Nosy Crow's Blog, page 142

Early responses to Refuge, by Anne Booth and Sam Usher

Last week we published Refuge, written by Anne Booth and illustrated by Sam Usher, in aid of War Child (who receive £5 from each copy sold). The book took just seven weeks to bring to market – it’s absolutely incredible to see it in shops.

And we’ve been completely overwhelmed by the response to the book already – it has been hugely heart-warming to see so many people support Refuge – by sharing and tweeting pictures of the book, displaying it in bookshops, buying a copy (or sometimes several!), blogging about it, telling others about it, reading it in schools and libraries, and more.

Refuge was named Children’s Book of the Week in The Times on Saturday – Alex O’Connell called it “an excellent way to help children make sense of what they are seeing on news bulletins every day … a simple but important story about the kindness of strangers that refuses to preach”.

And the book received a wonderful review in TheBookBag: “It’s difficult to explain what’s happening to these children in words which our children can understand and this gentle, beautiful book helps to put the situation into context. The words are simple, elegant and completely appropriate and Sam Usher’s illustrations bring them to life perfectly. It’s one of the most moving retellings of the nativity story which I’ve read, particularly as it ends with so much hope.”

If you’ve bought a copy of Refuge: thank you. And if you’d like to, you can order it online from Waterstones here, The Hive here, or directly from Nosy Crow here.

Here’s a look inside the book:

You can read our publication day blogpost here – and here’s the story behind book.

Can You Say it Too? Woof! Woof! by Sebastien Braun wins the Sheffield Baby Book Award!

The Sheffield Children’s Book Award winners were announced last week – and we were absolutely thrilled that Can You Say it Too? Woof! Woof! by Sebastien Braun won the Sheffield Baby Book Award!

With charming, friendly artwork, sturdy flaps, and simple texts, the Can You Say it Too? series are fantastic first books – great for sharing with children who are just starting to talk. As all parents know, little children LOVE making animal sounds. So a flap book in which they can spot an animal’s tail, lift the flap to reveal the complete creature, and then make its noise is guaranteed to be a winner!

Here’s a great blogpost by Camilla on the origins of the Can You Say it Too series – any why they’re so great for babies and young infants.

Here’s Sebastien Braun with his award:

You can buy Can You Say it Too? Woof! Woof! here. Congratulations, Seb!

Our next fairytale app will be…

After MUCH anticipation (and a bit of a delay), our sixth phenomenal fairytale app will be out next week: you’ll be able to download it from the App Store on Thursday, November 19th.

And today, for the first time, we are incredibly pleased to reveal not only the name of the fairytale, but also the very first piece of artwork from the app.

So, without further ado… our sixth fairytale app will be Goldilocks and Little Bear!

I am incredibly excited about this app: I think it’s possibly our best fairytale yet. It features absolutely beautiful artwork, incredible original music, amazing animation, and some truly brilliant, innovative interactivity.

The central narrative concept of Goldilocks and Little Bear is a wonderfully imaginative one – we cannot wait to share it with you. It’s a fantastic re-telling of the Goldilocks story… and it’s the kind of story that can ONLY be told on a digital device. We are immensely proud of it.

And although you have to wait until next Thursday to see the app itself, here’s our first piece of artwork from the app! Here are Goldilocks and Little Bear themselves – to meet the full cast of characters, you’ll have to download the app.

If you want to be the first to find out as soon as Goldilocks and Little Bear has been released, you can sign up to our apps newsletter below.

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Nosy Crow Publishes Refuge For War Child And The Children Of Syria

Today we are publishing Refuge, written by Anne Booth and Sam Usher, in aid of War Child. The book will have taken only seven weeks to bring to market from manuscript to publication, and by taking no profit, and asking suppliers and booksellers to take no profit or minimise costs, £5 from each copy sold will go to the charity.

Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell has called Refuge “an important Christmas book,” saying it leaves the reader with “an ache in your heart until the beauty and hope of the very last page.”

