Nosy Crow's Blog, page 160

Using Nosy Crow's Cinderella app in the classroom

Today’s blogpost is by Tara Coffin, Deputy Headteacher at Netley Primary School, on using our apps in the classroom.

My son has always been a lover of books and since he was young I have searched the app store for good quality apps that will develop his reading skills and provide us with books that are always with us to read wherever we go.

A couple of years ago I came across Nosy Crow apps which, for me, beat all other story apps on the market hands down. My son loved them and I started to introduce them to the teachers at the school I work at and they loved them too. I have seen the apps used in a Reception Class as a way to develop comprehension skills by the teacher pausing the story to ask questions. We have used them in Reception and Key Stage One as a way of children listening to a story with headphones during independent sessions during guided reading and the children have been very engaged and motivated by the apps.

We recently set up a Joint Practice Development Group in the school to look at ways to make guided reading more fun yet manageable. One of the areas we wanted to look at was the use of technology in promoting a love of reading and if technology could have benefits that paper books could not provide.

My project within the group was to trial using the Cinderella Nosy Crow app with a low ability Year 3 group. The children were very keen to use the app and were particularly impressed with the gaming elements. They looked forward to their guided reading sessions and asked if we could use other apps once we had finished the sessions with Cinderella. When I asked the children what they had learnt from using the app they told me that it helped them to practice using expression when reading as much of the text is dialogue. It also helped one of the children improve the speed of her reading as the speech bubbles disappear after a while. You can change the settings for this but even the longest setting was sometimes too quick to disappear for her so this could be a challenge for some children.

I found the experience of using an app in guided reading a mixed one. The children were definitely more motivated to read and they were keen to talk about the story but sometimes I had to remind them that it was a reading session and not just a session for playing games. For example, they would rush into the game parts and not understand what to do until I told them to slow down and read the text which explained what to do.

As a typical teacher who likes to be ‘in control’ I found it difficult to try and keep the children on similar parts of the story so that I could direct my questioning to the whole group and we could discuss the part of the story we were up to together.

I found it easy to create follow up comprehension activities by using screen shots from the app, e.g. taking a scene and putting in blank speech bubbles for the children to write what they thought the characters would say at that point in time.

The reasons for using an app in guided reading outweigh the reasons not to and I would particularly use Nosy Crow apps with children who are not keen readers in the future.

Thank you for sharing your experience with our Cinderella app, Tara! If you’ve not seen the Cinderella app before, you can find it on the App Store here, and watch a trailer below. Our latest fairytale app, Snow White, is out now – you can read more here and find it on the App Store here. If you’re a teacher interested in using our apps in the classroom, you may be eligible for a discount through Apple’s Volume Purchase Programme – you can find out more here, or email us for more information at apps [at] nosycrow [dot] com. And if you’d like to stay up to date with all of our app news, you can sign up to our app mailing list here.

Cowgirl by G R Gemin shortlisted for the UKLA Book Award

We’re really proud to say that Cowgirl, G R Gemin’s funny and touching debut novel, is shortlisted for the UKLA Book Award in the 7-11 age group. UKLA describes its award as “the teachers’ Carnegie”. and here are the shortlists in each category together with the UKLA press release.

Cowgirl is also currently shortlisted for the Waterstones Book Prize, is on the Brandford Boase longlist and had something of a landslide victory when it won the Bedfordshire Libraries Junior Fiction award.

Giancarlo (that’s what the G stands for) has just had this comment sent through by a teacher at a school in Somerset that he visited last week (he delivers a great school event, does Giancarlo):

“I’ve received great comments from the staff at both schools, but the best of all was yesterday when I was back in [one of the schools – I have the name, but Giancarlo is worried that the boy will get into trouble] with David Almond. A young lad bounced up to me clutching his copy of Cowgirl, and saying, ‘Monday was brilliant and the book is one of the best ever! I can’t stop reading it.’ Then he showed me that he only had 20 or so pages to read and whispered, ‘Don’t tell anyone but I have just been reading it in my maths lesson.’”

I love this book, set in South Wales in run-down estate on the edge of a town with the splendor of the Welsh countryside behind it, and peopled with memorable and complex characters. It’s a rollicking good story too, with peril and baddies and the “hiding” of a herd of cows in backyards.

You can read the beginning below:

Nosy Crow is shortlisted for two Bookseller Industry Awards

Hot on the heels of our IPG Digital Marketing and Blue Peter award wins last week, we’re really delighted to be shortlisted for two prestigious (seriously, we’d love one of these one day) Bookseller Industry Awards.

