Nosy Crow's Blog, page 155

Choosing books together

Today’s guest post is by Ahrani Logan, a TV producer, brand creator, and non-fiction writer, on choosing books for her child to read.

I love books. This means that I live in a house filled with books. My daughter, who is 6 years old, has grown up in this environment. We have a vast array of picture books, but now she is moving onto chapter books. This means that we visit the bookshop more often. This is because she likes to select her own reading now. She will still read something I buy, but I’ve noticed the difference. The books she selects she pretty much starts reading as we walk out of the bookshop.

I embrace this slight shift. After all, if she is reading, that is the main thing.

Sometimes she will try to select books older than her reading range. “Harry Potter” is a good example. She recently began watching the movies. So now, of course, my little reader wants to immerse herself in the pages that tell all the exciting adventures. She seems particularly taken with Lord Voldemort. No doubt I expect she will be picking up horror books at some point. An area I would voraciously read from 12 onwards. So I have to say “no” to these books for now. What happened to the cute books?

I tend to encourage my child to choose books within the 5 to 8 age range now. Apparently “picture books are for babies”. But she still enjoys a good picture book, if only to study and perhaps copy the illustrations, or read them to me. Having said this, I have seen her enthused by the rather wonderful illustrations that can be found in chapter books for this age group. It’s a great mix of picture with long-form story that ticks the right emotional boxes, continuing to embrace the young reader whilst simultaneously acknowledging and supporting their literary growth.

On a recent trip to Waterstones, my six year old was drawn to two books published by Nosy Crow. Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Playful Panda by Amelia Cobb and My Head Teacher is A Vampire Rat! by Pamela Butchart. The cuteness factor of the panda definitely played a part. The vampire meets school concept seemed to satisfy my six year olds need for a bit of scary-tale. What I noticed is that the spine of both of these books quite accurately communicated the front cover. I think that was an important factor for making a quick assessment in front of a shelf of many, many books.

We spent around 40 minutes in the store. Taking books down. Having a browse and a read. I do wonder if her choice was also determined by the fact that these books were on the shelves at a six year olds “viewing level”.

I love visiting bookshops with my daughter. It is something I loved to do with my parents, at the weekends, when I was a child. I love that she loves books so much, so young. She loves story and she loves facts. After one particularly successful visit of discovering new titles, she couldn’t help skipping down the high road singing “I love books!”

I still often read aloud to my six year old. This is usually at bedtime and because she wants me to read slightly older books to her, like those by Roald Dahl. She sometimes wants to read a picture book to me. Of course I know if I am read a book at bedtime like this, I am more than ready to fall asleep!

I can understand why choosing books with your child could be daunting. With the vast array on offer, it can be hard to know where to begin. I find that quick online searches for recent releases, or books that have won awards, are good starting points before entering a bookstore. Twitter has been a useful place in increasing children’s book title awareness. Allowing your child to lead you, if they are naturally book-inclined, also helps. Choosing books can be quality time. They encourage communication and are good talking points. Children who often respond with “Can’t remember” to “How was your day at school?” may be more eager to chat about an interesting book that they have read. Books can open lines of communication, foster imagination, grow young minds and generally make the World go around.

Thank you, Ahrani! You can read the opening chapters of both The Playful Panda and My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat below – and if you’d like to contribute a guest blogpost on a children’s book-related subject, we’d love to hear from you! Email tom at nosycrow dot com if there’s something you’d like to share.

Take a look inside Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Playful Panda:



Buy the book from Waterstones.

Take a look inside My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat:



Buy the book from Waterstones.

"Everything about this version of Snow White is wonderful."

Our Snow White app has been out for a couple of months now, and we’ve been absolutely thrilled by the response it’s received (and continues to receive). I was INCREDIBLY happy to see the line heading this blogpost included in a recent review of the app in The Appzine. Here’s a short excerpt from Lisa Caplan’s review:

“Nosy Crow scores again with Snow White. For $4.99 your kids get a wonderful digital book that bring a favorite story to life in unfamiliar ways. The app has educational merit, tons of polish, and lots to tap and laugh at, ensuring your kids will visit Snow White and her friends more than once.”

You can read the full piece here.

And the app received a fantastic review in The Telegraph last week, too. Including Snow White in a list of apps and gadgets that would be perfect for keeping kids busy on a long journey, The Telegraph write:

“Nosy Crow’s been making gorgeous interactive fairytale apps for a few years now, and its latest effort is another enchanting masterpiece of iOS storytelling.”

