Nosy Crow's Blog, page 133

Goldilocks and Little Bear receives a special commendation from the BolognaRagazzi Digital Award

The winners of the prestigious BolognaRagazzi Digital Award have been announced at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and we are thrilled that our Goldilocks and Little Bear app has received a Special Mention!

Here’s what the judges said:

“This is a literal twist on the classic fairy tale that has been expertly infused with intelligence and humor. Well-engineered features take advantage of the motion sensing potential of tablets so that you can quite literally flip the narrative upside down (by physically rotating your screen like a steering wheel), to track the two main characters (the bear and the girl) on the fly. In the end, everyone meets and new friends are made, providing a clever modern adaptation of the classic story. The entire experience is a delight from the beginning to the end, with expert music, graphics made for the interactive medium, and state of the art child narration. This title represents Nosy Crow’s best work to date.”

Goldilocks and Little Bear is an app that we are incredibly proud of, and we are so pleased that its been recognised in this way.

If you haven’t tried the app before, you can watch our stop-motion animation trailer for Goldilocks and Little Bear below:

You can find the full list of BolognaRagazzi Digital Award winners here – and you can download Goldilocks and Little Bear from the App Store here. If you’d like to stay up to date with all of our app news, you can sign up to our app mailing list at this page, or with the form below:

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It’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair week – and we’re holding an illustrator surgery

This year’s Nosy Crow stand at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Are you at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this week? Are you an illustrator? If so, don’t miss our Illustrator Surgeries – taking place tomorrow (Tuesday 5th) and on Wednesday 6th!

We’re holding illustrator surgeries on Tuesday from 3.30-4.30pm and on Wednesday from 12.00-1.00pm at the Nosy Crow stand (25 B 106) where you’ll be able to meet our editorial and design team, show us your portfolio, and receive some feedback on your work.

It’s first-come, first-served for the surgeries (and there is always a queue…) – but we have back-to-back rights-selling appointments for the rest of the fair, so if you’d like to meet us, those are the times you’ll be able to do so.

You might find this blogpost from two years ago interesting – advice for illustrators visiting the Bologna Children’s Book Fair from our Editorial Director, Head of Design, and Head of Picture Books.

And if you’d like to find out about other Nosy Crow books, events, and news, you can sign up to our newsletter below, and we’ll make sure you don’t miss a thing.

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We hope to see you at the fair – let us know on Twitter to @NosyCrowBooks if you’ll be there!

Adrian and Ola building the Nosy Crow stand at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair over the weekend

A brand new series from Lyn Gardner – take a look inside Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret

Next month we are incredibly pleased to be launching a brand new series by Lyn Gardner, author of the fantastic Olivia books – the Campion Mysteries! The series begins with Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret – and today, for the very first time, you can read the opening chapters of the new book!

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:

Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret is published next week – if you want to stay up to date with all of our new book news, you can sign up to our books newsletter here, or with the form below:

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An awards shortlisting treble!

It’s a very good week for children’s book awards – we are amazed and thrilled to find Nosy Crow books shortlisted for three separate awards today.

The shortlists for their second annual New Children’s Fiction Awards (run by the Teach Primary and Teach Reading and Writing magazines) have been announced, and we have two shortlistings – There’s a Bear on my Chair, by Ross Collins, in the Reception category, and The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, by Christopher Edge, in the KS2 category. Here’s a look inside There’s a Bear on my Chair:

Buy the book.

And here’s a look inside The Many Worlds of Albie Bright:

Buy the book.

The judging panel will comprise Brough Girling (founder of Readathon); Clare Argar (Programme Manager, National Literacy Trust Young Readers Programme); Sarah Crown (editor of Mumsnet, and former editor of Guardian Books); Clare Mackintosh (bestselling author of I Let You Go); David Melling (children’s author/illustrator); and Lucy Porter (comedian, writer, parent), and the winning books will be announced in the next issue of Teach Reading and Writing magazine this June.

And that’s not all! My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons (recent winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize) has been shortlisted in the children’s category of the Independent Bookshop Week (IBW) Book Awards! The annual IBW awards are now in their 10th year, and the winners are announced on Friday 17th June, the day before Independent Bookshop Week begins.

Here’s a look inside My Brother is a Superhero:

Buy the book.