Refuge is a retelling of the Christmas story, but one with a difference: the focus of this short, lyrical picture book is the fleeing of Jesus, Mary and Joseph from Herod’s soldiers as they make their way to safety in Egypt, told from the point of view of a donkey that helps take them there. To him they are just a ‘man’, ‘woman’ and ‘child’. The text was written by Anne Booth, and as soon as Nosy Crow MD Kate Wilson read it, she knew what she wanted to do. “I was watching the ongoing crisis on the news and desperately wanted to do something to help; then Anne’s beautiful text arrived. We read it, we cried and we knew we had found what we could do.” Wilson hopes that, as well as raising money for War Child, the book could help parents talk to young children who will have seen images of refugees their own age and asked questions.

Anne said: “Whenever I think about refugees I think about what happened directly after the first Christmas. I hoped that retelling this part of the story would help people empathise with refugees today. I’m delighted Nosy Crow and War Child agreed.”

Sam Usher had recently visited the “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais to see for himself what was happening, so when Nosy Crow approached him to illustrate Refuge, his answer was easy. “I had visited to see what I could do, but after listening to a young refugee’s story of non-stop horror I knew anything I could do alone would make little difference. And when I was approached by Nosy Crow on my return, I felt that a couple of weeks of solid work is nothing to the suffering refugees go through.”

War Child’s CEO, Rob Williams said: “Nearly everyone knows the famous Christmas story.  And we are all well aware of the struggles faced by families fleeing conflict in the modern world.  This book helps us all to understand the value of every single person who travels in search of safety and protection.  By buying the book people will be enabling War Child to bring vital support to children and their families who are struggling to survive the devastation of conflict and the experience of becoming a refugee.

We are very grateful to Nosy Crow, Anne and Sam for producing such a beautiful and powerful book. Our teams see children and families that have fled their homes in terror every day, and the money raised by sales of Refuge will go a long way in helping us to make their lives that little bit easier.”

Nosy Crow will donate to War Child £5 for every copy sold, and will make no profit on the £7.99 book. Nor will the many supporters of the book, from the Italian printer who printed it to the bookshops that stock it. Kate said: “We are so proud of this project and grateful to everyone who through their generosity is helping us publish this beautiful book and maximise money for War Child. In this short Christmas season, I hope we are able to raise many tens of thousands of pounds for this wonderful charity and the children who need help so desperately.”

Take a look inside the book:

You can find out more about Refuge here, and buy the book online here.

Sand, Smoke and Showaddywaddy… Winning the North Somerset Teachers’ Picture Book Award

Today’s post is by author Tracey Corderoy, author of the including Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam and Hubble Bubble picture book series.

On Saturday I was thrilled to hear that my rhyming picture book, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam (beautifully illustrated by Steven Lenton) had won the North Somerset Teachers’ Picture Book Award, 2015.

Shifty and Sam were two bumbling robber-dogs who were firmly shown the error of their ways during (yet another failed) robbery, and thereafter turn from a life of crime to a life of cupcakes instead, becoming very competent and happy bakers!

The North Somerset Teachers’ Book Awards was founded by the ‘Just About Books’ teachers’ book group and was born out of a desire to celebrate the best in children’s literature. They decided that there was a need for an award aimed directly at teachers to support them in the role they play in developing life-long readers.

To win an award so strongly linked with schools and teachers is particularly special to me. Not only was I once a teacher, but I have an immense respect for the part they play in shaping future generations.

Having an inspirational teacher stays with you forever. A teacher who sees something special in you and goes out of their way to nurture that something they see. In short, a teacher who believes in you.

I was born in 1965 and grew up on a deprived council estate in industrial South Wales. An estate built for steel and chemical workers. There was a beach and sometimes, when the tide was up, the waves were huge and sparkly. But when the tide was out the sea’s sad ripples resembled a wrinkled brow, and the bubbly grey oil clung to you long after you were out of the water.

There were hills too, shrouded in smoke. But the flame-coloured tulips and bright yellow daffodils planted by my mother always shone through.

My childhood was punctuated by bereavement and so school, for me, became a bright oasis. I didn’t always love it. There were, I remember, teary clingings-on at the infant school gates. But the turning point came early, and I can pinpoint the day. I was painting on an easel – dots – red, blue, green. It was an apple. And the paint ran in dribbles, like streams finding their way. It was both messy and totally beautiful. And even now collections of dots make me smile.

By the time I was at Secondary school – the roughest Comprehensive for miles – I wouldn’t have known what to have done without school, even attempting a group number to Showaddywaddy’s ‘Under the Moon of Love’ for a school singing competition when I was about 12. Even that!