You can read the full piece here.

If you’ve not yet tried the app yourself, you can download it from the App Store here – and here’s a very quick preview:

And if you do already own the app, we’d be incredibly grateful if you’d consider leaving a review on the App Store – it makes an enormous difference!

We’re well underway on our next fairytale app (the identity of which shall remain a closely guarded secret for a little while longer) – if you’d like to stay up to date with all of our app news, and be the first to find out what our next fairytale will be, you can sign up to our apps newsletter here.

Win copies of our June books!

It’s time for our monthly book giveaway! Next week our June titles will be published, and if you’re a resident of the UK or Ireland, you can win any of them simply by subscribing to our Books Newsletter and sending us an email with the book you’d like to win. Here’s what’s out next month – and what you can win:

Violet Rose and the Surprise Party, illustrated by Jannie Ho, will be out next month – a gorgeous story-and-activity book in one! When busy rabbit, Violet Rose, discovers that her friend Lily has a birthday coming up, she and her buddies decide to throw a surprise party, With stickers, press-outs and puzzles, plus additional activity material to download, this delightfully unique book is sure to inspire crafty kids – creativity without the mess! Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

You could win The Fairiest Fairy, written by Anne Booth and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw – a beautiful picture book from a brand new author-illustrator team, with a charming rhyming story and an uplifting message. Betty is a fairy who is ALWAYS getting into messy muddles. She can’t paint a rainbow, or scatter dewdrops, and her pirouettes are, well, pretty precarious. You see, with so many animals to rescue and friends to help, there’s just no time for Betty to practise all the things a fairy should. But when it comes to the Fairy Ball, Betty’s friends return her gifts of kindness and it becomes clear who is actually the fairiest fairy of them all. Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

We’ll be publishing There’s a Bear on My Chair by Ross Collins – echoing Dr Seuss through the clever use of a single rhyme throughout, this joyously illustrated picture book by a multi-award-winning talent is perfect for sharing. Poor Mouse! A bear has settled in his favourite chair, and that chair just isn’t big enough for the two of them. Mouse tries all kinds of tactics to move the pesky Bear, but nothing works and Mouse gives up. Once Mouse has eventually gone, Bear gets up and walks home. But what’s that? Is there a Mouse in Bear’s house? Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

The Princess and the Giant, written by Caryl Hart and illustrated by Sarah Warburton, will be out next month – a gorgeous rhyming picture book about the power of bedtime stories. Princess Sophie is EXTREMELY fed up. She can’t go to sleep and it’s ALL because of that grumpy old giant, who is stomping about all night. But when Sophie reads her favourite book of fairy tales, she suddenly has a bright idea and figures out EXACTLY what that giant really needs. Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

You could win The Swivel-Eyed Ogre-Thing, written by Barry Hutchison and illustrated by Chris Mould. In this second brilliant Benjamin Blank adventure, trolls are going missing from under their bridges and will goats are running amok! Benjamin sets off to find out what’s happening, and discovers a dastardly villain with a dastardly plan to feed trolls cabbages and use their trumps for EVIL! Who would do such a thing and WHY?? Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

And finally, Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Cuddly Koala, written by Amelia Cobb and illustrated by Sophy Williams, is up for grabs – the eighth book in a highly collectible series featuring a go-getting central character who can talk to animals, compelling storylines, and evocative illustrations. A new baby has arrived at the zoo, but he’s very clumsy and Zoe is worried he’s going to hurt himself. So she comes up with a very cuddly way to keep him safe – a koala sling! Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order the book online.

To win any of these books, all you have to do is subscribe to our books newsletter (if you’ve already subscribed you’re still eligible for this competition) and send an email to tom at nosycrow dot com with “Newsletter competition” in the subject heading and the title of the book you’d like to win, and your address, in the body of your email. So have a good think about which book you’d like to win (we can only accept one entry per person), and good luck – we’ll pick the winners at random next week.

My Brother is a Superhero: "My favourite bit is..."

Last week we posted a preview video of a class of school children at Netley Primary School in Camden who’ve all read My Brother is a Superhero, the debut novel by David Solomons.

