Nosy Crow's Blog, page 15

Read an exclusive extract from Always, Clementine by Carlie Sorosiak

This September we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing Always, Clementine  – a funny, wise and heartwarming story, with a truly one-of-a-kind hero, from the author of the highly-acclaimed I, Cosmo and My Life as a Cat, Carlie Sorosiak.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first few chapters of the book – you can read an extract below!

Clementine is a genius. She can calculate pi to 69,689 places, remembers the exact moment she was born, and dreams in Latin.

She’s also a mouse.

And when she escapes from the lab which has bred her, Clementine discovers that it’s not enough to be the smartest mouse in history if she wants to survive in the real world – especially while the scientists who kept her are trying to recover their prize specimen. So, together with her new human friends, Clementine must find a way to earn her freedom – for good.

Take a look inside:

Always, Clementine  will be published on September 6th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

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A Tribute to Raymond Briggs

“Raymond Briggs had a genius for storytelling through illustration. Of course, he is best known for The Snowman, but he embraced the challenge of exploring darker subjects including ageing and nuclear annihilation… and The Snowman itself is at least as much about loneliness and loss as it is about imagination and adventure. His work was uncompromising in his emotional honesty, and his wit was biting and unafraid. I feel he created his books for himself, without compromising his inspiration with a sense of any audience, let alone a child audience. He never patronised children and I think that’s one of the things that made him brilliant and popular.” ~ Kate Wilson, Managing Director at Nosy Crow.

In celebration of this great man, Nosy Crow’s Louise Bolongaro, Publishing Director, Picture Books pays tribute with her fondest memories of working with Raymond Briggs during her tenure at Puffin Books:

My fond memories of working with Raymond Briggs by Louise Bolongaro

The picture book world shines a little less brightly this week. Like many of our heroes, I somehow thought Raymond would live forever, but I was wrong.

I know he would have been embarrassed by all the wonderful tributes from those who loved and admired him, but we can’t say enough about the man who left such a legacy. His stories were full of meaning and pathos; they were multi-layered and startling, and saw right into the heart of things. He also gave us comedy and phrases that we’ve woven into our collective consciousness. Raymond really was bloomin’ marvellous.

I was lucky enough to work with Raymond and his extraordinary backlist whilst I was Editorial Director at Puffin in the noughties. It was a pinch-me moment if ever there was one. Like so many, The Snowman was a vibrant part of my childhood (I was three when the book published and seven when the animation first aired) and it swiftly came to represent the essence of Christmas with all its joy, humour and sadness too. Then when I became a parent myself, my son and I would watch it without fail every year, as if to say, “Ah, now Christmas is truly here.”

My favourite project was an updated version of his beautiful Mother Goose collection, winner of the Kate Greenaway when it first published in 1966. It was a big book, and so the designer and I would regularly pop down to visit him at his home near the South Downs. I say home, but it wasn’t the home he lived in but, rather, his previous home where he wrote The Snowman and which he continued to use as a studio. The steep South Down hills banked up outside the house and, even though it was the height of summer when I first visited, you could feel the landscape of the story all around – I half-expected it to start snowing.

I can remember the exact moment I stepped inside as if it was yesterday. It was like entering a magical kingdom. Every surface and wall was crammed with paintings, sketches, drawings and models, all of which Raymond instantly dismissed with a wave of his hand, always humble and self-effacing. I was like a child in a toyshop and particularly remember a magnificent drawing of a chair that looked as if it were on loan from the Royal Academy. “Oh, that,” said Raymond. “I did that when I was 16.” When I was able to drag my attention back to the task in hand, we would chat about various bits and pieces, have a cup of tea, and then Raymond would take us to lunch at a little pub nearby.

