Nosy Crow's Blog, page 119
October 7, 2016
Books are My Bag is back!
Today marks the launch of the marvellous Books Are My Bag 2016 campaign!
Books Are My Bag is a nationwide campaign that celebrates books and bookshops and the simple truth that bookshops do more physically to let people enjoy their passion for books.
There’s growing confidence that small independent bookshops could be making a return to high streets after years of pressure from online sites that saw many close. There’s three days of festivities to encourage people to read more, culminating in parties in bookshops across the UK on Saturday – the newly christened #bookshopday!
This collaboration between publishers, bookshops and authors is the biggest ever promotion of bookshops. For many people bookshops conjure fond images of book readings, in-store cafes and delight at the discovery of a new author. And in fact, 56% of all book buying decisions are made by consumers in a bookshop – but we must continue to celebrate – and shop in! – our fabulous high street bookshops.
Why Buy Books in Your Local Bookshop?
You love books
You may be about to make a purchase you’ll value for the rest of your life
You’ll be shopping on your local high street
You’ll be helping create local jobs
You might just find a book you never knew existed
You’ll find great gifts for friends and family
You can talk to real people about books they know and love
You’ll be part of your local book-loving community
As if you needed any more excuse to visit your local bookshop!
Follow #BAMB on Twitter and visit your local bookshop this weekend to celebrate bookshops, booksellers and the great work that they do. You never know, you might find your new favourite read!
Watch the new animated trailer for Press Out and Colour: Birds
This month we’re very pleased to publish Press Out and Colour: Birds – the first book in an incredible new activity series, Press Out and Colour, illustrated by Zoe Ingram. And to demonstrate just how beautiful the new book is, we’ve made an animated trailer showing how it works – you can watch it at the top of this post.
Make your own beautiful, 3D decorations with these board books of press-ornaments: each press-out design is intricately decorated with foil and perfect for all ages to colour in. Featuring 10 unique designs in each book, the press-out pieces can be slotted together to create bright and cheerful hanging ornaments. The gorgeous birds are perfect to hang around the home and add sparkle to any setting, and the Christmas book features festive decorations, ideal for adorning the Christmas tree.
You can buy Press Out and Colour: Birds 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.
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October 6, 2016
It’s our October publication day!
It’s our October publication day! We’ve got a fantastically festive collection of new books out this month – wonderfully winter-y books for children of all ages, from charming Christmassy board books for the very young, to hard-boiled crime fiction for 9-12 year olds! Here are all of the new Nosy Crow books that you can find in shops now.
We’ve published Can You Say It Too? Brrr! Brrr!, illustrated by Sebastien Braun – the latest book in the fantastic Can You Say It Too? series. As all parents know, very little children love to play ‘I-Spy’, but they also adore making animal sounds. So a flap book in which they can spot a bit of an animal, lift the flap to reveal the complete creature, and then make its noise is guaranteed to be a winner! Sturdy flaps and simple texts combine with friendly artwork in these fantastic first books that are great for sharing with children who are just starting to talk.
Sing along with me! We wish you a Merry Christmas, illustrated by Yu-hsuan Huang, is in shops now – brimming with cheer and energy, this delightful addition to the popular Sing Along series features five slider mechanisms and both an instrumental and vocal version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas: simply scan the QR code on the first page for little ones to listen and sing along! [image error]
It’s publication day for the latest book in the wonderful Tiny Tabs series, illustrated by Jannie Ho – Roly Poly looks for Santa Claus! Help Roly Poly find Santa Claus in this chunky interactive board book – designed for the smallest of hands, these robust, colourful books will delight little readers again and again. With simple stories, repeated refrains and a host of faces to spot and name, they are the perfect books to engage and entertain the very young.
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Jannie Ho’s Christmas ABC is in shops now – filled with cheery seasonal characters and bold images, this is a gentle introduction to letter sounds and the alphabet sequence for the very young. With a sturdy cased-board format and beautiful, graphic illustration, it makes the perfect stocking-filler for little ones.
