Nosy Crow's Blog, page 16

Peekaboo wins GOLD!

We are over the moon to have won the GOLD UK Mums TV Award in the Best Early Years Books category for our wonderful Peekaboo series! Many congratulations to the bestselling duo, author Camilla Reid and illustrator Ingela P Arrhenius.

Connecting with faces and playing peekaboo is one of the first games that babies play. It’s why the very youngest of children love these beautiful new books – and want to read them again and again.

With 10 easy-to-use peekaboo sliders to push, pull and turn, funny rhyming texts, and surprise mirror endings, these stylish and interactive board books for babies and toddlers are packed full of fun!

“Our 18 month old son loved these books – he is able to join in revealing most of the characters. Good practice for his motor skills and also great fun while developing his language skills too. Excellent quality which will stand some ‘rough’ handling from little ones.” – Judge’s Comments

You can read more about the awards here.

 

Discover the series

 

Build Your Collection Here

 

Some lovely reviews for Peekaboo

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Great book and very well made. Quality matt print. A book that will withstand some manhandling as babies and toddlers do not know their own strength! Very pleased with the purchase and buys a nice 5 mins of peace and a great tool to use to interact with the babe.”

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Lovely sturdy, colourful little book. My eighteen month old great granddaughter loves this series and the board construction means she can handle them without them falling apart.”

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“My 11 mo daughter loves this. She would have loved it the whole way through, but she loves to pull the levers down, especially the ice cream and the sun pages. She also always gives herself a kiss on the last page. Great colours, super cute graphics. Would be a great 1 yo or baby shower gift.”

 

Congratulations once again to Camilla and to Ingela!

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Read an exclusive extract from A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy – a hilarious new story from David Solomons

We’re absolutely over the moon to be publishing A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy next week – a brilliantly funny story of what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author David Solomons.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been sharing a brand new chapter from the book as part of our countdown to its publication – and today we’re sharing the full exclusive extract.

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them. Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly. Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

Read the full extract below:

A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy is out next week – 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.

The post Read an exclusive extract from A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy – a hilarious new story from David Solomons appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Read the third chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy

We’re absolutely over the moon to be publishing A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy next month – a brilliantly funny story of what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author David Solomons.

We’re counting down to its arrival by sharing a chapter of the book every week until publication on July 7th – if you missed the first and second chapters, you can read them here and here. And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the third chapter!

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them. Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly. Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

Read the third chapter below:

 

A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy will be published on July 7th – you can pre-order a copy from Waterstones here, Amazon here, or from Hive 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.

The post Read the third chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Fixing the Future – a guest post by Alastair Chisholm

This month we’re absolutely delighted to have published The Consequence Girl,  a thrilling, unputdownable adventure, from Alastair Chisholm, the highly-acclaimed author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted Orion Lost and the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year, Adam-2. And today we’re very excited to be sharing a guest post from Alastair!

—

The Consequence Girl is my third science fiction novel. It’s about Cora, a girl hiding in a world ruined by a mysterious ancient disaster. Chased from her hiding place, she meets others for the first time, and learns about an amazing power she has – one which could change literally everything…

It’s an adventure story, a chase story, and a mystery. But actually, it’s about how we deal with disaster and grief, how we overcome feelings of powerlessness, and how we live in the face of fear for the future.

Actually, it’s about a girl on a mountainside.

I love writing science fiction. I grew up immersed in sci-fi (I still remember queuing for The Empire Strikes Back, standing on tiptoes because I technically wasn’t old enough to get in!). Oh, sure, I liked magic, too – but sci-fi was cool. Sci-fi comes from our world – from things that might actually happen, machines we might actually invent. I love that the people in these stories really could be us.

And so for me, when an idea first starts, it’s with a person. My first novel, Orion Lost, was someone waking up alone on a starship, a billion miles from home. My second, Adam-2, was a boy in a basement. And this one was a girl – Cora – standing on a snowy, pine-covered mountainside.

Who was she? Why was she on the mountainside? Where was everyone else? Was she hiding? Who was trying to find her? I had no idea, but she stood there, and I had to work it out.

