start. The main thing, more important than the mechanical act of reading itself, is that Ines retains her love of story and is able to always get enjoyment from books. For its own sake, but also as the first milestone towards other communication and progress more generally.  If we crushed this then I would never forgive myself.

So here’s the challenge: we have to keep the out loud reading fresh each day, despite the repetition. I never would have thought I had the patience for this, but it’s worth the instant reward of the expression on Ines’ face. So – who’s for Cinderella for the thousandth time?

Signed books available from the Nosy Crow shop!

We currently have limited numbers of signed copies of some of our books, available to buy from the Nosy Crow shop! Here’s what’s available:

There are signed copies of The Jamie Drake Equation by Christopher Edge on offer. Combining action and adventure with cutting-edge space exploration and a compelling emotional core, this is truly awesome storytelling. The Guardian called the book “science fiction at its most moving and exciting”, and The Times, naming The Jamie Drake Equation their Children’s Book of the Week, wrote that “Edge has found the equation that solves the problem of how to write a fun, intellectually challenging novel with an emotional centre for 7 to 11-year-olds. It’s a big tick.”

Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy your signed copy.

We have signed copies of Evie’s Ghost available – the new book from Helen Peters, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted The Secret Hen House Theatre, The Farm Beneath the Water, and the highly acclaimed Jasmine Green series for younger readers. Part Gosford Park, part Charlotte Sometimes, and part The Go-Between, this is an absolutely brilliant time-slip story – spine-tingling, moving, funny and heartbreaking. Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy your signed copy.

And we also have signed copies of the first two books in Helen’s Jasmine Green series available – A Piglet Called Truffle and A Duckling Called Button. Brilliant story-telling that will make you laugh and cry, and beautifully illustrated by Ellie Snowdon, this series is James Herriot for a new generation. Here’s what The Guardian’s Imogen Russell Williams said about A Piglet Called Truffle: “For readers aged five to eight, Helen Peters’ A Piglet Called Truffle is sensitively illustrated by Ellie Snowdon, and reminiscent of Dick King-Smith at his best … This involving, unsentimental little book is the first in a new series that should appeal strongly to animal lovers.”

Here’s a look inside A Piglet Called Truffle:

Buy your signed copy.

And here’s a look inside A Duckling Called Button:

Buy your signed copy.

And finally, we have signed hardback copies of the first two books in Axel Scheffler’s wonderful Pip and Posy picture book series – The Little Puddle and The Super Scooter!

Here’s a look inside The Little Puddle:

Buy your signed copy.

And here’s a look inside The Super Scooter:

Buy your signed copy.

If you’d like to stay up to date with all of our book news, you can sign up to our newsletter at this page, or with the form below.

 

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There are just a couple of days left to apply for a PR and Marketing Assistant role at Nosy Crow

We recently announced that we’re hiring a PR and Marketing Assistant, and there are just a few days left to apply for the role – the closing date for applications is Monday April 17th.

This is an exciting opportunity for a talented publishing PR and marketing professional at the start of their career to assist in the promotion of Nosy Crow’s fast-growing, award-winning children’s list.  The successful candidate will join our team as PR and Marketing Assistant on a full-time basis, working in our London office near London Bridge.

Purpose of the Job:

The role of the PR and Marketing Assistant is to assist both our Senior PR and Media Relations Manager and Marketing Executive to promote Nosy Crow’s authors and illustrators, our high-profile list of titles and multi award-winning brands.

The PR and Marketing Assistant reports to the Senior PR and Media Relations Manager and will be joining the Sales and Marketing Department.

This role would suit someone with a year’s experience of PR or the children’s book industry.

We are a close team and we value the experience and creative input that we can each provide to help shape our products to be the best they can be.

Key responsibilities and tasks:

To work closely with the Senior PR and Media Relations Manager to help implement creative and targeted PR campaigns that deliver coverage and sales for Nosy Crow.
To set up and attend author tours, events and festivals.
To maintain our PR contacts database and look after publicity mailings.
Working under the guidance of the Marketing Executive, help to create a range of marketing material and collate and proofread the annual catalogue and rights guides.
To provide general admin support and assist in the smooth running of the office.

Key skills, characteristics and capabilities:

Previous experience working in the children’s book world, a range of press contacts and/or organising festivals, events, conferences and book tours is desirable, but not essential
Excellent verbal and written communication skills plus the ability to write persuasive copy
Appetite to deliver the best possible author care
A great eye for detail and the ability to proofread
Confidence in building and maintaining relationships with authors, illustrators and key contacts
Flexible and able to work evenings and weekends as needed
Willingness to be fully involved in our busy and fun office
A keen interest in children’s books

The successful candidate will have the right to live and work in the UK.