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We’re publishing a new board book edition of Snow Bunny’s Christmas Wish, illustrated by Rebecca Harry, today – featuring a cute, kindly bunny and a flurry of foil on every page, this is an ideal Christmas gift. One snowy Christmas Eve, a small bunny goes in search of Santa to ask him to make her Christmas wish come true. On the way she mets many other animals in need of a little help, which she gladly offers, and in the offering makes her very own wish come true! Here’s a look inside the book:
And it’s publication day for a brand new board book edition of Pip and Posy: The Snowy Day, illustrated by Axel Scheffler. This seasonal story sees Pip and Posy enjoying the perfect snowy day, until they decide to build a snowman, when things start to go a bit pear-shaped. Pip wants a snowRABBIT, but Posy wants a snowMOUSE! Luckily they resolve their differences over a cosy craft session indoors. Another perfectly-pitched, brilliantly-observed story, this is a wonderful addition to the best-selling series. Here’s a look inside the book:
The Christmas Fairy, written by Anne Booth and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw, is out now – a wonderful Christmas story from the pair behind The Fairiest Fairy. Clara knows exactly what she wants to be when she grows up – a Christmas fairy! But she’s so excited and full of beans, she can’t possibly be still and quiet like a fairy should… Whether you’re a bouncy chatterbox like Clara, or a bit of a quiet fairy, this beautifully-illustrated story has an uplifting message about being true to yourself – there’s more than one way to be a Christmas fairy! Here’s a look inside the book:
The Winter Fox, written by Timothy Knapman and illustrated by Rebecca Harry, is in shops now – a heartwarming tale about friendship and sharing. Fox loves to play, but his friends are worried about him. It’s time he started getting ready for winter, and he just won’t listen their advice! When winter comes, Fox finds himself cold, hungry and all alone. But what’s that? As Fox wishes that he had listened to his friends, a box of treats falls from the stars and he knows EXACTLY what to do with them! Here’s a look inside the book:
This month we’re enormously pleased to be publishing a wonderful new addition to the fantastic Princess and the… picture book series, written by Caryl Hart and illustrated by Sarah Warburton – The Princess and the Christmas Rescue. Princess Eliza is AWFULLY lonely in her beautiful snow palace. Stuck inside all day with no-one to play, she’s becoming brilliant at building her own toys. Eliza can make anything with a few bits of wood and some string! Anything, that is, except the one thing she wants most… a friend. As she sets off to find one, Eliza stumbles across a wintry grotto full of elves – but OH DEAR! Santa is poorly and there are still so many presents to make! Could Princess Eliza be the person to save Christmas? This is a FABULOUSLY festive rhyming picture book, celebrating the joy of giving (and making!) gifts at Christmas time. Here’s a look inside the book:
We are proud to be publishing the first paperback edition of Refuge, written by Anne Booth and illustrated by Sam Usher, today. We published this extraordinary book for the first time last year, with just seven weeks from receiving a manuscript to putting the book in shops, and we’re incredibly pleased to be able to publish a new, larger-format paperback of the book this Christmas, with £1 from the sale of every book going to the charity War Child. Here’s our publication day blog post for Refuge, and here’s the story behind this amazing book – and here are some of the amazing reviews Refuge received when it was first published. You can take a look inside the book below:
And Sam will be the subject of the next Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon, taking place this month – you can find out more here, and buy your ticket for the salon at this page, or with the form below:
We are incredibly pleased to be publishing A Piglet Called Truffle today – 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. 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… Here’s a look inside the book:
Murder in Midwinter by Fleur Hitchcock is in shops now – atmospheric, hard-boiled crime for 9-12 year olds. When Maya takes a photo from the top of a bus, she has no idea of the trouble it will bring. The bright shop window is gorgeous but the couple arguing in front of it look as if they want to kill each other. And when her flash goes off, they look as if they want to kill her too… Then a body turns up. The police suggest that Maya should go away for a while – somewhere remote, somewhere safe. Her aunt’s farm in the Welsh mountains is the perfect place to hide, and soon it’s snowing hard enough to cut them off completely. No one can get in and no one can get out. But does that mean there’s nothing to fear? A tense, snowy drama that keeps you guessing until the very last page, this is thrilling, gripping middle-grade reading. Here’s a look inside the book:
And finally, we’re enormously happy to be publishing The Colouring Book of Beautiful Gift Boxes: Christmas today, the beautiful first book in a fantastically clever and innovative new activity format, illustrated by Sarah Walsh. Each page of this brilliant book is actually a box! Simply tear along the dotted lines and fold along the scored lines to create a gift box perfect for storing all kinds of Christmas treats. The 24 boxes are ornately decorated with black and white festive designs, which can be customised with pens or pencils. This fantastic book of boxes is a fuss-free and effective way to make truly special Christmas gifts. Here’s our animated trailer for the book:
Congratulations to all of today’s authors and illustrators!