What I remember most about those lovely days was the laughter. Raymond was the most delightful company. Whilst he liked to trade a reputation as a grumpy old man, he was anything but. He was kind and generous, charming and courteous, and he was also very funny. He had a wry sense of humour and was deliciously irreverent. We mostly corresponded by letter and phone – never email – and he loved the rich pickings my surname provided. He spelt it differently nearly every time – often silly, always affectionate – and those letters are some of my most treasured possessions. He also LOVED a good practical joke . . .

When we were talking about the new Mother Goose, we had to talk about money matters, too. Raymond found his original offer letter from Kaye Webb herself, (if I remember rightly!) and, of course, it was a somewhat modest amount by modern standards. Raymond said, “Bolongaro, times have changed! I expect a suitcase full of cash!”

Well, how could I refuse!

So, I spoke to his agent and whilst we arranged new terms, I also printed fake monopoly money, trimmed it to size until we had wads of the stuff and crammed it into a little suitcase. Then I popped it in the post. Raymond couldn’t speak for laughing when he called.

When I left Puffin to join Nosy Crow in 2012, it was a horrible wrench to leave Raymond behind. When I told him, his letter was very brief: “Bugger, bugger. What a blow.”

I know I was one of many editors and publishers in Raymond’s long career, but he was always unfailingly kind and interested in what I had to say. He taught me so much, about how stories endure and how, sometimes, the ones with no words can say the most of all. I loved every moment and am full of sadness as I write this.

Raymond, we will miss you.

Bugger, bugger. What a blow.

xxxxx

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A guest post from Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble author, Sarah Todd Taylor

This month we’re absolutely delighted to have published Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble – a beautifully written adventure full of daring action and delicious cakes. And today we’re very excited to be sharing a guest post from Sarah!

—

I’m so excited about seeing Alice’s first adventure A Recipe for Trouble heading out into the world and for everyone to meet Alice Éclair.

Alice Éclair is Paris’ rising star in the world of patisserie, and also its youngest spy. In A Recipe for Trouble she faces her first big mission – to track down a package of secret papers on board France’s most luxurious train, the Sapphire Express, and to uncover the spy from a train full of passengers, all of whom seem to be hiding secrets.

Alice really started way back in the 1980s when my brothers were given a book on how to be a spy, which I quickly borrowed (I say borrowed, they say stole) and spent the entire summer reading up on secret codes and writing messages with lemon juice (something I recently discovered one real spy actually did!).  It was all very exciting and I’ve always wanted to recapture that, so writing Alice’s adventures is a way of being back in my childhood, imagining that I’m on an important secret mission.

I often get asked if I chose to make Alice a star baker because I’m good at that myself. I wish I could say yes, but a decent chilli cheese scone is pretty much where my talents start and end. I wanted her to be creative, though, and I realised that giving her a talent that would get her invited into places that she might not otherwise be able to go (like luxury trains and posh manor houses) would mean that I had a reason for her being at the centre of the action. It also makes it a lot of fun for me, finding ways to combine her baking with her spying so that they work together, and I hope that is fun for the reader too! 

I set Alice’s first adventure on a train quite simply because I’ve always wanted to write a book set on a steam train. I absolutely love them. In Wales, where I live, there are lots of narrow gauge steam trains that were used for the coal and slate industries or for Victorian tourism and I love visiting them. It’s like stepping back into the past. There’s something very magical about a steam train, and they are the perfect setting for a detective or spy book because trains give you an environment where everyone is trapped in a small space and can be observed in great detail, and they also give you a deadline for your detective or spy to solve the mystery – everything has to be wrapped up before the train reaches its final destination.

A Recipe for Trouble is set in-between the wars at a time when the importance of espionage was increasingly recognised and when some writers and thinkers began to find themselves in danger and were looking for places of refuge. Although Alice and her fellow spies play an important part in helping people with their feats of daring do, I also wanted to highlight the work of some individuals who found ways to help refugees that were less ‘dramatic’ but that led to thousands of people escaping to safety. In reading up on the history of espionage in the 1930s I came across passport officials and diplomats who pushed through visa applications or even forged documentation to help people get to safety. I think it’s important to remember that all of us can find ways to be brave and do the right thing, even if we can’t be a spy who hangs off the side of a moving train.

