Nosy Crow's Blog, page 117
November 7, 2016
Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Animals
Last week we released a brand new app bundle for all six of our award-winning fairytale apps – and today we have another new app bundle to launch: Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Animals!
The new bundle features the first three apps in the award-winning Flip Flap series: Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm, Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Safari, and Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Jungle – and all for just $1.99/ £1.49!
With 121 possible combinations, silly names and animal noises in each app, these hilarious rhyming apps are perfect for pre-schoolers. Swipe any part of the screen to create new animals and hear the poems read aloud, with original sound effects, music, and text highlighting!
Here’s a quick look at each of the Flip Flap apps:
These apps are great fun – both at home and in the classroom. Last year, Flip Flap Safari won the inaugural UKLA Digital Book Award – and in their commendation for the app, the UKLA wrote that Flip Flap Safari is “beautifully produced and appealing and can easily be incorporated into guided reading sessions. Children have great fun creating their own animals and playing guessing games and the ‘read to me’ feature is a useful tool enabling all children to enjoy the book. Teacher judges appreciated the rich vocabulary and thought the poetry examples inspired further poetry activities in class.”
And there are books of each of the apps, too! We’ve published print edition of each of Axel’s Flip Flap Animals apps in wonderful split-page, spiral-bound board-book formats – you can find out more about the whole series here.
You can download the Flip Flap Animals app bundle here. And if you enjoy the apps, we’d be incredibly grateful if you’d consider leaving a review on the App Store – it really makes a huge difference. And if you’d like to stay up to date with our upcoming apps, you can sign up for our apps newsletter here.
November 4, 2016
Get all of our award-winning fairytale apps at an unbeatable price with our new app bundle!
Today we’ve launched a brand new app bundle, featuring, for the first time, all six of our award-winning, highly-acclaimed fairytale apps: The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow White, and Goldilocks and Little Bear.
You can now get all six apps in a single bundle, and for the lowest price ever. And, best of all, if you already own some of the apps included, you can complete the bundle and only pay the balance for the remaining apps!
Here’s the Nosy Crow Fairytales Bundle on the App Store.
The complete bundle costs £14.99/ $19.99 – reduced from a total price when bought separately of £23.99/ $29.99 – and if you already own any of our fairytale apps, the bundle will be even cheaper still!
Here’s a quick look at each of the incredible, award-winning apps included in the bundle:
Goldilocks and Little Bear:
Snow White:
Jack and the Beanstalk:
Little Red Riding Hood:
Cinderella:
The Three Little Pigs:
And if you enjoy our fairytales, you might like our newest app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, too – now you can create your own stories using all of the characters, artwork, and music from our fairytale series. You can find out more about the app here, and download it on the App Store here – and here’s a quick look at the app:
If you do download our new bundle, or any of our apps, we’d love to hear what you make of them – please do get in touch, either on Twitter, Facebook, or by email, to apps [at] nosycrow [dot] com.
November 3, 2016
It’s our November publication day!
It’s our final publication day of the year – and we have two great books out in November! Here’s what’s out this month…
The Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes: A Year of Celebrations, illustrated by Rebecca Jones, is in shops now – the latest book in our incredibly popular Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes series.
Get creative with this amazingly innovative colouring book, full of beautifully-designed cards and envelopes to tear out and colour. The 24 gorgeous designs include birthdays, New Year, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Christmas, and are perfect for all ages to decorate and send to family and friends. Take inspiration from nature, 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 cute stickers to seal your card, this is the complete creative package!
Here’s what to look for:
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And it’s also publication day for Pugly on Ice – the third book in the fantastic series written by Pamela Butchart and illustrated by Gemma Correll.
Pugly has NEW ice skates and a new SPARKLY outfit, and he is READY to win PETS ON ICE! But someone wants the gold medal very badly and they will stop at nothing to get it. Can Pugly pirouette on to the podium, or will he be cut down in his furry prime?
Easy to read, laugh-out-loud funny, and hilariously illustrated throughout, the Pugly books are GREAT first readers for 5+ year olds. Here’s a look inside Pugly on Ice:
Happy publication day, Rebecca, Pamela, and Gemma!