October 5, 2016
Get our brand new app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, at a special introductory price!
Our latest app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, has been out for just under a week, and we’ve been thrilled by the response to the app so far.
And for a limited time only, you can get the app for a special introductory price of just $4.99/ £3.99 – down from its standard price of $9.99/ £7.99!
You can find out more about The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre here, and you can download the app from the App Store here.
Here’s our trailer for the app:
If you do download the app, we’d love to hear what you think! Please do leave a review on the App Store – or get in touch on Facebook, Twitter, or by email, to apps [at] nosycrow [dot] com.
We hope you enjoy The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre!
October 4, 2016
Creating A Piglet Called Truffle
This Thursday sees the launch of A Piglet Called Truffle – the first book in a brand new series, written by Helen Peters and illustrated by Ellie Snowdon. Helen and Ellie told us about their experiences creating the book – complete with a selection of images from Ellie’s sketchbook!
Helen:
Like Jasmine, I grew up on a farm, and Jasmine’s character was inspired by my sister Hazel, who has spent her life looking after animals. When she worked as a veterinary nurse, she brought home numerous unwanted animals over the years, including budgies, hamsters, black rats, cats, chickens, dogs, guinea pigs, chinchillas, hedgehogs, a baby sparrow and a lamb called Jasper who features in my earlier books. So I didn’t find it difficult to imagine the character of Jasmine, a nine-year-old girl who loves looking after animals and wants to run an animal rescue centre when she grows up.
The Jasmine Green series is for readers aged seven and up, a younger readership than that of The Secret Henhouse Theatre and Farm Beneath the Water. I really enjoyed writing for a lower age group. It’s been great fun creating the world of these stories, particularly the characters of Jasmine’s five-year-old brother Manu and his best friend Ben, who get up to all sorts of mischief, usually with the best possible intentions. Their antics were directly inspired by the things my own children got up to at that age.
I find that characters really come to life when they start talking to each other. Dialogue is my favourite part of writing. When I get stuck, I try to find a way to get them talking, and usually an idea will come out of their conversation that helps to move the story forward.
This is the first time one of my books has been highly illustrated and I absolutely love Ellie’s style and all her illustrations. She has captured the spirit of the farm where I grew up so perfectly that it’s almost uncanny, and I can also rely on Ellie to give the animal characters far more charm and personality than I could possibly convey just in words. If I had to choose one favourite illustration, it would probably be the old farmer pushing his wheelbarrow across the farmyard, because when I think of my dad on his farm, he is always pushing his wheelbarrow across the yard exactly as Ellie has drawn it in that picture.
Ellie:
Being a bit of an animal lover, I was absolutely thrilled when Nosy Crow asked me to illustrate A Piglet Called Truffle and the rest of the Jasmine Green series. Helen’s wonderful stories reminded me so much of the books that I loved to read when I was growing up and I really wanted to capture the warmth that radiates from her characters in the illustrations.