And that’s STILL not all! The Sheffield Children’s Book Award shortlists have also been announced, and there are three Nosy Crow books recognised! Both The Wheels on the Bus, by Yu-hsuan Huang, and Box, by Rosalind Beardshaw, have been shortlisted in the Baby Book Award category (which was won last year by Can You Say It Too? Woof! Woof! by Sebastien Braun), and There’s a Bear on my Chair (in addition to its New Children’s Fiction Award shortlist) has been shortlisted in the Picture Book Award category.

All children in Sheffield can take part in selecting the winners of the Sheffield Children’s Book Award 2016 – children and young people can either take part through school or by borrowing the shortlist books from their local library and voting for their favourite.

Congratulations Ross, Chris, David, Yu-hsuan, and Rosalind – and good luck!

Children’s books with strong girl leads

On Twitter’s 10th birthday, @Equal_matter tweeted to ask, “Why don’t you publish more books with girl leads – not princesses, or girls who play second fiddle to a boy character?” I was surprised. Looking at @Equal_matter’s feed, Nosy Crow seemed to have been singled out for the question. But, if anything, I rather worry that our publishing rather favours girl central characters, particularly in books for older children.

Anyway, I asked @Equal_matter if they would like a list, and they said they would, so here is a list (without princesses though I have something to say about that too, a bit later) of books published so far by Nosy Crow with “girl leads”.

Picture Books:

The Pip and Posy books by Axel Scheffler (these are very much an equal pair, but in The Super Scooter, The Bedtime Frog and The Scary Monster, the focus is on Posy more than on Pip, in that she is the character to whom the main thing in the story happens.)

Get Out of My Bath by Britta Teckentrup

Troll Swap by Leigh Hodgkinson

Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School by Simon Puttock and Ali Pye

Snow Bunny’s Christmas Wish/ Snow Bunny’s Christmas Gift by Rebecca Harry

Christmas for Greta and Gracie by Yasmeen Ismail

Cinderella’s Sister and the Big Bad Wolf by Lorraine Carey and Migy Blanco

The Hubble Bubble picture book series by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger

Books for children aged 5 – 8, roughly in order of increasing age appeal by age (so the ones at the end are most likely to appeal to 8 year olds):

Hubble Bubble chapter book series by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger

Wigglesbottom Primary series by Pamela Butchart and Becka Moor

The Baby Aliens Got My Teacher series by Pamela Butchart and Thomas Flintham (Too Wee or Not To Wee, Shakespeare retold by the central character of this series, Izzy, is out on 7 April 2016).

The Secret Rescuers series by Paula Harrison and Sophy Williams

The Invincibles series by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton (the first of which is out on 7 April 2016)

Books for older readers (9+) roughly in order of increasing appeal by age (so the ones at the end are most likely to appeal to 12/13 year olds):

The Palomino Pony series by Olivia Tuffin

The Witchworld trilogy by Emma Fischel

The Olivia series by Lyn Gardner

The Campion Mysteries by Lyn Gardner (the first of which is out on 7 April 2016)

Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon by Pamela Butchart

The My Best Friend and other Enemies series by Catherine Wilkins

The Secret Hen House Theatre and The Farm Beneath the Water by Helen Peters

Cowgirl by G. R. Gemin

Dear Scarlett by Fleur Hitchcock

Saving Sophia by Fleur Hitchcock

The Twelve Minutes to Midnight trilogy by Christopher Edge

The Beneath by S. C. Ransom

The Small Blue Thing trilogy by S. C. Ransom

@Equal_matters asked us to exclude princess books. I know many children who go through a phase when princesses and fairies are big draws, and if books about fairies and princesses are what gets children reading, then I am all for them. I also think that not all books about princesses need to have saccharine, passive princesses. On our own list, I’d draw attention to the following books with particularly strong “girl lead” princesses.

Picture books:

Princess Daisy and the Dragon and the Nincompoop Knights by Steven Lenton

The Princess and the… series by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton

The Last Book Before Bedtime by Nicola O’Byrne (this has very strong Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood characters)

5-8 Fiction:

The Rescue Princesses series by Paula Harrison

Finally, I wanted to mention our fairy tale apps. Within the constraints of the traditional stories (and we decided we wanted to follow the basic narrative of the traditional stories), we have gone out of our way to make the girl characters engaged, strong, opinionated and valued for things other than their beauty. Little Red Riding Hood is my favourite example: she’s brave and clever and defeats the wolf and saves her grandmother all by herself. In Cinderella, the prince falls in love with Cinderella because they get on well and she has a lovely smile, rather than because she looks great in a gown. And Goldilocks is pretty strong-headed. Even in Snow White, which is a tough story to tackle from this point of view, we had her painting walls as well as washing up when she’s cleaning up the dwarves’ house.