Although I’m not as brave as Alice and I certainly don’t have her baking or decorating skills, I do recognise myself in her curiosity and her love of puzzles and word games. I think I have written myself into her lack of confidence too. She often doubts herself and feels out of place, especially in glamorous situations. But she rises above it and is willing to take on a challenge and I think that’s important too. We can’t all be naturally confident, but if we’re willing to push ourselves, often with a little help from our friends, we find we are capable of much more than we think we are.

I really hope that readers find in Alice a character that they can root for and that everyone discovers that there are few things more fun than cracking a cipher while eating a chocolate macaron or two.

—

Thank you, Sarah! You can order a copy of Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

Read the first few chapters below:

 

The post A guest post from Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble author, Sarah Todd Taylor appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Read an exclusive extract from And Everything Will Be Glad to See You by Ella Risbridger & Anna Shepeta

This August we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing And Everything Will Be Glad to See You  – a forceful, passionate and uplifting collection of poems by women and girls that is guaranteed to inspire, delight and empower. Selected by Ella Risbridger and gorgeously illustrated by Anna Shepeta, this is the perfect gift to begin a lifelong love of poetry.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first few chapters of the book – you can read an extract below!

From well-loved poets, including Maya Angelou, Wendy Cope, Lucille Clifton and Christina Rossetti, to newer voices such as Amanda Gorman, Yrsa-Daley Ward and Ada Limón, this outstanding collection from talented anthologist Ella Risbridger has poems for every mood and every moment. Ella’s selection is wide-ranging but accessible and will appeal to poetry lovers both young and old alike.

Take a look inside:

 

And Everything Will Be Glad to See You will be published on September 1st – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

The post Read an exclusive extract from And Everything Will Be Glad to See You by Ella Risbridger & Anna Shepeta appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Draw Shifty McGifty & Slippery Sam!

We’re delighted to have published Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Pirates Ahoy! in July – the latest instalment of the wonderful Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam series, written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Steven Lenton.

Here’s what it’s all about:

The detective dogs are back for a swashbuckling pirate adventure!

Shifty and Sam have swapped their life of crime for a career in cupcakes. But when they’re asked to bake for a pirate party, they find themselves caught up in the middle of a robbery. Uh-oh! Captain Sharpwhiskers and his criminal crew have stolen Captain Chucklebeard’s treasure! Can Shifty and Sam catch those BAD pirates and bring back the loot? Find out in this hilarious, rhyming picture book adventure!

And today we’re sharing some of Steven Lenton’s drawalongs from his YouTube channel, so that you can learn to draw Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam yourself!

Draw Shifty McGifty:

Draw Slippery Sam:

Make sure to tag us on social media with any drawings you do and we will do our best to share your wonderful creations!

 

Take a look inside the book:

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Pirates Ahoy! is out now – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to be the first to know about our new books, along with receiving exclusive previews, giveaways, discounts and more, you can sign up to our newsletter here, and you’ll never miss a thing.

 

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Read an exclusive extract from Running out of Time by Simon Fox

This August we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing Running out of Time – a thrilling, unputdownable debut from an incredible new voice in children’s fiction, Simon Fox.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first few chapters of the book – you can read an extract below!

When Alex and his father are forced to flee their home to escape a brutal government, they begin a life-threatening journey across Europe. But when they are separated before they can reach Britain, Alex finds himself alone, with only his extraordinary gift to keep him alive.

Take a look inside:

Running out of Time will be published on August 4th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

The post Read an exclusive extract from Running out of Time by Simon Fox appeared first on Nosy Crow.

An open call for graphic novel submissions

Are you a writer or writer-illustrator with a great graphic novel up your sleeve? We want to hear from you!