It has been a fantastic experience bringing the world of Oak Tree Farm to life and I’ve learnt a lot of various aspects of rural farm life along the way! Getting to draw a variety of different animals was such a fun challenge, and expressing their personalities through various facial expressions was rather entertaining at times! Tom’s two little guinea pigs, Snowy and Twiglet, were my two particular favourite characters to draw – they are such a funny pair!
The inspiration behind the illustrations comes from a love for British nature and its wildlife. I was lucky enough to have spent two years studying in Cambridge, which is surrounded by some really beautiful landscapes and old farms, and so I had the chance to go back there with sketchbook in tow to do some observational drawing in the early stages of Truffle. Once I had received the brief from Nicola Theobald (the wonderful Nosy Crow designer) I was good to go with the rough stage! I started by mapping out the roughs in the space given within the text, which determines the size and composition of the illustration. I like to put lots of detail into my pencil roughs at this stage so that I know exactly what I’m doing when it comes to producing the final artwork. These go through several tweaks and changes with feedback from both the team and Helen until I get the thumbs-up to go ahead and produce the final artwork, and bring the story to life (the most fun part!).
It has been an absolute joy illustrating A Piglet Called Truffle and I cannot wait to see what Jasmine gets up to next in her adventures at Oak Tree Farm!
Thank you, Helen and Ellie! A Piglet Called Truffle will be in shops on Thursday – you can find out more about the book here, and read the opening chapter below:
October 3, 2016
There’s two weeks to go until the next Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon, with special guest Sam Usher!
The next edition of the Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon, featuring special guest Sam Usher, illustrator of the highly-acclaimed Refuge, is just a fortnight away – if you’d like to come along, book your ticket today!
Join us for the evening and discover how Sam creates his artwork, find out who and what his inspirations are, how he built a career as a children’s book illustrator, his process of creating a picture book from start to finish, how he collaborates with authors and publishers, his advice for illustrators, and more!
We’ll be returning to The Book Club, in Shoreditch, for Sam’s Salon, on the evening of Monday 17th October. After an interview with Sam there’ll be a Q&A with the audience, followed by a book signing and drinks.
And you can save money on a signed copy of Refuge by buying one now with your ticket!
General admission costs just £5. £9 will include entry to the salon, PLUS a signed paperback copy of Refuge.
Doors will open at 6.30pm for drinks and conversation, and the salon will start at approximately 7.00pm.
Booking is essential and tickets are extremely limited – save your place today!
We hope to see you there!
September 30, 2016
Early reviews for our new app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre
Yesterday we released a brand new app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre. We’re incredibly proud of it: it’s a brand new kind of app for us, and puts the power of storytelling into the hands of the user. Rather than having a story told to you, you can create your own – by using all of the wonderful characters, backgrounds, props, and music from our award-winning fairytale apps. Set the stage, choose your characters, and create and record your own story!
We’ve been thrilled by the response to the app so far: it’s already received some great reviews from Apps Playground and The Horn Book, and we’re very happy to see that it’s been promoted by Apple as one of the best new apps for kids!
And the app is currently on offer at a special introductory price of just $4.99/ £3.99 – down from a regular price of $9.99/ £7.99! You can download it from the App Store here.
Here’s our trailer for The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre:
If you missed our blogpost announcing the app’s release, you can read it here – and you can find out more about the app here.
And if you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our app news, you can sign up to our apps newsletter here, and you’ll never miss a new release, price promotion, or app giveaway.
September 29, 2016
Our new app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, is out now!
We are incredibly pleased to say that our incredible new app, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, is out now, and available for download from the App Store!
It’s a brand new kind of app for Nosy Crow: unlike our previous story apps, this one doesn’t have any text, or any voice audio – it’s up to you to create the story. Set the stage, choose your characters, and create and record your own story!
