Nosy Crow's Blog, page 159

The Farm Beneath the Water and Use Your Imagination shortlisted for Independent Bookshop Week Book Awards

This morning we were absolutely delighted to learn that both The Farm Beneath the Water by Helen Peters, and Use Your Imagination by Nicola O’Byrne, have been shortlisted for Independent Bookshop Week Book Awards.

Independent Bookshop Week, now in its ninth year, is part of the Books Are My Bag campaign and seeks to celebrate independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland, and the important part that ‘indies’ play in their communities, and the excellent, personal service they provide for customers. Hundreds of events and promotions will be taking place at independent bookshops around the country, and the winners of the awards will be announced on 20 June 2015 – the first day of Independent Bookshop Week.

The sequel to the highly-acclaimed The Secret Hen House Theatre, The Farm Beneath the Water has been shortlisted in the Children’s Fiction category – if you’ve not yet discovered this incredible book, you can read the opening chapters below:

Buy the book online from your local independent book shop.

Hannah’s farm is facing a new threat – a water company wants to flood the land to make a reservoir. How can she stand by and watch as the land her family has farmed for generations, and the wildlife, all disappear under a deluge of water? Hannah won’t go down without a fight, and the school play might just be the answer… When the going gets tough, the tough take to the stage!

The book has all the same hallmarks as its predecessor: great writing and an emotionally engaging, entertaining narrative. It’s PERFECT for 9-12 year olds who love a brilliantly-told story.

If you’d like to read about the inspiration behind this book, and The Secret Hen House Theatre, here’s a wonderful essay by Helen on growing up on a farm, and turning life into fiction.

The follow-up to the brilliant, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-winning Open Very Carefully, Use Your Imagination has been shortlisted in the Picture Book category – here’s a look inside:

Buy the book online from your local independent book shop.

This is another wonderfully clever, inventive picture book all about storytelling and the power of imagination – the story of an imaginative rabbit, who outwits a wolf and becomes the hero of his own adventure. And like Open Very Carefully, this is also a brilliant celebration of the physical book in all its glory, with a STUNNING fold-out final spread.

You can read the full list of shortlists, and more about the Independent Bookshop Week Book Awards, here.

Congratulations, Helen and Nicola – and good luck!

Meet the author: Paula Harrison at the Oxford Literary Festival

Today’s blogpost is by Paula Harrison, author of the upcoming Red Moon Rising, a quest-driven epic for 9+ year olds, as well as the best-selling Rescue Princesses series for younger readers.

I set off for the Oxford Literary Festival in bright spring sunshine last Saturday. I was feeling pretty cheerful because Nosy Crow’s lovely Mary Berry had posted copies of Red Moon Rising to me and they arrived that morning. It was my first sight of this new book! I may have stroked the cover a little.

It felt like an auspicious day to be going to the festival. It was the 21st March – exactly 4 years since Nosy Crow emailed with my first offer of a book contract (yes, I have it marked on my calendar. It was a Thursday and the offer landed in my inbox around 5:30 pm and made me burn my daughter’s fish fingers).

I’d been invited to take part in an informal “Meet the Author” event in the Festival Marquee, where each author had an allotted time to talk about their stories and sign books. The marquee was erected in the courtyard between the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre. It didn’t really strike me till afterwards, but it was quite prestigious surroundings in which to talk about my books. I’m glad I didn’t think about that till afterwards!

The old Bodleian library

As always, the best thing about the event were the children. A girl named Charlotte had stayed around the marquee especially to see me and she giggled when I donned my tiara to read from “(new-window)The Rescue Princesses. I was also charmed by the children’s brilliant mask-making. There were several small but vocal wild creatures in the marquee that day!

I suggested Daniel could cut out the eye holes with the help of his mum so that he could see!

I particularly loved introducing my book Red Moon Rising to the audience. Seeing it on sale in the marquee was a great moment too. Thank you so much to the staff at Blackwell’s for looking after everything and generally being lovely.

Thank you, Paula! Red Moon Rising will be out next week – you can take a look inside below, and pre-order the book online here. And if you’d like the chance to win a copy, you can find out all about our monthly books newsletter competition here.