November 2, 2016
Lyn Gardner and Christopher Edge shortlisted for the Hounslow and Ealing Junior Book Awards
The shortlists have been announced for both the Hounslow Junior Book Awards and the Ealing Junior Book Awards, and we’re very pleased that Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret, by Lyn Gardner, and The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, by Christopher Edge, have been recognised!
The Many Worlds of Albie Bright has been shortlisted for the Hounslow Junior Book Award, a prize given annually by Hounslow School Library Service, with the winning book voted for by year 5 and 6 pupils across the borough.
Frank Cottrell Boyce called The Many Worlds of Albie Bright “A book with a big brain, big laughs and a big, big heart.” The Times, naming the book a Children’s Book of the Week, wrote: “Christopher Edge has written a clever story infused with science that wears its intelligence humorously, introduces complex ideas with the lightest of touches … Give the man his own element on the periodic table of children’s authors.”
Here’s a look inside the book:
And Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret has been shortlisted for both the Hounslow Junior Book Award AND the Ealing Junior Book Award!
Set in the glitzy world of the Victorian music hall, this all-singing, all-dancing series is absolutely PERFECT for fans of Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike or Katherine Woodfine’s Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow – it has more twists and turns than a snake charmer’s act.
As a baby, Rose was left by her mother at the door of Campion’s Palace of Variety and Wonders. It’s her home, and she loves it, but she never stops wondering who she really is. When murder threats to destroy the music hall, Rose will need all her performance skills to crack the crime and delve into a murky past of blackmail, subterfuge and abduction… Here’s a look inside Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret:
Congratulations, Lyn and Christopher!
November 1, 2016
A Piglet Called Truffle: “reminiscent of Dick King-Smith at his best”
Last month we published A Piglet Called Truffle – the first book in a FANTASTIC new series for younger readers, written by Helen Peters, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted The Secret Hen House Theatre and The Farm Beneath the Water, and illustrated by Ellie Snowdon. And the book has just received a fantastic review from The Guardian in their roundup of the best new picture books and novels!
Imogen Russell Williams writes:
“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. Vet’s daughter Jasmine is well placed to raise a runt by stealth – but her family doesn’t need a pig, not even a trained one. How can she persuade them otherwise? This involving, unsentimental little book is the first in a new series that should appeal strongly to animal lovers.”
You can read the full roundup here.
And you can take an early look inside A Piglet Called Truffle below – here’s the first chapter:
Brilliant story-telling that will make you laugh and cry, and beautifully illustrated by Ellie Snowdon, this is James Herriot for a new generation.
Jasmine’s dad is a farmer, and her mum is a large-animal vet, so Jasmine spends a lot of time caring for animals and trying to keep them out of trouble. Unfortunately, this often means getting herself out of difficulty, too… In A Piglet Called Truffle, Jasmine rescues a tiny piglet from certain death. But Jasmine’s parents don’t believe in farm animals being pets and insist that Truffle must be sold as soon as she’s big enough. So Jasmine begins a campaign to keep her – one that doesn’t seem to be going very well as Truffle gets older and ever-closer to market… In the end, it takes two lost guinea pigs and one cold, frosty night-time adventure to save the mini piglet from disaster.
You can buy A Piglet Called Truffle online here – and 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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October 31, 2016
Nosy Crow on Bookaboo!
A new series of Bookaboo, the television show dedicated to children’s books, has launched on Amazon Prime, and includes readings of four Nosy Crow picture books!
Here’s a trailer for Bruce Greenwood reading Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Cat Burglar, written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Steven Lenton:
And here’s a look inside the book:
Here’s a trailer for Selma Blair reading Princess Daisy and the Dragon, written and illustrated by Steven Lenton:
And here’s a look inside the book:
Here’s a trailer for Sarah Carter reading Baxter’s Book, written and illustrated by Hrefna Bragadottir:
And here’s a look inside the book:
And here’s a trailer for Rachelle Lefevre reading There’s a Bear on My Chair, written and illustrated by Ross Collins:
And here’s a look inside the book:
You can watch the whole series of Bookaboo on Amazon Prime here.