And today, we’re sharing a video with some of their favourite bits from the book! You can see the video at the top of this post – here’s our class of reviewers’ best bits. We’ll be sharing lots of their reviews over the coming weeks, so if you want see more, subscribe to our YouTube channel and you won’t miss anything.

If that’s left you dying to read the book yourself, then today is your lucky day! Here’s a photograph of the VERY LAST box of proof copies of My Brother is a Superhero, which are currently sat underneath my desk:

And we’re giving them away! If you’d like to win one of these EXTREMELY limited proof copies yourself, head over to the @NosyCrowBooks Twitter account – we’ll be running a Twitter competition to give them away later today.

If you don’t have any luck winning a proof copy, don’t fear: the book will be out VERY SOON, and in the meantime, you can read the opening chapters below.

A super-exciting, laugh-out-loud funny novel for 8+ year olds, this is perfect for fans of Frank Cottrell Boyce – it’s brilliantly plotted, clever and quick-witted, warm-hearted, and very, very funny.

Here are the first two chapters:



You can pre-order My Brother is a Superhero here – we can’t wait to share it with you!

Everyone's favourite robber dogs are back: the return of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam!

This July we’re publishing a brand new picture book that a LOT of people have been waiting for: Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Cat Burglar, the highly-anticipated follow-up to Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, the rhyming crime caper picture book phenomenon written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Steven Lenton, is here!

Reformed robber dogs Shifty and Sam have embarked upon a radical career change, and are now running a charming cafe. Life’s as sweet as a sugared doughnut until their new, seemingly cute-as-a-cupcake employee turns out to be infamous cat burglar Kitty-le-Claw. Shifty and Sam are caught in a sticky situation when they find themselves in the frame for Kitty’s raid on a bank vault. Have the cake-loving canines bitten off more than they can chew…?

Well, there’s only ONE way to find out – you’ll have to read the book once it’s published! And in the meantime, here’s a very first look inside. Behold – the opening spreads of The Cat Burglar:



Scrupmptiously-illustrated, and featuring a delectable rhyming text, this action-packed picture book will provide hours of entertainment. You can pre-order the book now – and if you’d like to keep up to date with all of our new picture books, and be in with a chance of winning a copy of The Cat Burglar, sign up to our books newsletter.

There's one week left to apply for a Marketing Executive position at Nosy Crow

A couple of weeks ago we announced that we’re hiring a Marketing Executive – and there’s just one week left to apply for the position: the closing date for applications is next Friday, May 29th.

Our new, rapidly growing sales, marketing and PR department needs a Marketing Executive whose key functions will be:

To work closely with the in-house sales team to constantly devise ways of supporting our key accounts, plus our UK, Ireland and Export Sales teams to maximise sales and liaise with international sales partners and rights customers over POS requirements and production.



To contribute innovative marketing ideas to agent and author acquisition pitches.



To write copy, and manage design and print of three substantial catalogues/rights guides (liaising with a freelance designer).



To devise and implement a range of strategic marketing campaigns around key titles/series/authors and identify appropriate, effective advertising opportunities and write briefs for print and online ads.



To manage external marketing agencies where appropriate.



To produce and arrange print for a number of pieces of printed point of sale, including leaflets and flyers, posters, bookmarks, and other bookshop-friendly material as required.



To act, where appropriate, as an ambassador for the company, presenting new titles and marketing plans at sales, retail and library conferences, for example.



To communicate marketing plans and activity in-house, and to authors, illustrators and agents.

We expect that you will already have had some experience in a publishing marketing environment – preferably in a children’s department. This is a key job in a fast moving young company which enjoys and is successful at what it does. You’ll need to be flexible, determined, and good at getting on with a tightly knit team and its external customers. You’ll have the right to live and work in the UK. You’ll report to the Head of Sales and Marketing and will liaise closely with our sales and PR team.

Applications (stating current salary) to Catherine Stokes (catherine@nosycrow.com) by Friday 29th May.

The Nosy Crow Reading Group verdict on Anyone But Ivy Pocket

Last night the Nosy Crow Reading Group met to discuss Anyone But Ivy Pocket, written by Caleb Krisp and illustrated by John Kelly, which We Love this Book describe as “funny and engaging […] sure to delight any reader who seeks adventure and mischief”.

This was one of those books that provoked a real debate amongst our reading group members, with a fairly even split between those who really liked it and those who did not: there was healthy, enthusiastic, and (to me, at least) sometimes surprising debate about what constituted its merits and its flaws.