And there was one teacher who, I would say, paved the way for me becoming a writer. For she gave me books. Wonderful books. And poetry which made me cry, but cry in a good way. And these stories were journeys that lifted me out of the greyness into a kaleidoscope of colour and wonder. I am still in touch with that teacher, over thirty five years later. And she still says that she’s proud of me.

So a huge “Thank you!” to the North Somerset Teachers’ group for choosing Shifty and Sam for this award. Because people like them, who really care, will not only encourage life-long readers, but perhaps create the writers of the future too.

Thank you, Tracey, and congratulations to you and Steven! You can take a look inside Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam below:

Buy the book.

The next Nosy Crow Reading Group is almost here – we’re discussing The Marvels by Brian Selznick

The next meeting of the Nosy Crow Reading Group is taking place next week – and there are still a few places left if you’d like to come along!

We’ll be discussing The Marvels, by Brian Selznick, on Wednesday, November 18 at 6.30pm, here at the Nosy Crow offices – 10a Lant Street, London, SE1 1QR. It’s an absolutely stunning book – beautifully illustrated by Selznick, and incredibly produced, with gold foil edges.

As usual, we have a few questions prepared for discussion – here’s some of what we might talk about on the evening:

How successfully do you think The Marvels balances text and illustration? Did you prefer one element over the other? Is either more suited to telling a story?
How well do you think Selznick handles the distinction between fact and fiction in the book?
Who do you think The Marvels is “for”?
How do you think the relationship between reader and text, and reader and character, functions in The Marvels?

 

And here are a few interesting links:

You can read the New York Times review of the book here
Here’s an interesting Wall Street Journal piece on how Selnick made his trailer for the book
Listen to a discussion on The Marvels in the September episode of Down the Rabbit Hole here

 

If you’d like to come along, you can register for a place with the form below, or at this page.

And you can watch a trailer (made by Selznick) for The Marvels below:

Buy the book online from Waterstones.

The verdict on the final Nosy Crow Masterclass of the year: How to Write Picture Books

The final Nosy Crow Masterclass of the year took place on Saturday – How to Write Picture Books – and it was another fantastically creative, inspiring, and informative day, filled with advice, lessons and guidance on writing picture books.

The day included brilliant sessions from Nosy Crow’s Managing Director, Kate Wilson, literary agent Helen Mackenzie Smith, Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam and Hubble Bubble, Granny Trouble author Tracey Corderoy, award-winning picture book author-illustrator (and illustrator of the Bizzy Bear series) Benji Davies, and more.

And as well as these individual talks, we also offered one-to-one manuscript critiques to all of our attendees, along with lunch, cakes, wine, and lots more.

And here’s what some of our attendees said on Twitter afterwards:

Thanks for a fantastic pic bk masterclass @NosyCrow @hmackenziesmith @TraceyCorderoy @Benji_Davies Amazingly insightful day! Loved it!!!

— Becky Wilson (@beckywilson777) November 8, 2015

Huge THANK YOU to @NosyCrow @TraceyCorderoy @Benji_Davies and @BLM_Agency for their brilliantly inspiring Picture Book Masterclass yday! :)

— Sophie Dutton (@SophDutton) November 8, 2015

Loved the @NosyCrow masterclass yesterday. Great talks, lovely to chat to picture book devotees, and encouraging feedback too. Fab day! — Josette Reeves (@JosetteReeves) November 8, 2015

 

Phenomenal Nosy Crow picture book masterclass today. Witty, insightful, absorbing @NosyCrow @TraceyCorderoy @Benji_Davies @hmackenziesmith — Emma Young (@emmayounguk) November 7, 2015

Inspiring day at picture book workshop @NosyCrow thanks @Benji_Davies@TraceyCorderoy@NosyCrowBooks time to get cracking…

— Nick Swift (@nickswift) November 7, 2015

 

As with our previous Masterclasses, this was a sold-out day (with a long waiting list). We haven’t announced details for any future masterclasses at the moment, but if you’re interested in attending one, you can sign up to our newsletter below, and you’ll be the first to hear as soon as any new dates are confirmed – and you can find out about our current programme of events (including our forthcoming Illustrator Salon, with Pip and Posy illustrator Axel Scheffler) here.