At Nosy Crow, we pride ourselves on publishing talented authors and illustrators from a diverse range of backgrounds across a range of formats, and we are hugely excited to add fresh and original graphic novels to this range. As long-time readers of graphic novels, we are passionate about the storytelling possibilities they present as well as the opportunity to reach even more readers and to foster a genuine love for reading in all its forms.

If you are a creator of graphic novels, read on for information on our submission guidelines!

What we are looking for:

An exciting, commercial graphic novel for children between the ages of 5-12, in any fiction genre. The main characters can be humans, animals, fantasy creatures or a mixture – the possibilities are endless!

If you are new to children’s publishing, standard target age ranges are 5-7, 7-9 and 9-12. We recommend you look at already published fiction books and graphic novels in the market to get an idea of what is out there.

Entry criteria:

Please send the following to graphicnovels@nosycrow.com:

A graphic novel script/story (about anything for children aged 5-12 and minimum five sides of A4)A one-page synopsisA short biography (max 300 words)

If you are an illustrator, please also send:

Max three double-page spreads of your graphic novelLinks to further sample artwork in your portfolioSubmissions can be in black-and-white or full colour

Please send no more than three submissions per person.

Submissions window: 1st August 2022 to 30th September 2022. Unfortunately, any submissions received after this time will be deleted.

Formats accepted are:

Adobe PDF for illustration spreadsAdobe PDF, Microsoft Word (or similar) for script, synopsis and biographyPDFs should be no more than 5MB in total

Your submission must be:

Unpublished anywhere in the worldIn the English languageBy someone aged 18 or older

The Fiction team will review all submissions sent in the two-month window. We aim to reply to everyone, whether you are successful or not. However, we are hoping for a large volume of submissions, so it may take some time to get back to you. Please don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back immediately!

If you forget an attachment in your email, don’t worry. Please resend your whole submission and let us know at the top, so we can delete your previous email.

If you have any questions, please email graphicnovels@nosycrow.com.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Good luck!

Halimah Manan

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Read an exclusive extract from Mouse Heart – an atmospheric new thriller from Fleur Hitchcock

This August we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing Mouse Heart – an atmospheric new thriller, full of daring stunts and sinister villains, from the bestselling Fleur Hitchcock.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first few chapters of the book – you can read an extract below!

Mouse, a foundling, loves her pieced-together family at the Moth Theatre fiercely. When their leading man, Walter, is wrongly arrested for murder, Mouse swears she’ll free him. But another member of the cast has a secret identity ­- as a ruthless killer. As Mouse’s investigation leads her ever closer to their true, deadly nature, can she outwit them without losing everything she holds dear?

Mouse Heart, a masterfully told adventure, is perfect escapism for readers aged 9+ and for fans of Philip Pullman, Katherine Rundell and Philip Reeve.

Take a look inside:

Mouse Heart will be published on August 4th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

The post Read an exclusive extract from Mouse Heart – an atmospheric new thriller from Fleur Hitchcock appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Mermaids versus Suffragettes – a guest post by Alex Cotter

This month we’re absolutely delighted to have published The Mermaid Call – a gripping story of myth and mystery about a legendary mermaid and her dark power from Alex Cotter, the author of The House on the Edge. And today we’re very excited to be sharing a guest post from Alex!

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Mermaids versus Suffragettes. Can you be a fan of both? I grew up awe-struck by the Suffragettes and their seismic, life-changing achievements. I’ve also long adored mermaids and their vast library of stories and legends. And yet in many ways the two can contradict and compete with one another: feminists on one side fighting for equal rights, mermaids on the other promoting an idealised version of women and girls as alluring and beautiful.