October 28, 2016
The best Halloween books for children
Halloween is nearly here, and we have lots of GREAT books that will get you in the mood – here are some wonderfully spooky halloween books for children of all ages…
Halloween books for babies and toddlers
Bizzy Bear: Spooky House, the newest addition to the brilliant Bizzy Bear board book series illustrated by Benji Davies, is fantastic halloween fun, and absolutely PERFECT for toddlers: Benji’s illustrations are bright, colourful and friendly, there’s lots of visual humour, a very gentle rhyme, and plenty for toddlers to get involved with – and the sturdy mechanisms and chunky sliders will withstand the roughest treatment!
In Spooky House, the ever-intrepid Bizzy Bear has come for a visit to a super-spooky Halloween house. As he climbs the rickety stairs and walks the cobwebby corridors, all sorts of creepy characters appear from doors and hidey holes. But where could he be going and what will he find there?
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Jannie Ho’s Halloween ABC is perfect for read-aloud spooky fun: with smiling faces, bold shapes and bright contrasting colours to engage and hold the attention of inquisitive older babies and toddlers, this sturdy little board book is an excellent, gentle introduction to letter sounds and the alphabet sequence.
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And Jannie’s Wickle Woo has a Halloween Party, from the brilliant Tiny Tabs series, is another guaranteed winner this halloween. With simple stories, repeated refrains and a host of faces to spot and name, these are the perfect books to engage and entertain the very young. Wickle Woo has planned the perfect party – but when will his guests arrive? Little readers will love pulling the tabs to find out who is coming to the party, and what their costumes are!
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Halloween picture books
Pip and Posy: The Scary Monster, by Axel Scheffler, is the perfect halloween picture book for toddlers and the very young – a wonderfully autumnal story in the Pip and Posy series. When Pip comes to Posy’s house wearing a scary monster mask, he gives Posy a bit of a fright! Oh, dear! But when she works out it’s only Pip, she feels much better, and they share the biscuits she’s made. Hooray! Here’s a look inside the book – now out in a wonderful new board book edition, too:
Nothing Can Frighten a Bear, written by Elizabeth Dale and illustrated by Paula Metcalf, is is an absolutely FANTASTIC picture book: beautifully illustrated, with an incredible rhyming text, and a gentle, reassuring message that’s perfect for young children.
Snuggled up in bed one moonlight night, Baby Bear is sure he hears a monster outside. Daddy Bear insists there’s nothing scary in the forest and, anyway, nothing can frighten a bear. But as the family of bears set out to make sure, and all vanish one by one, it looks like Daddy Bear might not be as brave as he seems… This bedtime story is full of comic surprises and gentle reassurance. After all, the things that go bump in the night are never as scary as you might think! Here’s a look inside the book:
The Mystery of the Haunted Farm by Elys Dolan is a brilliantly clever, hilariously funny picture book that’s GREAT for Halloween. Down on the farm, something isn’t quite right, so Farmer Greg takes refuge in a hotel and calls out the Ghost Hunters to investigate. After encountering the likes of Donkula and Frankenhorse, the Hunters declare this to be one of the most interesting cases of their career. Meanwhile, after experiencing the worst shower ever at Bates Motel, Farmer Greg returns to his farm and discovers that the monstrous creatures were, in fact, his animals, who’d dressed up to scare off a beast. But CREEPERS! What’s THAT? The beast’s true identity is revealed when the moon rises and a certain farmer sprouts a tail and great, BIG teeth… Featuring incredibly illustrative detail and Elys’ trademark wit, this is a smart, spooky treat from a major picture book talent. Here’s a look inside the book:
The Hubble Bubble picture book series, written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Joe Berger, makes for excellent Halloween reading – the charming combination of a witchy granny, rhyming texts and stylish illustrations makes these books a bewitching brew for all children who like a sprinkling of magic on their stories. Here’s a look inside the first Hubble Bubble picture book, Hubble Bubble, Granny Trouble:
Halloween young fiction
And for newly independent readers with a thirst for magic and mayhem, Hubble Bubble: The Super-Spooky Fright Night – the third young fiction title from Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger– will also go down a treat. In this collection of three illustrated stories, Granny’s halloween party goes off with a bang, a birthday trip to a build-a-teddy factory careers out of control, and well, you can probably guess who magics up penguins at the local swimming pool! Here’s a look inside the book:
Last month we launched a brand new two-colour illustrated fiction series starring everyone’s favourite canine duo, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Steven Lenton – and the first book in the new young fiction series, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Spooky School, is just right for Halloween.