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Publication day for Box

It is our final publishing month of the year, and yesterday was publication day for Box! Written by Min Flyte and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw, this is a charming novelty book with flaps and fold-out pages that celebrates the creative possibilities and limitless joy of cardboard boxes.

What would YOU do with a box? When four toddlers find some toys in cardboard boxes, they have fun with them for a while. But, before long, the friends’ interest in the toys wanes and their attention turns to the boxes themselves. What could they do with SO many boxes, they wonder?

Buy the book.

A perfect book for this time of year, Box is sure to inspire lots of creative and fun uses for all of those cardboard boxes that will be arriving in the run-up to Christmas.

Congratulations to Min and Ros on the publication of their lovely book!

A BBC series of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and our favourite TV and Film adaptations

There was great excitement in the office on Tuesday morning as it was announced that Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy would be made into a television drama by the BBC. There is always something very exciting (and, of course, absolutely terrifying) about someone adapting your favourite book for the screen – when a book that has largely lived inside your own head, complete with mispronunciation of names and ignorance of canon physical characteristics, is visualized by someone else, and you suddenly get a glimpse of how other people have been imagining ‘your’ book.

 

Talk in the office turned to our favourite film and TV adaptations, and while it was generally acknowledged that sometimes adaptations can go drastically wrong (which could constitute a whole blog post in itself, though perhaps would be too mean to actually put on paper), there are lots of adaptations that have managed to expand upon the joys of the book as opposed to diminishing them. Below is the list of our favourite film and TV adaptations of books we love. It is interesting to see some authors coming up again and again – Roald Dahl is mentioned an impressive eight times! Certain titles were also clear favourites in the office – John Thaw as Mister Tom was clearly very well-loved, and an honourable mention must be given to the terrifying 1990 film of The Witches, which has evidently scarred many Crows for life…

 

Disclaimer – many of the contributors to this article want to emphasise that, being FAR too young to have enjoyed these programmes/films when they first came out, they must have seen them as reruns MUCH later…

 

Camilla: As a small child I spent many a happy hour watching Paddington and the Wombles. As an older child/teen I loved TV adaptations of Flambards (with its great theme tune), James Herriott, Miss Marple. My own kids are enjoying Tracy Beaker and Frank Zipser, and we all adore the TV version of Horrible Histories which is just hilarious.

 

Imogen: I’m a bit partial to adaptations of the classics. Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth (I watched this countless times as a teenager) and Tess of the D’Urbervilles with Gemma Arterton and Eddie Redmayne.

 

Kate: The original film of The Railway Children, and the film adaptation of I Capture the Castle.

 

Tom: The Witches, the Harry Potter films from #5 onwards, Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty and Howl’s Moving Castle, and the stage adaptation of Matilda [I tried to insist that this doesn’t technically belong on this list, but Tom totally pulled rank and insisted it go on– apologies to TV/Film list purists]

 

Ola: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events!!! That was a cracking adaptation, I thought. And it has Meryl Streep in it, which automatically makes it amazing.

 

Lou: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and the TV series of The Box of Delights

 

Victoria: Goodnight Mister Tom with John Thaw

 

Lynsey: I vote AGAINST the BBC’s adaptation of Alan Garner’s Elidor because it was terrifying and FOR Danny Champion of the World and also Goodnight Mister Tom with John Thaw.

 

Ellie: I really loved the 1998 film adaptation of the Madeline picture books, and also the fantastically trippy 1989 animated film of The BFG. Also the recent film of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I thought was hilarious.

 

Steph: Fantastic Mr Fox, voiced by George Clooney

 

Ruth: The Borrowers!! I’m also very partial to Babe/The Sheep Pig (and rewatched Babe a couple of weeks ago – the animatronics are still looking great!). The film of The Witches has stayed with me almost as much as the book. If I see a painting of a landscape with an empty house and a little winding path I still think of it as a ‘witches painting’ and get the creeps.

 

Kirsty: Not an adaptation as such, maybe, but I really like Short Cuts, the Robert Altman film based on some Raymond Carver short stories. Proof that one good thing can be turned into another and then co-exist beautifully.

 

Frances: The Queen’s Nose and The Demon Headmaster

 

Mary: My favourite has got to be The Worst Witch – I wanted to go to that school SO badly. I also loved The Witches film adaptation, and more recently Esio Trot which made me cry a little on New Year’s Day. Oh, and Charlotte’s Web, the 1973 animated version.