We’re shortlisted in the Children’s Publisher Category with heavy-hitters Egmont (just think about the Minecraft millions…), HarperCollins (think of the Walliams phenomenon), Hachette Children’s Books, Simon and Schuster, Usborne, DK and Chicken House (owned by Scholastic). We are much the smallest of these, at least if you look at parent companies, and it’s great to be on the shortlist again. As an independent publisher, I am particularly pleased to see Usborne on the list. As a children’s specialist publisher, I am pleased to see that four of the eight shortlisted companies just publish for children.

We are also shortlisted in the Independent Publisher Category with Biteback Publishing, Carcanet Press, Head of Zeus, Pavilion Books, Profile Books, Pushkin Press, Summersdale, Verso, and I am surprised and interested to see that we are the only children’s publisher on that list.

The shortlists for the other categories are here.

Congratulations to all the shortlisted companies, particularly the retailers and the libraries.

Our fifth fairytale app, Snow White by Nosy Crow, is out today

Today is an INCREDIBLY exciting day: our phenomenal fifth fairytale app, Snow White by Nosy Crow, is out today. You can download it on the App Store here.

We are incredibly proud of this app: it is, I think, a stunningly beautiful, imaginative, innovative piece of storytelling, with a truly timeless quality. It isn’t just an app, or a book, or an anything else: it is just the fairytale of Snow White, told in the best possible way for the story itself.

I think there is something uniquely interesting about this particular story. It is sort of like the platonic ideal of the genre: the most fairytale-ish fairytale of them all. We have really tried to do that iconic story justice – with amazing artwork, animation, interactivity, music, dialogue, and more. Here’s a look at the start of the story – meet Snow White, the Wicked Queen, the Huntsman and the seven dwarfs as you’ve never seen them before…

The app boasts some fantastic interactive features – you can tilt your device to rock the baby Snow White to sleep, see yourself in the Magic Mirror, help Snow White clean the dwarfs’ house, mine for jewels, and more – and all with an emphasis on reading for pleasure: Snow White puts the reader at the centre of the story.

We’d love to know what you make of it. If you do download the app, please do consider leaving a review on the App Store – it really makes a big difference! You can also sign up to our apps mailing list here, and we’ll keep you up to date with all our new apps and offers.

Enjoy Snow White!

In time for Mother's Day: The five best mothers in children’s books

Mother’s Day is coming up this Sunday, and it’s got me thinking about my favourite mums in children’s books. It turns out that, when you really think about it, mothers in children’s literature are often conspicuous only by their absence. Here at Nosy Crow, we love fairy tales, and we particularly like finding ways to bring them into the modern day world with our apps and picture books. But while there are stepmothers aplenty in fairytales (check out the particularly evil stepmother in Snow White, our new storybook app coming out on Thursday), there is barely a good mother character in sight. So I actually found it harder than expected to pull together my top five, and would be very interested to hear any suggestions of great mothers that I’ve missed!

1) Mrs Coulter (Lyra’s mother, Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman)

She might not be the ideal role model, and she certainly has her dark side (what happens in Bolvangar stays in Bolvangar…), but Mrs Coulter has to be one of the most interesting mothers in children’s literature. And she does go a little way towards redeeming herself with her protection of Lyra at the end… right?

2) Mutti (Georgia’s mother, The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series, by Louise Rennison)

My favourite thing about Georgia’s Mutti and Vati is how their parenting technique boils down to embarrassing their offspring at any possible opportunity, whether it involves buying a vintage Robin Reliant, or flirting outrageously with a George-Clooney-alike doctor.

3) Marlon’s mum (The Last Noo-Noo, by Jill Murphy)

When I was little, I was Marlon. Any attempt to rid me of my dummy was bound to end in tears. And so Marlon’s long-suffering mum is one of my favourite mums in picture books, as she attempts to play the buffer between noo-noo loving Marlon and his strict grandma. And now that I’ve grown up, I can definitely recognize my poor mum’s attempts to rid our house of the dummy in Marlon’s mum (there you go, Mum – comparing you to a picture-book monster, what better way to say Happy Mother’s Day).

4) Ma (Grace’s mother, Amazing Grace, written by Mary Hoffman and illustrated by Caroline Binch)

Is there any greater grandmother-mother team out there than Grace’s Nana and Ma? Not only will they sit and be Grace’s patients when she wants to play at doctors, and let her chase the cat around the garden dressed as Mowgli, but when Grace has a hard time, they know exactly what to say.

5) Anna (Ellie’s stepmother, Girls series, by Jacqueline Wilson)

I wanted to include at least one nice stepmother in this list, but if you thought good mothers were difficult to find, try nice stepmothers… Anna is the only one that immediately came to mind from my childhood reading, as the young stepmother of Ellie in the Girls series. You have to feel for Anna, inheriting a stroppy teenager, and then having a son who ends up being known as Eggs… But she’s a believable and imperfect character, who I came to love just as Ellie does in the book.