It’s that tension between the two that captured my imagination and inspired a story that became my recently published novel, The Mermaid Call. It’s set in a fictional village in the Lake District – Lake Splendour – which survives on tourism from its legendary Lake Mermaid. My main character, Vivien, lives above her gran’s mermaid-themed shop and her family make their living from mermaid merchandise. At the same time, Vivien’s friend is campaigning against Lake Splendour’s ‘sexist’ Mermaid Crown and Vivien herself doesn’t feel pretty enough to enter. Instead, when Vivien meets an enigmatic girl called Alice, she finds herself embarking on a dangerous quest to discover a mystery about Alice’s lost aunt and find out if the mermaid in the lake really exists.

I’m a big fan of any legend; in fact, the search for the Loch Ness monster captivated me as a child and was definitely an inspiration for my story. But mythical stories about merfolk across the globe particularly fascinate me. There’s the dangerous and sharp-teethed Japanese ningyo who offers the promise of youth and beauty (at a price!) Or mermaids closer to home, like the Zennor mermaid who eloped with a boy from Cornwall or the Peak District’s ghost mermaid who grants you eternal life. And yet at the same time, I’ve often been uneasy about the common depiction of mermaids: beautiful long hair, perfect looks, magical qualities. Dig a little deeper and you can soon find evidence that many of their stories were created by a patriarchal society in order to portray women as both tempting and unforgiving, beautiful yet unattainable. And of course the mythical stories that inspired many of the original mermaid tales were mostly written by men too!

I introduce the Suffragettes into The Mermaid Call via two working class girls from Lake Splendour’s past – the Mermaid Girls – who disappeared in 1914 only to return and claim that they had been called by the Lake Mermaid herself. They then use their mermaid encounter to help the village survive on tourism from its lake legend after the First World War puts a stop to its quarry mining. While the legend of a mysterious mermaid is at the heart of the story, as Vivien embarks on her mermaid quest with Alice, the story becomes more about those young Suffragettes and it starts to explore themes of community, survival and self-expression. Most of all it looks at the importance of being true to yourself – rather than believing other people’s opinion of you.

The ‘mermaid’ village of Lake Splendour itself was inspired by the ‘tourist’ communities I used to visit as a child, in the Lake District and also Matlock Bath, an inland town with serious seaside vibes! I also drew upon the stories of my own Irish immigrant grandparents who came to the UK in search of a better life and worked in hat shops and pubs and bakeries. I was equally inspired by my very good friends who moved here from Cyprus and made their living from a seaside fish and chip shop (I relocated it to Lake Splendour!) All these stories of hope and survival, of making choices to give your children a better life, fed into the story of The Mermaid Call and led me back to those incredible Suffragettes. Because that’s what they did. They fought to make a difference, so that the lives of girls and women could be better, equal, more empowered.

So to return to the question that sparked my imagination in the first place: Mermaids versus Suffragettes? I suppose if it was an easy question to answer, it wouldn’t have inspired a whole novel! Yet I have to conclude that, while I will always be entranced by the mystical magic of mermaids, my appreciation and admiration will forever rest firmly at the feet of the Suffragettes. But maybe in some ways the two have more in common than I first realised. Take ‘The Little Mermaid’ by Hans Christian Andersen – the perils she faced and sacrifices she made to discover another life – it presents some parallels with the fight for women’s liberation, for change, for being true to yourself. And after all, there’s no reason why today’s mermaid can’t be a feminist too!

—

Thank you, Alex! You can order a copy of The Mermaid Call from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

Read the first few chapters below:

 

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Read an exclusive extract from Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor

This August we’re absolutely thrilled to be publishing Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble – the first in a delectable new series for 9+ readers by Sarah Todd Taylor.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first few chapters of the book – you can read an extract below!

A mysterious message sends Alice on a mission aboard France’s most glamorous train. She must uncover an enemy agent before they reach their final stop. But everyone on the train seems to be hiding something…

Armed with her whisk, her wits and her will to succeed, Alice has a spy to catch.

Take a look inside:

Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble will be published on August 4th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

The post Read an exclusive extract from Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor appeared first on Nosy Crow.