 

Kitty: Someone’s probably already said this but: LORD OF THE RINGS!

 

Dom: I loved the CBBC drama adaptations of Moondial by Helen Cresswell and The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston. They were on TV in the mid/late 1980s. OBVIOUSLY I must have seen a repeat as I wasn’t even born then…

 

What are your favourite film and TV adaptations of books, for children or otherwise? Do you share any of our favourites, or are there any you disagree with? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments below!

Researching Nosy Crow – a guest post by two UCL Publishing MA students

Today’s blog post is by Charlotte Parker (above left) and Kate Griffiths, (above right); both students of the UCL publishing MA programme. Charlotte and Kate wrote to us after giving a presentation on Nosy Crow as part of their course, and have kindly written about their experience of researching (and presenting on) Nosy Crow.

We were three days into our MA in publishing course at UCL, had just met roughly sixty new people, and were told to form groups and create a presentation on a publisher of our choosing. In thirty minutes. Charlotte suggested Nosy Crow and off to their website we went. Little did the rest of us know that we had seriously lucked out, the Nosy Crow website was filled to the brim with information and was incredibly easy to navigate.

The subjects we had to touch upon were the background of the company, the range of products available on the website, the target audience, price range, and general services. After a hasty round of introductions we divided ourselves into two people per topic and tried not to freak out every time our lecturer announced the amount of time we had left.

It was a bit of a rush but the amount of information we were able to glean from the Nosy Crow website was amazing, and in the words of our lecturer we had “very good content” which we can only take some credit for.

Formerly from Macmillan Children’s, Kate Wilson broke away in 2010 to create her own, independent children’s publishing house. Since publishing their first book in January 2011, Small Blue Thing by S.C. Ransom, Nosy Crow has gone from strength to strength. Winners of countless Digital Marketing, Innovation and Business of the Year awards, this little indie is regarded as one of the key, creative leaders in children’s publishing.

Nosy Crow say they’re “happy to be small” and it’s plain to see why. Taking a look at Nosy Crow’s social media presence, we were excited by how much they value authentic interaction with their online community. With the freedom to engage with their followers in an open and playful way, Nosy Crow are incredibly active across a number of platforms. Nosy Crow seems to really enjoy getting to know their customers personally with just shy of 21,300 Twitter followers and racking up over 420,000 total Youtube views.

As well as keeping a varied and interesting blog with posts ranging from job and manuscript application advice to fun competitions for the kids, Nosy Crow also run events and workshops which are open to everyone. From masterclasses in writing picture books to author and illustrator meet-and-greets, Nosy Crow caters to the grown ups as well as the little ones to really engage it’s audience with literature of all shapes, sizes and digital persuasions. Hosted and attended by Nosy Crow staff, it’s clear to see that these guys truly love publishing for children and try to give back to their readers as much as possible.

Investigating the range of products made me a) wish I was a child b) wish it was still socially acceptable to do 4 piece jigsaw puzzles as an adult. We were seriously impressed with Nosy Crow’s forward thinking and the range of interactive apps that go alongside their traditional children’s books are incredible. Every picture book comes with a free audiobook version and there’s even a game where you learn about the lifecycle of the penguin while having fun! Amazing.

The meld of fairytale classics combined with apps that look to the future (look up My Brother is a Superhero – even the adults will want a go at it after they see the retro design it has) is such a winning combination. The conclusion we came to was that although at heart Nosy Crow is a children’s publisher, they don’t underestimate their market and they understand that publishing e-books is not the only electronic contribution a publisher has. On the website they clearly state they “embrace new technology” and that “reading shouldn’t be the most boring thing a child can do on a touchscreen”, this is blindingly obvious even after a only quick glance. Our group had no trouble at all coming up with information for our presentation and felt especially lucky to have to research the range of products.

As much I hold in fond regard my experience with my children’s picture books, I am curious and not a little jealous of the children who are growing up now with access to apps and learning experiences off the page. It is definitely a different method of gaining your formative experiences and Nosy Crow seem to be on the forefront of innovation in this particular department. Now if you need us, we’ll be playing the Superhero game.

Thank you, Charlotte and Kate!