Come and meet us: we're holding an illustrator surgery at the Bologna Book Fair

Are you an illustrator coming to the Bologna Book Fair? Would you like to meet us there? Then our illustrator surgeries are for you!

We’re holding illustrator surgeries on Tuesday, March 31 from 3.00-4.00pm and on Wednesday, April 1 from 12.00-1.00pm at the Nosy Crow stand (Hall 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. We have back-to-back rights-selling appointments for the rest of the fair – if you’d like to meet us, those are the times you’ll be able to do so.

If this is your first time at the Book Fair, you might find this blogpost from last year useful, where we share our top advice for illustrators.

We hope to see you there!

Announcing the line up for the next Nosy Crow Masterclass: How to Write Picture Books

Earlier this year we announced our second Nosy Crow Masterclass: How to Write Picture Books – an intensive, all-day writing masterclass, with sessions from authors, editors, agents, staff at Nosy Crow, and more – all focussed on writing picture books.

We knew, based on the level of interest we’d seen for our first Masterclass, How to Write Children’s Fiction, that there was an appetite for a similar event focussed on picture books, but we had no idea quite how popular it would be: the event sold out in under 6 hours.

The How to Write Picture Books masterclass is now exactly one month away – and today we’re incredibly pleased to be able to announce the line-up of speakers for the day!

The day will begin with an overview of the children’s book market from Nosy Crow’s Managing Director, Kate Wilson, setting a context for picture books in 2015.

Our Head of Picture Books, Louise Bolongaro, will deliver a crash course on the editorial essentials for writing picture books – a distilled masterclass all in itself.

Helen Mackenzie Smith, literary agent at Bell Lomax Moreton, will talk about her role as an agent – what she looks for in a submission, do’s and don’ts for authors, and more.

Shifty McGifty and Slipper Sam author Tracey Corderoy will talk about the importance of live events for authors, drawing on her own experience of delivering FANTASTIC events for children at schools, bookshops, festivals and more.

Over lunch, there’ll be the opportunity for all of our attendees to receive one-on-one manuscript feedback.

Weasels creator Elys Dolan will share her perspective on making picture books as both an author and illustrator.

Award-winning author Jeanne Willis will talk about the differences (and challenges) of writing picture books in prose and rhyme.

Nosy Crow’s Business Development Manager, Tom Bonnick, will lead a session on digital: apps, digital picture books, and more.

And finally, Kate Wilson will close the masterclass with a session on the importance of thinking internationally, and writing picture books for a global audience – followed by a glass of wine at the end of the day!

The masterclass is taking place here at the Crow’s Nest – 10a Lant St, London, SE1 1QR – on Saturday April 25th.

It’s now completely sold out, and there is a very long waiting list for places, but if you’d like to add your name to it, either with the form below, or with this link, we can email you about future masterclass events.

Event Registration Online for How to Write Picture Books: A Nosy Crow Masterclass powered by Eventbrite

Join in with our wordless/ pictureless picture books reading group!

The Nosy Crow Reading Group will be meeting next month to discuss two recently-published picture books – one wordless (Journey, by Aaron Becker) and one picture-less (The Book With No Pictures, by B.J. Novak) – and we’d love for you to join in!

We’ll be meeting on Wednesday, April 22 at 6.30pm, here at the Nosy Crow offices – 10a Lant Street, London, SE1 1QR. Although there’s currently a waiting list for places for the physical event, if you’d like to still take part, please do join in online, either on Twitter with the #NCGKids hashtag, or in the comments section of this post.

As usual, we’ve prepared a few questions in advance to get everyone thinking – here’s some of what we might be talking about:

1) Which of these two books do you think has the greatest “re-read” potential?

2) Did you feel an “absence” in either of these books, or do you think they felt complete? Do you think the “missing” element would have added anything to either book?

3) How child-friendly do you think each book is?

4) How successfully do you think each book developed its narrative with only words or pictures?

5) Why do you think each Novak and Becker chose to tell their stories in this way?

Here’s a trailer for Journey:

And here’s a video of B.J. Novak reading from The Book With No Pictures:

You can buy The Book With No Pictures online from Waterstones here, and Journey here.

If you’d like to add your name to the waiting list for a place (or add your name to our mailing list for future reading group events), you can do so with the form below, or with this link.

Event registration for Nosy Crow Reading Group: Picture Books powered by Eventbrite

Win copies of our April books!