Cora, I realised, has a power. She can look at something that happens – a coin toss coming up heads, say – and see all the tiny events that led to it. The flick of her thumb on the coin, the air currents as it flew, the way it hit the ground and bounced. And then she can ask: what if things were just slightly different? If my thumb twitched slightly as I flicked? If the coin bounced just a little differently? What would happen?

Cora can see every outcome – and once she has one in her head, she can fix it in place. She can rewrite history.

She can change the world.

And boy, sometimes it feels like the world needs changing, right? Scary events in the news can make us feel like we don’t have any control. It’s clear that the grown-ups don’t always know what they’re doing. Weird politicians make weird decisions and tell us that this is what we agreed to, while actual climate disasters are ignored. Old prejudices and intolerances have raised their horrible heads – in fact, we’re inventing new intolerances, like we don’t have enough…

I thought, what would I change, if I could? And then I thought – how would I ever stop?

Cora’s world was ruined by some disaster – an apocalypse that broke everything. It’s taken a hundred years for society to get going again. But it’s not a dystopia. There’s food, and power, and schools, and shops. There are police, and a free press, and an elected government, and freedom of movement. It’s not dystopia – in fact, in some ways it’s a lot like our world.

But the government are trying to control the press. And the police are getting a bit heavy-handed. And there are artificial shortages, and policies designed to create fear amongst the population. It’s not dystopia, but it could be.

So … it’s a lot like our world.

And I wanted to show this world, and how different people react to it. Some hide away, living alone with their grief. Some revel in nostalgia, trying to return to “The good old days”. Some want to burn it down and start again. Some want to control it, lock it down tight as if people were numbers on a spreadsheet. Cora has the power to do any one of those – but which one?

Of course, I love sci-fi adventures. So first she must escape explosions, flying cars, evil security bosses and all sorts of danger! And she has no idea who she can trust, and things are going to get very dark indeed…

I hope you enjoy The Consequence Girl. I loved writing about Cora (and her guardian, the amazingly kick-ass Lilith!). As I was writing, I came across this quote from Thomas Paine, the politician and philosopher, who understood something amazing. Many years ago, he said:

“We have it in our power to rebuild the world over again”

I think about this a lot. We have that power.

How are we going to use it?

—

Thank you, Alastair! You can order a copy of The Consequence Girl from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

Read the first few chapters below:

 

 

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Read an exclusive extract from The Mermaid Call – a gripping story of myth and mystery about a legendary mermaid and her dark power from Alex Cotter

We’re delighted to be publishing The Mermaid Call next month, a gripping story of myth and mystery about a legendary mermaid and her dark power from Alex Cotter, who previously brought us The House on the Edge.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing a preview of the book – you can read the first few chapters below!

Vivien’s never going to win the Mermaid Crown and she knows it. Does she care? Who wants to be rewarded just for being pretty anyway? So she joins Alice on her quest to find the mermaid of the lake instead. But as the legend starts to unravel, it reveals an ugly truth. And leads the girls into terrible, watery danger…

Read an extract:

The Mermaid Call will be published on July 7th – you can pre-order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter here to stay up-to-date with all of our latest books and news, including early previews, discounts and giveaways.

The post Read an exclusive extract from The Mermaid Call – a gripping story of myth and mystery about a legendary mermaid and her dark power from Alex Cotter appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Winner of De Leesjury prize: The Pirates Are Coming!

And the number 1 book for 4–6-year-olds (according to De Leesjury – a.k.a Belgium’s The Reading Jury) is … John Condon and Matt Hunt’s The Pirates are Coming!

No fewer than 11,690 judges from Belgium’s De Leesjury cast their vote for their favourite book, and two of the eight books to choose from were Nosy Crow books: The Pirates Are Coming! and The Suitcase. Both books touch upon important messages, with The Suitcase exploring empathy, kindness, and the refugee crisis, and The Pirates Are Coming! promoting community, equality, and perseverance.

Despite not always being a topic that sells well internationally, The Pirates Are Coming!’s fun and modern take on the classic pirate tale has travelled across the seven seas into 11 territories – from China to Iceland. Matt Hunt’s hugely internationally appealing arr-twork and John Condon’s compelling words make this hilarious retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf a must-have for all children – landlubbers, scallywags, and seadogs alike. The Pirates Are Coming! will have you exclaiming “Shiver me timbers” in no time – with not one, but TWO exciting twists!