Shifty and Sam don’t just make amazing cakes – these two brave bakers solve wacky mysteries too! Halloween at St Spectre’s school brings out the cheekiest of ghosts! And who is to blame when the weather goes CRAZY? A power-grabbing red panda maybe? Certainly not the racoon gang fixing the museum’s toilets – they’ve got dastardly plans of their OWN! With three hilarious read-aloud stories, and beautiful two-colour illustrations, this is a fantastic book for 6+ year olds – it’s perfect for young children ready for the next milestone after picture books, and great for both independent reading and sharing. Here’s a look inside the book:
Halloween older fiction
And for older children, the Witchworld books, written by Emma Fischel (and with STUNNING covers illustrated by Chris Riddell) will keep 9+ readers who like imaginatively-written fantasy very happy this Halloween. This bewitching series delivers an ingenious twist on witch fiction: the witches of Watchword have no need for old-fashioned wands or broomsticks, not when they have shiny Spellsticks, super-whizzy Skywriters and a cupboard full of Potions2Go! Here’s a look inside the first book in the series, Witchworld:
October 27, 2016
Cover reveal: Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone
Next February, we’ll be publishing Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone by Lyn Gardner. Packed with atmosphere, theatricality and intrigue, this is another gripping instalment in the THRILLING Campion series – the follow-up to the incredible Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret. And today we’re very pleased to reveal the BEAUTIFUL cover for the new book, illustrated by the amazing Jez Tuya!
Business has never been better for Campion’s Palace of Variety and Wonders – and the music hall is about to open its doors to its biggest act yet: the Illustrious Gandini, the stage magician known as the Great Wizard of the North. But when the Doomstone Diamond – a priceless jewel with a disturbing history – is stolen during one of Gandini’s performances, Campion’s finds itself under threat once more, and Rose Campion and her friends will need all their wits about them as they dash across Victorian London – from high society gatherings to the depths of Newgate prison – in a desperate bid to solve the mystery of the stolen Doomstone Diamond, and save Rose’s beloved home, Campion’s Music Hall, from closure!
Set against a brilliant backdrop of smoky, foggy, fin-de-siecle London, filled with fantastic theatrical detail, and with a cast of rogues worthy of Agatha Christie, this is a can’t-put-it-down mystery from a master storyteller that will have you guessing until the final chapter.
And here’s the cover in all it’s glory!
And if you’re new to the Campions series, here’s a look inside the first book – you can read the first three chapters of Rose Campion and the Stolen secret below:
Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone will be available in shops in February – 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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October 26, 2016
Come to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group – we’re discussing Lydia by Natasha Farrant
Would you like to come along to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group?
In November we’ll be discussing Lydia, by Natasha Farrant – a re-imagining of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, from the perspective of the youngest Bennet sister, Lydia.
We’ll be meeting on Tuesday, November 22nd 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.
You can order Lydia online from Waterstones here – and here’s a video of Natasha Farrant introducing the book:
We’ll post some discussion points for the book a little closer to the date – we hope you can join us!
October 25, 2016
Take a look inside Dave’s Rock!
Next January we’ll be publishing an INCREDIBLY exciting new picture book: Dave’s Rock, the highly anticipated follow-up to the hilarious and hugely acclaimed Dave’s Cave, written and illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon. And today you can take a very first look inside the new book!
Dave’s Cave was named one of the best children’s books of 2016 by The Telegraph, who wrote, “Dave’s Cave, has all the hallmarks of a bedtime classic … The collage-style illustrations are bright, simple and funny, and the text punchy and short, a “Me Tarzan, You Jane” demotic guaranteed to have your children laughing … It’s both feather light and deeply profound about the human desire to find something better – a better toy, a better house, with a garden and maybe a shed – but also a rough-hewn poem to the joy of what is known, loved and a bit crumpled at the edges.”
In this funny and stylishly illustrated follow-up, two loveable cavemen endeavour to make their rocks the very best they can – inventing, in the process, something really rather remarkable. It’s another brilliantly funny, clever picture book – PERFECT for reading aloud.
Here’s a look inside Dave’s Rock:
Dave’s Rock will be published in January – you can find out more about the book here, and 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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