Lots of girl leads there!

Zoë’s Rescue Zoo Party

Today’s gues t post is by Kirsty Laschinger, who got in touch with us to share the story of her daughter’s Zoe’s Rescue Zoo-themed birthday party.

“So Zoë,” I carefully asked one Saturday afternoon, “What birthday party theme do you want?”

Please, please do not let your answer include the words “Frozen”, “Elsa” or “Anna”, I thought to myself.

So imagine my delighted surprise when the answer was: “A Zoe’s Rescue Zoo Party.”

Our Zoë has loved the Zoe Rescue Zoo books since we first read the The Lonely Lion Cub together in 2014 and not only because the common name “clearly” made the story all about her. We were currently devouring a chapter of The Wild Wolf Pup  each evening before bed time, so it was easy to see why it was top of mind for her.

It took about 24 hours before my elation dissolved into horror. How on earth do I make a Zoe Rescue Zoo cake? What are we going to do during the party?

A few deep breathes and not-too-much-sleep nights later I thought I had the beginnings of a plan…

At last the morning arrived. Happily both Mr Pinch, the mean keeper in the series, and the Johannesburg rain both stayed away and several highly excited girls and a sprinkling of boys kicked off the party with a high speed game of Pass the Parcel. The winner found a copy of “Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Playful Panda” hidden under the last layer of wrapping paper.

Then the mobile zoo made its grand entrance. My sister had seen the mobile zoo at a kids function last year, and it was indeed the first time I had heard of one that is not a petting zoo with more traditional farm animals.

Sadly there were no seal pups, elephants, snow leopards, polar bears, penguins or even elephants. But, instead, there were a Kiki the macaw and Meep the lemur look-alikes as well as an array of other exotic, cute, scary and outright terrifying animals.

First, there was a hedgehog and each child (and the more curious adults) were given the opportunity to pat it, finding it more silky than spiky. This was followed by an array of hamsters, chameleons and birds before a chinchilla made a show-stopping entrance. It was, without doubt, the hit of the party.

Things got even more interesting after that. The cooing turned to screams as a tarantula stalked down the zoo keeper’s shirt and at least the party girl made her escape when the Burmese python appeared. The fear turned back to fun with the appearance of a tortoise, followed by a terrapin.

The show was a wonderful combination of education (don’t touch a terrapin shell as it is coated in salmonella), environmental awareness (don’t buy tortoises or other endangered species for pets as it just encourages their hunters to plunder their numbers further) and fun.

The party flew by and there was just enough time to light the candles, sing happy birthday and cut the cake before it was all over. I’m happy to report that Uncle Horace’s fondant hot air balloon made it through the morning in more or less one piece. And there was a very happy newly-six-year old girl who hugely enjoyed her special Zoe Rescue Zoo Party. Thank you Nosy Crow, Amelia Cobb and Sophy Williams for these wonderful books.

Thank you, Kirsty! You can take a look inside the first book in the Zoe’s Rescue Zoo series, The Lonely Lion Cub, below:

Buy the book online.

There’s only a few days left to bid for original, signed artwork by Axel Scheffler and raise money for Doctors of the World

Last week we blogged that we were auctioning four pieces of original, signed and dated artwork by Pip and Posy illustrator Axel Scheffler to raise money for the urgent Doctors of the World Greece Appeal. The illustrations were all created during a live-drawing and storytelling session at the National Trust Children’s Book Festival at Wray Castle – and there are only a few days remaining to bid on them!

There are four different pieces available to bid on, with all proceeds going to Doctors of the World – and the auctions end on Saturday night.

Here are the four pieces being auctioned:

Bid for this piece.

Bid for this piece.

Bid for this piece.

Bid for this piece.