Quotes from the Dutch Publisher:

 

Condon and Hunt have a clear understanding of the way one should build up tension for younger readers.

valeriesboekenwereld.be

 

[..] a beautiful, colourful and playful adventure, which children can enjoy lavishly.

Nederlands Dagblad

 

The end of the story is fantastic. Great to see that the expected gender roles do not apply here.

Juf Elsie op www.hebban.nl

 

Take a look inside:

Tom has a VERY important job; every day he climbs to the top of the hill and watches for pirate ships. But when he rings his bell and shouts !”PIRATES!” a few too many times – and there’s NO pirate ship – the villagers begin to get tired of hiding. So what will happen when the pirates really do show up?

 

Key Pirate Words:

Ahoy: an interjection used to attract someone, or a ship’s, attention

Arr: an exclamation, usually used to express grumbling, disgust or to emphasise a point

Hearties: friends, comrades

Landlubber: a person with no sailing ability

Scallywag: a newbie pirate

Seadog: a veteran sailor

Shiver Me Timbers: an exclamation of surprise

The Seven Seas: all the seas of the known world

Yo Ho Ho: an exclamation to express jolliness

The post Winner of De Leesjury prize: The Pirates Are Coming! appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Read the second chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy

We’re absolutely over the moon to be publishing A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy next month – a brilliantly funny story of what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author David Solomons.

We’re counting down to its arrival by sharing a chapter of the book every week until publication on July 7th – if you missed the first chapter last week, you can read it here. And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the second chapter!

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them. Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly. Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

Read the second chapter below:

 

A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy will be published on July 7th – you can pre-order a copy from Waterstones here, Amazon here, or from Hive 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.

 

The post Read the second chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy appeared first on Nosy Crow.

Happy Independent Bookshop Week!

It’s Independent Bookshop Week! We’ve always been enthusiastic supporters of this important initiative here at Nosy Crow, and this year is no different. Running from the 18th – 25th June in 2022, Independent Bookshop Week was launched in 2006 and is part of Books Are My Bag, the consumer-facing campaign run by the Booksellers Association. The campaign celebrates independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland, and the role ‘indies’ play in their communities.

This year, we’re very happy to be twinned with Limestone Books for the duration of the week – an independent bookshop in Settle, North Yorkshire. Limestone Books opened at the end of September 2019. Owner and bookseller Tanya was inspired to open the shop by seeing fantastic independent bookshops in other towns, and through a desire to share her life-long love of reading. Tanya believes that a good bookshop is so much more than that – it’s a part of the community, and we wholeheartedly agree! They’re currently offering 10% off Nosy Crow titles for the duration of Independent Bookshop Week – an offer not to be missed! Keep an eye on their twitter for more Indie Bookshop Week content, and we’ll also be sharing posts to the Nosy Crow twitter, so do make sure you’re following that.

Also on the Nosy Crow twitter, we’re running a fantastic competition to win a 3 month Bookily card from National Book Tokens, loaded with £7.99 each month for you to spend in a bookshop of your choosing. We’re loving all of the interactions in the comments so far, where lots of amazing independent bookshops are already tagged! You can add your voice and enter the competition here. The giveaway ends on the 25th June, so don’t leave it too late!

 

On Friday 24th June, the penultimate day of Independent Bookshop Week, the Indie Book Awards 2022 winners will be announced. We were thrilled to have two Nosy Crow titles on the shortlist: Escape Room by Christopher Edge in the Children’s Fiction category, and Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush by Patrice Lawrence and Camilla Sucre in the Picture Book category. The full shortlists can be viewed here and all titles come highly recommended by independent booksellers from across the country. Best of luck to all the finalists!

Read an extract from Escape Room:

Read an extract from Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush:

 

And just in case you missed it, Nosy Crow staff recommended some of their favourite independent bookshops on our blog last year, and it seems apt to reshare their selections this week – you just might find a new, brilliant bookshop! Read the blog here.

How will you be getting involved in Independent Bookshop Week, and which bookshops will you be visiting? If you’re not sure of your plans, there are some great ideas here, and a tool to find your local indie here. And don’t forget to keep up with all the happenings through social media, with the hashtag #IndieBookshopWeek.