Who would you have on your list of the best mums in children’s books?

Thank you for helping us raise over £1200 for War Child

As you’ll have noticed if you’re a keen reader of this blog, last week we announced an auction of some of Axel Scheffler’s recent live drawing from the Imagine Children’s Festival, with all proceeds going to the charity War Child, a London-based charity that provides life-changing support to the most vulnerable children whose families, communities and schools have been torn apart by war.

Yesterday the auctions ended, and we’re incredibly proud to say that you’ve helped us to raise over £1200 for this incredibly worthwhile cause (£1,213.01, to be exact…).

So if you’re one of the winning bidders, or one of the people who bid early on for one of these unique pieces, thank you – and thank you, especially, to Axel, for donating this wonderful work.

If you missed out on the auction, it’s not too late to donate to War Child anyway to help support the vital work they do across the world. You can find out more about them here, and donate here.

Reading The Secret Hen House Theatre

Today’s blogpost is by Natalie Gordon, a mother, aspiring author, and attendee of the first Nosy Crow Masterclass.

I hadn’t heard of The Secret Hen House Theatre until I attended the recent Nosy Crow Masterclass on how to write children’s fiction. The author, Helen Peters, was one of the speakers and gave a fascinating insight into the evolution of her debut novel. She described how it was sparked by childhood memories and became a draft manuscript, handwritten in notebooks and left under the bed for a few years, before being rescued, redrafted and submitted to Nosy Crow.

It tells the story of Hannah, the eldest of four children, who nurtures a secret ambition to be an actress. It’s a world far removed from her life on a rundown farm, where her father struggles to make a living while also looking after his children, after the recent death of their mother. When the farm is threatened with demolition, Hannah hatches a plan to save it, hoping to win a cash prize by writing and acting in her own play. With the help of her best friend, Lottie, she secretly creates a theatre on the farm, out of an old hen house. But, the play alone can’t save them…

I was captivated by the first line: ‘BANG! BANG! BANG!’ It set the scene, not only for the story to come, but for the wonderful writing style. Helen Peters writes succinctly, with pace and with character and setting details which appear to be dropped effortlessly into the action. The first chapter was a lesson in how to frame the rest of the book. We meet the family, the best friend, the villain, and the farm and we feel that we know them from the very beginning. It’s all achieved through action, dialogue and minimal description.

I read the book in one (guilty) sitting, willing Hannah to succeed, and totally immersed in the plot and the characters. I read a lot of children’s books, for my own benefit as a new author, and with my two daughters. I passed this one on to my 10-year-old daughter, Millie, a voracious reader, whose tastes range from Lauren St. John to The Hunger Games. This is what she says:

I really liked it because the characteristics of Hannah were believable and realistic. She was mischievous and not perfect, but you stayed with her to the end. It had a great plot and I’ve always loved action, drama and detective books. I got really into it and took it to school with me every day, but I finished it on the school bus so I had to find another book to read when I got there. It wasn’t nearly as good. I love this book, and its sequel, and think it would be great for anyone who likes the same stuff as I do. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read – I would give it 11 out of 10!

Thank you so much, Natalie and Millie! If you’ve not yet discovered The Secret Hen House Theatre, you can take a look inside the book below, and order it online here. Helen’s second novel, The Farm Beneath the Water, is out now – you can read more here and order it online here.

Only a day left to bid for signed, original artwork by Axel Scheffler in aid of War Child

There’s just under a day left to bid for signed, original artwork by Axel Scheffler, in aid of War Child.

If you missed the news, last week we announced a special charity auction of some of Axel’s recent live drawings from the Imagine Children’s Festival – and the auction ends tomorrow! If you’ve always wanted to own your own Gruffalo, Stick Man, or Pip and Posy, now’s your chance – and you can help raise money for a very important cause at the same time.

Here’s what’s being auctioned:

Zog and the Witch from Room on the Broom:



Bid for this artwork.

Pip and Posy and Stick Man:



Bid for this artwork.

Pip and Posy and a dinosaur:



Bid for this artwork.

Pip and Posy and Tabby McTat:



Bid for this artwork.

Pip and Posy and the Gruffalo:



Bid for this artwork.

Pip and Posy:



Bid for this artwork.

War Child is a London-based charity that provides life-changing support to the most vulnerable children whose families, communities and schools have been torn apart by war. Working in Congo, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Iraq, Uganda, Syria and Gaza, War Child’s vital work includes creating safe spaces where children can escape from battlefields or dangers of life on the streets, getting children into school or informal educaton after conflict or poverty has cost them the chance of an education, helping young people and their families learn the vocational skills they can earn a sustainable income from, and helping children get their voices heard and their rights met, and helping local people to protect their children better.