To apply, please email your CV, accompanied by not more than 500 words on what you think you could contribute to Nosy Crow, both personally and as a PR/Marketing professional.  Please send to Catherine Stokes (catherine@nosycrow.com), with details of your current salary.  We look forward to reading your application.

The closing date for applications is midnight on 17th April 2017 (UK time).

The next Nosy Crow Reading Group is almost here – we’re discussing Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

The Nosy Crow Reading Group is back in a couple of weeks – we’ll be discussing Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk.

And if you’re interested in coming along, there are just a couple of places remaining!

We’ll be meeting on Tuesday, April 25th at 6.30pm, here at the Nosy Crow offices – 10a Lant Street, London, SE1 1QR – for a discussion of the book (along with wine and crisps).

If you’d like to come along, just register for a place with the form below, or at this page – if the reading group becomes fully booked, you can add your name to our waiting list, and we’ll notify you if a place opens up.

You can order Wolf Hollow online from Waterstones here.

We hope to see you there!

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Ten Things you should know about the land of The Secret Rescuers!

Today’s guest post is by Paula Harrison, author of The Secret Rescuers series (illustrated by Sophy Williams), with ten things that you should know about Arramia – the magical setting for this superbly-realised series for 7+ year olds.

1. The Kingdom of Arramia is full of magical animals like storm dragons, sky unicorns, firebirds and star wolves.

2. The Secret Rescuers often need to fly from place which they do on storm dragons, sea dragons, sky unicorns or diamond owls.

3. The storm dragon featured in the first book is called Cloudy (short for Cloudtail). Storm dragons can control the weather making the rain fall and the wind blow!

4. Not all grown ups like the magical animals and hiding a sky unicorn is trickier than it might seem!

5. Queen Viola rules the kingdom with help from her chief knight Sir Fitzroy.

6. Girls or boys can only talk to magical animals if one of the Speaking Stones cracks open to reveal the beautiful crystals inside.

7. Golden songbirds often carry messages from one Secret Rescuer to another.

8. In the Whispering Forest, there are giant toadstools and huge silverwing butterflies. Crystal glow worms light up in the dark and the star wolves sing the stars out each night.

9. Arramia is a vast country with mountains and forests in the north, lakes to the west and the sea to the east. In the south is a huge rainforest featured in The Baby Firebird.

10. In The Sea Pony there is a secret island called Ixus where no humans have ever been before. Sea ponies and sea dragons live there and turtles swim amongst the seaweed.

Thank you, Paula! The latest book in the Secret Rescuers series, The Secret Rescuers: The Sea Pony, is out now – you can take a look inside the book below:

Buy the book.

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A special Easter promotion for the Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon!

There are just over six weeks to go until the next edition of the Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon – and all this week you can buy your ticket with a special Easter discount!

Our special guest for the next salon will be Jamie Littler, the fantastic illustrator of The Secret Diary of John Drawbridge, Medieval Knight in Training. We’ll be returning to The Book Club, in Shoreditch, for Jamie’s Salon, on the evening of Tuesday 30th May. After an interview with Jamie there’ll be a Q&A with the audience, followed by a book signing and drinks.

And to get your ticket with a special Easter discount, just enter the code EASTER at the check out page!

All this week, general admission with the Easter discount code is just £3. Entry to the salon PLUS a signed copy of the book is only £6.

The Easter discount code will be valid until next Monday, April 17th.

Booking is essential and tickets are extremely limited – save your place today!

Here’s a look inside The Secret Diary of John Drawbridge:

If you don’t want to miss out on any of our future salon events, sign up to our mailing list below.

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We hope to see you there!

Nosy Crow at the 2017 Hay Festival

The programme for the 2017 Hay Festival has been announced, and we’re very pleased to say that there are some FANTASTIC events lined up featuring Nosy Crow authors!

On Saturday 27 May at 10am, Pamela Butchart, award-winning author of the Baby Aliens Got My Teacher series, will be on the Starlight Stage to share the latest book in her hilarious series – There’s a Werewolf in My Tent. Tickets are £5.30 and you can book online here – and if you’re new to this brilliant series, here’s a look inside the first book:

Buy the book online.