It’s time for our monthly book giveaway! Next week our April 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:

We’re publishing two new books in Sebastien Braun’s fantastic Can You Say It Too? lift-the-flap novelty series – Can You Say It Too? Arf! Arf! and Can You Say It Too? Quack! Quack! Sturdy flaps and simple texts combine with friendly artwork to make these ideal first books that are great for sharing with children who are just starting to talk.

Pre-order the book online.

Pre-order the book online.

You could win Cinderella’s Sister and the Big Bad Wolf, written by Lorraine Carey and illustrated by Migy Blanco – a side-splitting spin on a favourite fairy tale, and the first book from an exciting new author-illustrator team. Here’s a look inside the book:

Pre-order the book online.

Follow that Car, written by Lucy Feather and illustrated by Stephan Lomp, is up for grabs – with scores of captivating cars to count and spot on every page, and a mapped-out route to trace your finger along, this zany book will keep little ones entertained for hours. Think Wacky Races meets Richard Scarry! Here’s a look inside the book:

Pre-order the book online.

The Palomino Pony Runs Free, the fourth volume in the brilliant Palomino Pony series by Olivia Tuffin, will be out next month – shot through with action and adventure, this is perfect reading for pony-mad 9+ year olds. Here’s a look inside the book:

Pre-order the book online.

And finally, we’ll be publishing Red Moon Rising by Paula Harrison. A world of dark powers and magic awaits in this dazzlingly-imagined, quest-driven epic for 9+ year olds, from the author of The Rescue Princesses. 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.

Box within a box – My First Bologna Book Fair

Having started at Nosy Crow in November last year, blissfully unscathed by the Frankfurt Book Fair that had finished just before I arrived, the past month has been my very first experience of preparing for a major fair.

Lots of the Bologna prep has been very exciting. Loads of proofs arrived yesterday ready for foreign rights selling at the fair, which is always a fun time to be in the office as everybody gets to see all of their hard work finally in book format. I particularly like seeing the novelty book proofs, and everyone has a go at the sliders and flaps (see above – in the picture is a proof for a title called Box, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw and written by Min Flyte, which we will be publishing in 2016).

I’ve also been putting together the Bologna rights schedule, an enormous spreadsheet of appointments with foreign publishers that Kate, Adrian and Ola will be taking. At the moment I’m confirming appointments times, which involves emailing everybody on the schedule again, and I like to imagine my emails shooting out of our office in south London and appearing in inboxes around the globe, from South Korea to Brazil.

Some parts of the prep have been slightly less exciting, of course, such as packing up the boxes to be shipped to Italy, but it must be said that there is a certain thrill to be found in lurking around the office, stealing proofs and stationery from unsuspecting Crows to go in the Bologna boxes…

The first shipment of boxes of books and furniture for our stand at the fair went off this morning and it was a huge relief seeing all of the boxes, duct-taped to within an inch of their lives, being loaded into the van. And I didn’t even have to run down the road after the van, waving a rogue Pip and Posy or Dinosaur Dig, which was an unexpected plus. The final shipment is going next Friday, so I’m back to my office-supply-thieving ways until then…

“Nosy Crow is to fairy-tale apps as J. K. Rowling is to wizards’ tales": our new Snow White app

Snow White by Nosy Crow, our newest fairytale app, has been out for exactly a week – and we’ve been absolutely thrilled by the response so far!

The app has had some fantastic support from the App Store (including a beautiful banner), and some AMAZING reviews.

Children’s Technology Review have recognised the app with their prestigious Editor’s Choice Award, and in their review, wrote: “The masters of digital storytelling at Nosy Crow have cleverly ushered another classic fairy tale into the tablet age … Nobody can make a story flow like Nosy Crow, which qualifies this app as a top choice as an early language enrichment experience that is well worth the download.”

The Guardian awarded the app five stars in their review, writing, “It tells a familiar story in a beguiling new way that never prioritises digital gimmickry over reading and storytelling.”

And USA Today gave the app the maximum four out of four stars, saying in their review: “Nosy Crow is to fairy-tale apps as J. K. Rowling is to wizards’ tales — both are masterful. It’s no surprise then that Snow White, Nosy Crow’s newly released fifth app, is brilliant.”