Doctors of the World UK is part of the global Médecins du Monde network, which delivers over 350 projects in more than 80 countries through 3,000 volunteers. Their vision is of a world in which vulnerable people affected by war, natural disasters, disease, hunger, poverty or exclusion get the healthcare they need regardless of income or status. Their urgent Greece appeal will provide healthcare for thousands who need it. More than 12,000 refugees are stuck after being refused entry to Macedonia, with huge numbers arriving every day. Most are in cold, rain-sodden tents. Doctors of the World has volunteer doctors and nurses providing urgently needed medical care in clinics in Idomeni, Chios, Lesvos, Athens as well on the ferries travelling between these locations.

So if you’ve always wanted to own a unique piece of artwork by Axel, now’s your chance! Please do bid generously – and good luck!

Come to a special edition of the Nosy Crow Reading Group – we’re discussing Little Bits of Sky

Today we’re pleased to announce a very special edition of the Nosy Crow Reading Group, taking place next month.

In April, we’ll be discussing Little Bits of Sky, the incredible debut novel by S.E. Durrant – a month before the book is officially published in May.

Little Bits of Sky isn’t in shops yet, so we’re offering a FREE proof copy to attendees of this event. Once you’ve registered for a place, you can collect your copy of Little Bits of Sky from the Nosy Crow office, or we can post it you.

You can register for a place using the form below, or at this page.

If you don’t manage to get a place for this reading group, you can pre-order the book online here – and we’ll shortly post a first look inside the book here on the blog.

We’ll email everyone some discussion points for the book a little closer to the date – we hope you can join us!

Editing a classic: a new version of The Velveteen Rabbit, illustrated by Sarah Massini

In my first week at Nosy Crow I was asked to proofread a very special picture book title: a new unabridged edition of the classic story The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, with gorgeous illustrations by the incredibly talented Sarah Massini.

The text is taken from the classic edition of the book, which includes the beautiful original illustrations by William Nicholson. Checking our text against the classic, and then against online copies of the original text, raised a question: how much of the original styling and spelling should we keep, and how far should we bring the text up to date? We want our edition to be true to the original, first published in 1922, but equally to live up to the Nosy Crow philosophy of publishing ‘child-centred and parent-friendly’ books.

It wasn’t an easy question to answer, but we ultimately decided to change outdated spellings and capitalisation – some one changed to someone, every one to everyone, to-morrow to tomorrow, Summer to summer. We’ve also followed today’s editorial conventions – text that follows a line space will be full out (align with the margin) rather than indented. It seems that today’s editorial process might be more rigorous than when the story was first published. The original text contains a few inconsistencies – picture-books on one page and picture books on the next, for example – that would be unlikely to be missed by today’s eagle-eyed editors, and which we have corrected. Interestingly, many but not all of our changes had been made for the classic edition. As is often the case, there’s no definitive right or wrong approach, and one editor won’t make the same decision as the next.

Of course, the lucky child hearing the story for the first time will be unaware of all these behind-the-scenes deliberations. They’ll just be captivated, like generations of children before them, by the magic of this beautiful story.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, illustrated by Sarah Massini, will publish in September.

One month to go until the next Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon, with Sarah Warburton

There’s just under a month to go until the next Nosy Crow Illustrator Salon – and there are just a couple of places remaining!

This will be the third instalment in our new series of evening events, dedicated to celebrating the importance of illustration, and featuring  the incredible Sarah Warburton, the highly-acclaimed illustrator of the Princess and the… picture book series and the brand new Invincibles illustrated fiction series, written by Caryl Hart.

The Illustrator Salon will be taking place on Monday 18th April, at The Book Club in Shoreditch. Doors will open at 6.30pm for drinks and conversation, and the main event will begin at 7.00pm.

Once again, our host and salonnière for the evening will be Nosy Crow’s founder and managing director, Kate Wilson. After an interview with Sarah, there’ll be a Q&A with the audience, followed by a book signing and drinks.

Booking in advance is essential – you can book your place with the form below, or at this page. And you can save money on a signed copy of any of Sarah’s books by buying one now with your ticket! General admission costs just £7. £11 will include entry to the salon, PLUS a signed paperback copy of either a Princess picture book, or the first book in the Invincibles series, Piglet Pickle. Or for £14, you can get a signed hardback copy of any Princess picture book.

You’ll also be able to buy copies of any of Sarah’s books on the night itself.

 

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



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