With beautiful artwork from our award-winning series of fairytale apps, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow White, and Goldilocks and Little Bear, The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre features over 60 characters to choose from, along with dozens of scene backgrounds and props to bring your story alive. And you can soundtrack your story with stunning music from our fairytales, along with your own voices and sound effects.
Create your own brand new stories, or re-tell our fairytales in your own words and voices!
The app boasts a hugely intuitive, user-friendly interface that’s perfect for young children – you can create individual scenes from scratch, save them, and build multiple scenes into a complete story. Multi-touch screens allow multiple users to create stories together – it’s a fantastic way of creating stories, encouraging imaginative play, and sharing a screen between adults and children. And it’s great for storytelling activities in classrooms and at home!
We’ve launched The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre at a special introductory price of just $4.99/ £3.99, down it’s standard price of $9.99/ £7.99. Here’s what to look for on the App Store:
You can download The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre from the App Store here. You can watch our brand new trailer for the app at the top of this post – and here’s a quick preview of the app:
If you do download the app, we’d love to hear what you think! Please do leave a review on the App Store – or get in touch on Facebook, Twitter, or by email, to apps [at] nosycrow [dot] com.
We hope you enjoy The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre!
Our new app, Fairytale Play Theatre, is out now!
We are incredibly pleased to say that our incredible new app, Fairytale Play Theatre, is out now!
We’ve released the app in two separate editions: Fairytale Play Theatre, and The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre, are both available for download from the App Store now.
It’s a brand new kind of app for Nosy Crow: unlike our previous story apps, this one doesn’t have any text, or any voice audio – it’s up to you to create the story. Set the stage, choose your characters, and create and record your own story!
With beautiful artwork from our award-winning series of fairytale apps, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow White, and Goldilocks and Little Bear, Fairytale Play Theatre features over 60 characters to choose from, along with dozens of scene backgrounds and props to bring your story alive. And you can soundtrack your story with stunning music from our fairytales, along with your own voices and sound effects.
Create your own brand new stories, or re-tell our fairytales in your own words and voices!
The app boasts a hugely intuitive, user-friendly interface that’s perfect for young children – you can create individual scenes from scratch, save them, and build multiple scenes into a complete story. Multi-touch screens allow multiple users to create stories together – it’s a fantastic way of creating stories, encouraging imaginative play, and sharing a screen between adults and children. And it’s great for storytelling activities in classrooms and at home!
The standard edition of Fairytale Play Theatre costs $1.99/ £1.49, and you can choose one fairytale “bundle” when you download the app – all of the characters, artwork and music from any one of our fairytale stories. You can then download other fairytale bundles with in-app purchases (carefully protected behind a parental gate) for an additional $1.99/ £1.49 each. Here’s what to look for on the App Store:
Or, if you’d prefer not to have any in-app purchases available in your app, you can download The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre edition of the app for $9.99/ £7.99, and you’ll get EVERYTHING unlocked – all of the content from all of our fairytales – with no in-app purchase on offer. Here’s what to look for on the App Store:
You can download Fairytale Play Theatre from the App Store here, and The Complete Fairytale Play Theatre from the App Store here. You can watch our brand new trailer for the app at the top of this post – and here’s a quick preview of the app:
If you do download the app, we’d love to hear what you think! Please do leave a review on the App Store – or get in touch on Facebook, Twitter, or by email, to apps [at] nosycrow [dot] com.
We hope you enjoy Fairytale Play Theatre!
September 28, 2016
Nosy Crow’s next app is nearly here
A little while ago we wrote about our next app, Fairytale Play Theatre, and posted our teaser trailer with the very first look at the app.
We think you’re really going to love it: it’s a brand new kind of app for us, and we are very proud of it.
And we’re very pleased to say that the app will be available very soon!
If you want to be the first to find out when Fairytale Play Theatre is available to download from the App Store, you can sign up to our apps newsletter at this page, or with the form below.
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We can’t wait to share Fairytale Play Theatre with you!
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