On Saturday 27 May at 2.30pm, Axel Scheffler will be introducing the latest book in his wonderful Pip and Posy series, Pip and Posy: The New Friend. Come along for stories, drawing and the opportunity to meet two very special surprise guests… Tickets are £5.30 and you can book online here – and here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book online.

On Wednesday 31 May 2017 at 1pm, Mike Langman, illustrator of The Complete Bird Spotter’s Kit, will lead you on a virtual bird-watch and offer tips on how to sharpen your observational skills so that you can recognise more species of bird by sight and sound – there’ll be drawing, quizzes and lots of audience participation. Tickets are £5.30 and you can book online here.

And on Sunday 4 June at 11.30am, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam creators Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton will lead a show-stopping event to celebrate the launch of the latest book in this beloved series – Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Up, Up and Away! Tickets are £5.30 and you can book online here – and here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book online.

You can find the full programme of children’s events at Hay here – we hope to see you there!

It’s our April publication day!

It’s our April publication day! We have some gloriously Spring-like books out this month – and there’s something for everyone! Here’s what you can find in book shops from today.

There are two new books in our Listen to the… sound book series out today – beautifully illustrated by Marion Billet, and with six amazing real-life sounds in each book, adults and children alike will be enchanted by these charming board books. Here’s a look at the two new titles – Listen to the Birds and Listen to the Baby Animals:

Buy the book.

Buy the book.

It’s publication day for Edgar and the Sausage Inspector – a brand new picture book by multi-award-winning author-illustrator Jan Fearnley, creator of Mr Wolf’s Pancakes and Little Robin Red Vest. With a FANTASTICALLY funny text, beautiful artwork, and a stylish Paris setting (and an array of delectable food), this is a future classic in the making – witty, charming and with wonderful child appeal. Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

Harvey the Hero by Hrefna Bragadottir is in shops from today – a brilliant new picture book, brimming with heart and humour, from the author-illustrator of Baxter’s Book.

Harvey is Superhero Steve’s BIGGEST fan and dreams of being just like him . . . if only he could be a hero too! But when Steve leaves his cape behind and Harvey bravely sets off to the Big City to return it, he swiftly becomes a hero in his own right – without even realising it! It’s only when he returns home and sees the news on TV that he knows . . . he’s Harvey the Hero!

Children will love to spot all the action that Harvey misses on his walk through the city in this heart-warming story of accidental heroism. Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

It’s publication day for Goldilocks and the Three Potties by Leigh Hodgkinson – from the author-illustrator of Goldilocks and Just the One Bear comes a quirky, gently funny retelling of the Goldilocks story. With its encouraging ‘keep-trying’ message, this adorable book will help set toddlers on the right track to a nappy-free day. Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

There’s a brand new paperback edition of There’s a Moose on the Loose, written by Lucy Feather and illustrated by Stephan Lomp, out today – a moose is on the loose and he’s in a serious hurry! As he rushes helter-skelter through town, Moose is chased by an ever-growing crowd who are anxious to retrieve all the things that have been caught on his antlers. But where is he off to in such a rush? Hang on, it’s a PARTY! Of course! Children will LOVE trailing the mapped-out route as they follow Moose on his mad dash across a busy town. Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

The Secret Rescuers: The Sea Pony, the next book in the fantastic Secret Rescuers series, written by Paula Harrison and illustrated by Sophy Williams, is in shops from today – set in a fantasy world populated by dragons, unicorns, and firebirds, this superbly-realised series for 7+ year olds is packed with magical adventures and baby creatures in peril.

Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

It’s publication day for Evie’s Ghost – the beautiful new book from Helen Peters, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted The Secret Hen House Theatre. Part Gosford Park, part Charlotte Sometimes, and part The Go-Between, this is an absolutely brilliant time-slip story – spine-tingling, moving, funny and heartbreaking. Here’s a video of Helen reading an extract from Evie’s Ghost:

And here are the opening chapters of the book:

Buy the book.

And finally, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Up, Up and Away, written by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton, is out today – the latest two-colour illustrated fiction title in the fantastic series featuring everyone’s favourite robber dogs-turned-bakers. And it’s all go for our brave bakers – the wacky race they enter in the Bakemobile is sabotaged by that pesky Red Rocket (yes, he’s back!), a mysterious parcel delivered to the café causes them no end of trouble, and a spate of robberies at a fancy hotel sees the boys going undercover in some dodgy disguises! It’s all fun and games, and there’s always a load of doughnuts to keep them going!

Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

Congratulations to all of this month’s authors and illustrators!