If you’ve not discovered the app for yourself yet, you can find it on the App Store here – and here’s a very quick preview:

And here’s a look at our seven dwarves – meet Basil, Boris, Bill, Bob, Bernard, Brian, and Barbara!

If you’ve bought our Snow White app, we’d be INCREDIBLY grateful if you’d consider leaving a review on the App Store – it makes a huge difference.

We hope you enjoy the app!

Nosy Crow at Fleet Library

Today’s blog post is from Sally Hamerton, a library assistant at Fleet Library.

Here at Fleet Library, we staff take turns putting together our Librarian’s Choice displays – coming up with fresh, original ideas is sometimes the hardest part! Our aim is to highlight books that our junior readers may not have previously discovered, and find a new favourite ultimately. The bonus for us is we see an increase in issues!

March 2015, and it’s my turn. Not keen on the idea of yet another display of ‘Books with a Blue Cover’ or books on a particular subject, I started thinking of other fresh ideas for a themed display in our Junior Library.

I’d been following Nosy Crow on social media for a while. I love the selection of books Nosy Crow offer our younger readers. The picture books are consistently attractive and the fiction for our Junior Readers is of a wide variety so appeals to a large number of children. The variety of authors also means there is something for every child. I also love the links to apps and e-books available, as we’ve noticed that increasingly, our junior readers have access to e-readers. Some of our customers are under the impression that, as a public library, we’re all about the books and would be anti e-readers, but hey, if the children are reading, it shouldn’t really matter what the format is. That said, I’m still a sucker for a tactile cover!

So, with all that in mind, I decided I would do a Nosy Crow themed display for the month of March, and wow! It is issuing really well! The display table is changing daily, as I continue to top it up with returned books, and also the amazing new titles our buying team have recently ordered. I can honestly say, I’m amazed at the popularity of the books on display. I suppose, this is partly due to the fact that families with pre-schoolers up to pre-teens are able to select something new and exciting.

Thank you, Sally! If you work at a school or library and have any stories to tell about Nosy Crow’s books, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch on Twitter, Facebook, or by email to tom [at] nosycrow [dot] com.

There are just a couple of weeks left to apply for a Senior Designer role at Nosy Crow

Earlier this month we announced that we’re hiring a senior designer – and there are just over two weeks left to apply, if you’re interested!

We are increasing the number of books we publish and branching out into new areas. We are keen to find a senior designer to join our design team. We need someone highly-organised, creative and technically skilled with experience of designing children’s full-colour picture books, and of working closely with illustrators.

This is a full-time role and the successful applicant will be based in the London office of Nosy Crow in Borough (near London Bridge, Borough and Southwark tube stations, and 15 minutes’ walk from Waterloo). We would consider an exceptional candidate who was not able to work full-time in the office, but we’re looking for an absolute minimum of 3 days per week in the Nosy Crow nest.

(If you’re a freelancer with substantial children’s illustrated book design experience who reading this, we’re always interested to have a sense of who’s out there, so by all means get in touch, but this is, as we say, a staff role.)

Candidates will have the right to live and work in the UK and will have a minimum of 3 years’ experience in graphic design, mostly if not exclusively in children’s publishing, and will have worked on picture books, and, ideally, on novelty books too. Proficiency in Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes, excellent proven book design and typographic skills, and an understanding and love of children’s books and children’s book illustration are essential. We’re also looking for good written and spoken communication skills, and the ability to work efficiently to a deadline.

The successful candidates will manage illustrated book projects (mainly picture books)) from initial layouts all the way through to production, supporting the illustrator or the author/illustrator throughout the creative process. The senior designer will report to the Head of Design and will work closely with more junior members of the team, supporting them as they refine their skills. The senior designer will also work with other members of the Nosy Crow team, particularly the editorial staff, to produce child-focused, parent-friendly, high-quality books.

We are still a small, close team here at The Crow’s Nest working in a friendly, highly creative and professional environment and we need team players who are willing to muck in, particularly during busy times.

If you would like to apply for a role, please send a CV and application letter, along with digital samples of your design work (using a link rather than sending a huge file), to Managing Director Kate Wilson via email (kate@nosycrow.com).

The closing date for applications is 2 April 2015 at midnight (UK time).