Narrative voice

One of the most immediately striking things about this book is its narrative voice: that of the irrepressible Ivy Pocket herself. Ivy’s voice asserts itself on every page of the book – it is an incredibly distinctive, stylised creation, and one gets the impression that Krisp began with Ivy’s voice and built a book around it.

The narrative voice lends the book a sort of marmite-quality: you will either love it or hate it, but it is impossible to ignore. For me, that narrative voice is the novel’s greatest success, and the thing that will carry a reader through the entire book – and overall, I think that our attendees enjoyed Ivy’s voice: we liked her delusions of grandeur, her (equally deluded) self-belief, and her over-the-top affectations. Krisp has noted in interviews that he owes a debt to Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp, and several of our members recognised this similarity.

Ivy’s voice is the source of much of the book’s humour, and to many of us, its comic potential was its greatest strength. Krisp’s use of repetition, in particular, worked well here: we liked the recurring uses of phrases like “all the natural instincts of…”, and the effect these phrases had in building layer after layer of delusion and absurdity. The narrative voice even, according to one of our attendees, gave the book the quality of a mock-epic pastiche, with hints of tragi-comedy (alongside Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, I suspect that another of Krisp’s influences has been Pope’s The Rape of the Lock).

This isn’t to say that the book’s narrative voice didn’t have its detractors, however: several of us found it irritating, one or two of the group did not find it terribly funny, and a few of us felt that it did not have “heart” – and that, subsequently, the overall experience of reading the book was a slightly cold one.

The unreliable narrator

The two words that seem to come up in every review, discussion and summary of this book are “unreliable narrator”. On the surface, Ivy seems like a quintessential unreliable narrator, and this was something that a lot of us liked about the book: several of our attendees found Krisp’s use of the trope funny, interesting and clever. A number of us also felt that the book did a very good job of introducing the idea of the unreliable narrator to a young audience: where some of us found the allusions to Ivy’s unreliability heavy-handed, others found them – like the very deliberate repetition – helpful and appropriate for a readership that may never before have encountered a narrator whose account cannot be taken at face value.

One or two of us were less than enchanted with this element of the book: one member said that while they usually enjoyed unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters, they were frustrated in this instance by what they found to be inconsistency – they felt that Ivy was only inconsistently unreliable, and that this undermined the effect.

And there are, we decided, valid questions to be asked about whether in fact this IS a book which strictly conforms to the necessary conventions of the unreliable narrator: Ivy deceives herself constantly, of course, but she does not really deceive the reader.

Plot

Typically I begin these blogposts with a warning that spoilers lie ahead, but I’m not sure how relevant this would be on this occasion: even now, after reading the book twice and discussing it for an evening, I’m not confident that I could satisfactorily relay the book’s plot.

The book’s actual story was not, it must be said, as praised by our group as it’s voice and humour were. Some of us felt that the book had too much plot, and a few of us did not love the introduction of supernatural elements to the story (in the words of one person, the book would have been better “if it stuck to being an Agatha Christie-style mystery”). A number of us found the ending frustrating (noting that it was very heavily setting up events for a sequel) and several of the group felt that the book lacked a strong narrative arc: that it was made up simply of a sequence of events, one after the other, that were not properly connected.

But the plot was not without its admirers: several people liked Krisp’s evocation of the period and genre, and a number of us enjoyed the book’s pantomime quality (one of our attendees said that they wanted to shout “it’s behind you!” at every situation that Ivy blindly walked into). And to at least one person, the book DID have a lot of heart – because they felt that it was about how life can be terrifying, and how Ivy eventually realises this.

So, a book that attracted both ardent defenders, and frustrated critics – but a striking, interesting debut, whatever the case.

The Nosy Crow Reading Group will be back in June to discuss My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons. The event is currently completely booked, but if you’d like to add your name to the waiting list, or be notified about future events, email tom at nosycrow dot com, and I’ll add you to our mailing list.

Words - pictures - music!

Today’s guest blog is by Penny Dale, creator of the Dinosaur picture book series, on an unlikely overlap of interests with some of her favourite musicians…

I have always listened to music in my studio while I’m working. Years ago I listened to recordings much more than to radio, but since BBC 6 Music came along everything’s changed, and now the reverse is true, and it’s radio most of the time.