Happy Independent Bookshop Week!

 

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Read the first chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy – a hilarious new story from David Solomons

We’re absolutely over the moon to be publishing A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy next month – a brilliantly funny story of what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author David Solomons.

We’re counting down to its arrival by sharing a chapter of the book every week until publication on July 7th. And today we’re very pleased to be sharing the first chapter!

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them. Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly. Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

Read the first chapter below:

A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy will be published on July 7th – you can pre-order a copy from Waterstones here, Amazon here, or from Hive 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.

The post Read the first chapter of A Beginner’s Guide to Ruling the Galaxy – a hilarious new story from David Solomons appeared first on Nosy Crow.

A Guest Post from Looking for Emily author, Fiona Longmuir

This month we’re absolutely delighted to have published Looking for Emily – a hugely gripping, fast-paced mystery adventure, with brilliant twists and turns, from a fresh and exciting new voice in children’s books, Fiona Longmuir. And today we’re very excited to be sharing a guest post from Fiona!

—

Just like the book itself, the story of Looking for Emily starts with the discovery of a strange little museum. When my partner and I go on holiday, we like to look for the most obscure local museum we can find. In Bratislava, we visited the clock museum. It was a weird little dream of a building, all strange angles and spindly staircases, scattered ticking bouncing off elaborately wallpapered walls. I snapped a photo of it, narrow and yellow as a pat of butter, and I thought that looks like something straight out of a storybook.

I started to turn over the idea of a story set around a museum in my mind. I could picture a glossy green door, a stamped brass sign, a spiral staircase. The entire seaside town of Edge grew out of that door. At first, I was playing with the idea of a museum of lost things and that became the museum of a lost person – an ordinary little girl called Emily. When I started writing, I didn’t have much more than that. I walked in the footsteps of my main character, twelve-year-old Lily, discovering alongside her who Emily was, why she disappeared and who created the secret museum filled with her things.

Everything in the Museum of Emily is ordinary – well, almost everything! It’s all books and buttons and scribbled notes and family photographs. And that’s because I think these are the things that make us who we are. The things we surround ourselves with every day. Your favourite recipe, or poem, or t-shirt. That’s what makes up a life. Those are the real treasures.

I’ve always had a soft spot for stubborn oddball little kids, probably because I was one – and still am at heart! Lily wandered into my brain pretty much fully formed: adventurous, hot-tempered, so afraid of being disappointed that she refuses to get her hopes up, ever. I created Sam and Jay to be the kind of people and the kind of friends that Lily needed most. The three of them are so different but they really bring out the best in each other. The adventure in Looking for Emily gets pretty scary sometimes, so Lily definitely needed the support of her friends to make it through. Looking for Emily is a story about finding where you belong, and that can be a person as much as a place.

I didn’t realise how much food was in the book until other people started reading it. Almost everyone commented on it! There are chips galore, because you can’t have a seaside trip without chips. My grandad lives in a little seaside town in Scotland, so I spent most of my childhood eating chips while getting rained on and I loved every minute of it. There’s an apple pie, which Emily and her sister make from their mother’s recipe, and which is based on an apple pie I learned to bake from my great granny. There’s lasagne at Sam’s house and tea in Ms Hanan’s classroom and hot chocolate in Lily’s kitchen and hot dogs by the bonfire. I think food is one of the greatest expressions of love we have. Nothing makes me feel safer or more cared for than a really delicious meal, and I love to cook for people I love too. So many of the things I cook, I learned from my family. And when I use their recipes, it’s like I can feel their hands squeezing mine. That’s what I wanted the food in Looking for Emily to feel like.

I write exactly the kind of stories I like to read most. I’ve never been able to resist a mystery or a grand adventure, but I love books that pause for little cosy moments too. Some of my favourite books strike that balance beautifully. Books like Time Stops for No Mouse and the Pages & Co series have so many lovely, warm, gentle moments that it makes the stakes of the adventure feel even higher. You know what everyone has to lose! In Looking for Emily, you get little glimpses of the beautiful life Emily lost – the life that’s just at Lily’s fingertips if she can gather the courage to grab it.

—

Thank you, Fiona! You can order a copy of Looking for Emily from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

Read the first few chapters below:

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