You can find all of the lots on offer here – the auction ends tomorrow at midday. Please do bid generously!

Take an early look at our upcoming Snow White app with Nosy Crow Jigsaws

Our next fairytale story app, Snow White, will be out in just under a week, and today we’re giving users of our free jigsaws app, Nosy Crow Jigsaws, an early look, with some exclusive Snow White artwork included for free in the latest Jigsaws update.

If you download Nosy Crow Jigsaws now, you’ll have access to four brand new jigsaws featuring characters from Snow White, including the wicked queen, the huntsman, the dwarves, and Snow White herself.

Here’s a very quick look at our Jigsaw app:

The Snow White jigsaws won’t be free within the app for long, so don’t delay!

And if you’d like to be the first to know when Snow White is available to download on the App Store, you can sign up to our apps newsletter here, and we’ll notify you the second it’s been released – and we’ll also be holding a special competition to give away copies of the app, exclusively for our newsletter subscribers.

Have fun with Nosy Crow Jigsaws!

Nosy Crow won an award - or can we say two awards? - at last night's Independent Publshers Guild awards

Because there was a bit of an interruption to normal service (temperamental wifi) here at the Independent Publishers Guild conference venue in Oxfordshire, we weren’t able to keep you updated with the Independent Publishers Guild Awards last night.

But we are very proud and pleased to say that Nosy Crow won an award – the Digital Marketing Award (sponsored by Nielsen, to whom many thanks, which, in my surprise, I forgot to give on the night).

And Tom Bonnick, Nosy Crow’s Business Development Manager, won an award too: he is the Young Independent Publisher of the Year.

So if you were feeling generous, you could say that we’ve won two awards.

We were shortlisted for two further awards. We were shortlisted for Children’s Publisher of the Year (won by Walker, a publisher for which, as this blog post suggests, I have huge admiration and with whose American sister company Nosy Crow has a special relationship in that they publish many of our illustrated books under a Nosy Crow imprint in the US and Canada). And we were shortlisted for the Digital Publishing Award, won by legal publisher Edward Elgar, which gives a sense of how diverse the shortlisted companies and the membership of the Independent Publishers Guild is.

I said in my short and unprepared acceptance speech two things: that winning the digital publishing award was down to great staff and great stuff. Staff, because this was really Tom’s award. As those of you who know Nosy Crow’s blog will know, he is the tireless force behind so much of our digital communication. And stuff because this was also really an award for our authors and illustrators, because it’s only fun and worthwhile to market – digitally or otherwise, but particularly digitally – stuff that is worth talking about, and we are really proud to say that we have books, ebooks and apps (and, increasingly other stuff, too, like conferences and master classes) that are worth talking about. Digital marketing entirely depends on people feeling strongly enough about your stuff to tell other people about it, and they only feel strongly about your stuff if it’s good.

The judges gave a special mention to our innovative, content-as-marketing, free-to-download (what are you waiting for, Apple device owners?) Nosy Crow Jigsaws app, made by Will, Ed and AJ, so it is their award too.

For Tom to win the award is, of course, great for Tom, but it is very good for Nosy Crow too. It shows, I think, that Nosy Crow, though it’s only been publishing for four years, is already a business that isn’t all about the founders: we are developing a team of people who are bringing skills and experience that we didn’t start out with to build and strengthen the publishing company.

The awards were well spread: this year only Search Press, the craft publisher, and Nosy Crow won more than one award each. Listening to other acceptance speeches from so many other companies reminded me, if I needed reminding, of how extraordinarily well Nosy Crow has done – against stiff and varied competition – in the IPG awards over the four years in which we’ve been eligible: we’ve won an astonishing eight (or nine if you count Tom’s) awards (and near my elbow in the picture above, you can, if you look carefully, see a photo of me getting one of those awards a year or so ago and wearing exactly the same dress). It’s not easy to get an IPG award, and we work really hard for them!

In 2012, the first year in which we were eligible, we won the Newcomer of the Year, Innovation of the Year and Children’s Publisher of the Year awards.

In 2013, we won Children’s Publisher of the Year and the International Achievement awards.

In 2014, we won the International Achievement and Digital Marketing awards.

I am very proud that Nosy Crow has been recognised within the 560-strong community of talented, determined and savvy publishers that make up the Independent Publishers Guild, and I am quite ridiculously proud of Tom, who has been with Nosy Crow for nearly four years, having joined us before he’d taken his final exams at Glasgow University.

Congratulations to our fellow winners and shortlistees.

You can read about the awards in The Bookseller here

With our book, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners, winning the Blue Peter Best Story award and ten new books published yesterday too, we had a very happy World Book Day, and hope you did too.