Not only is the music played on 6music varied and eclectic, but it’s curated and presented lovingly by knowledgeable people who sprinkle the playlist with rare classic tracks as well as lovely things that just don’t get heard on other more mainstream stations. And there’s lots of great new work played too.

Some favourite discoveries have included: Metronomy, Field Music, Teleman, and particularly, Public Service Broadcasting. They first diverted me, in a good way – i.e. paintbrush frozen mid air kind of way – a couple of years ago, when I heard ‘Spitfire’ from their first album, ‘Inform – Educate – Entertain’. We saw them play at Cardiff Globe, which was amazing!… Not only musically, but visually as their performance includes tightly edited archive film clips.

So… about a year after we saw them live, a happy coincidence unfolded. Last October I had just delivered the final artwork for Dinosaur Rocket. I was finishing work on a simple trailer featuring images from the book. The 1.5 minute clip ended with a slow zoom in, to a close up of a T rex footprint on the moon, “That’s one small step for a T rex… One giant leap for dinosaur kind!”

Still image from my trailer

Imagine my surprise when around that time, I saw the first teaser trailer for PSB’s new Album. (I didn’t realise there was any overlap at that point) It featured a slow zoom out… from an indecipherable black and white image with minimal music playing and an extract of a recording of President Kennedy’s ‘Go to the moon’, speech. It slowly zoomed out until it resolved and revealed itself to be an image of the famous boot print on the moon!

Still image from Public Service Broadcasting’s Trailer

I realised in a rather “Wow!” moment, that for the past year I had been working on very similar subject matter, with similar source material and inspiration as some favourite musicians! It turned out that PSB’s new album was titled, ‘The Race for Space’!

It has a stand out single “Go!” which features all the mission control voices, that check the myriad systems before lift off and landing; the sequence of actual voices recorded at the time saying ‘Go!’ just before the moment the Eagle lander touched down on the Moon. So much of Dinosaur Rocket follows similar moments of highly focused group endeavour.

Here’s their video:



Their video is absolutely in a different league to mine. The weaving of the music, voice samples and visuals is awesome!

My 10x more homemade effort features music from a youth wind ensemble my daughter played in – which actually fits quite well as it has a 1950’s/60’s B Movie feel – but the animation is pretty clunky and wobbly. (Disclaimer!) But how lovely to discover such synchronicity in subject matter!

There are mission control-like teams in many fields. Most definitely in music and publishing and space exploration! Here’s to teams, and to Synchronicity!

Detail from Dinosaur Rocket featuring mission control dinosaurs!

PS It would be interesting to hear if any other writers or illustrators, listen to music when working, and if there are other examples of musical influence or overlap or shared inspiration.

Thank you, Penny! You can take a look inside Dinosaur Rocket below, and buy the book online here – and you can find out more about Public Service Broadcasting here.

My Brother is a Superhero: "By FAR one of the best books I've ever read"

This July we’ll be publishing My Brother is a Superhero, the hilarious, laugh-out-loud debut by David Solomons.

And to celebrate this fantastic book, we gave proof copies to an entire class of Year 5 children and asked them to film their own reviews… and they didn’t disappoint!

Their reviews were funny, enthusiastic, and clever – and we were incredibly happy that they all liked My Brother is a Superhero as much as they did.

We’ll be sharing lots of their reviews over on our YouTube channel over the coming the coming weeks – their favourite funny bits, favourite characters, most exciting moments, and more.

For now, there’s a very short teaser of these reviews at the top of this post. And here are the first two chapters of My Brother is a Superhero – find out for yourself what’s so special about this brilliant book:



You can pre-order My Brother is a Superhero here – we can’t wait to share it with you!

Applications for the first Nosy Crow illustrator surgery are now closed

A couple of weeks ago we announced the very first Nosy Crow Illustrator Surgery: a free event for unpublished and unrepresented illustrators, where we’ll be offering advice and a portfolio critique during timed slots for everyone who attends.

We were absolutely overwhelmed by the number of applicants, and the quality of work that we saw, and we’ve now filled the available slots for the first date.

But if you’re an illustrator who missed out on the news of the event, or couldn’t make the first date, don’t despair! We hope to repeat the illustrator surgery later in the year, and will be announcing dates of further events soon.

If you’re interested in attending a future surgery, sign up to the Nosy Crow Books Newsletter here, and you’ll be the first to hear about all of our upcoming events.