Nosy Crow's Blog, page 167

The Spy Who Loved School Dinners on Blue Peter

I spent Thursday afternoon doing something that I haven’t done for years – waiting for Blue Peter to come on. It didn’t disappoint (despite the lack of elephant poo) and it was glorious to see The Spy Who Loved School Dinners, written by Pamela Butchart and illustrated by Thomas Flintham, being deservedly shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award.

I particularly loved the animation of Thomas Flintham’s excellent artwork (at the top of this post), which felt like a whizzy testament to how brilliant his illustrations are, how important they are to the appeal of the book and how vital to its success. They complement Pamela’s hilarious prose perfectly, and I know from reading the book with my kids and in schools, how much they enhance the readers’ enjoyment without ever stopping them using their imaginations. No mean feat!

So we all just wanted to say a big thank you to Thomas, and congratulations to him and to Pamela on being shortlisted for not just the Blue Peter Book Award, but the Red House Children’s Book Award, too. May the champagne be flowing in both your houses all week, and beyond!

You can take a look inside The Spy Who Loved School Dinners here:



Buy the book online.

Our Jack and the Beanstalk app is shortlisted for the Digital Book Awards - our third shortlisting today!

A minute ago, I was on the phone to Philip Ardagh, who asked, not remotely seriously, if Nosy Crow had won any awards during our phone call. I said, again, not remotely seriously, that unfortunately we’d only been shortlisted for something while he’d been on the line.

As I say, I wasn’t serious. But, in fact, while I was on the phone we were shortlisted for something: we’re very proud to say that Jack and the Beanstalk has been shortlisted for the Digital Book Awards in the children’s app category. You can see the rest of the shortlist and the shortlists for the other categories here.

Jack and the Beanstalk has already won Futurebook’s Best Children’s Fictional Digital Book Award. And it’s had terrific reviews, too. Kirkus, in its starred review, said, “Nosy Crow’s design cleverly weaves games and adventure into this favorite folk tale […] The presentation features Nosy Crow’s trademark excellent narration by child actors, witty speech bubbles and terrific illustrations, but it doesn’t stop there. Right from the start, readers are asked to help Jack clean Daisy the cow and scale the heights of the beanstalk, tackling challenges in a game like mode […] Different endings emerge depending on the treasures Jack brings back—perhaps it’s just some bean soup, or maybe it’s a house overflowing with a bountiful feast. Readers will feel as clever and brave as Jack as they outwit and outrun the giant in this engaging, entertaining app.” The Guardian said it was our best app yet and that “it’s a real showcase for the potential of children’s apps”.

Our fingers are crossed.

This is our third shortlisting today. Earlier today, we announced that The Spy Who Loved School Dinners was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards, and then around lunchtime we announced that Nuts in Space was shortlisted for the Peters Book Awards. I think that three shortlistings in a single day is a first for us.

Nuts in Space shortlisted for the Peters Books of the Year Award

In our second bit of excellent shortlisting news of the day, we’ve found out that the brilliant Elys Dolan’s second big, witty, quirky picture book for Nosy Crow, Nuts in Space, has been shortlisted for the Peters Books of the Year awards in the picture book category, selected by librarians. You can see the shortlists here.

Librarians aren’t the only fans of Nuts in Space. in its Children’s Book of the Week slot The Times wrote, “Dolan’s illustrations are a dippy delight and the jokes in the many speech bubbles funny enough to stand the test of many readings. A classic in the cracking.”

Peters are asking children, teachers and librarians to get involved in voting for winners: “We need your votes! That’s why we are encouraging nurseries, schools and libraries to get involved by shadowing the awards over spring term 2015, with the help of teaching resources, posters, bookmarks and certificates available here.

“Participating children, teachers and librarians can vote for their favourites, either online, or by downloading voting forms from the resources link. Voting closes on the 20th March, with the winners announced on the 23rd March.”

Actually, it seems that ANYONE can vote online!

Take a look inside Nuts in Space:

So houpla and kazam, and many congratulations to Elys!

The Spy Who Loved School Dinners is on the Blue Peter Book Award shortlist!

Today is a very, very happy day in the Crow’s Nest, because Pamela’s Butchart’s brilliant, hilarious novel, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners, brilliantly illustrated by Thomas Flintham, has been shortlisted for a Blue Peter Book Award!

The book is shortlisted in the Best Story category, fighting off tough competition as one of only three finalists, alongside Chris Riddell’s Goth Girl and the Fete Worse than Death and Polly Ho-Yen’s The Boy in the Tower.

Two hundred children from across the UK will now read the shortlisted books and vote for the two winners, who will be announced live on Blue Peter on World Book Day, 5 March 2015.

The Spy Who Loved School Dinners is the second brilliantly bonkers book from the author of Baby Aliens Got My Teacher! – it’s loaded with laughs and crazy capers and PERFECT for 6-9 year olds who love funny books. If you need MORE convincing (and honestly I don’t see why you won’t just take my word for it), you can read some great reader reviews of the book here.

Kate says, “We’re just bursting with pride about this. We’re really happy to be bringing completely new voices to readers, and Pamela’s voice was one that had us all laughing from the first page of her writing that we read. We don’t publish ready-made big names; we don’t publish celebrities;and to have someone who was an unpublished writer just 12 months ago recognised in this way is such a validation of our approach, and such a deserved celebration of Pamela’s writing and of Thomas’s illustration.”

Here’s a look inside the book:



And if you’d like to read more, you can buy it online here.

Many, many congratulations to Pamela – and good luck!

"You'll laugh until you fall out of your tree house": read an extract from My Brother is a Superhero

Earlier this year, we wrote about an INCREDIBLY exciting acquisition for Nosy Crow. We won My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons at auction – a super-exciting, laugh-out-loud funny novel for 8+ year olds.

This book is AMAZING – brilliantly plotted, clever and quick-witted, warm-hearted, and very, very funny. It is SUCH an incredible debut, and we are so thrilled and proud to be publishing it.

Luke is a comic-mad eleven-year-old who shares a treehouse with his geeky older brother, Zach. Luke’s only mistake is to need a wee right at the wrong moment. While he’s gone, an alien gives his undeserving, never-read-a-comic-in-his-life brother superpowers, then tells him to save the universe. Luke is massively annoyed about this, but when Zach is kidnapped by his arch-nemesis, Luke and his friends only have five days to find him and save the world…

The book is already getting some rave reviews. Steve Coogan called it: “A brilliantly funny story about growing up, sibling rivalry and saving the world. You’ll laugh until you fall out of our tree house.” And one very lucky young reader has also had the chance to read the book, and he enjoyed it so much that he filmed his response: you can watch the first ever review for My Brother is a Superhero at the top of this post.

And you can also decide for yourself! Here, for the first time, is a very first look inside the book – you can read the opening two chapters of My Brother is a Superhero right here:

If you’re interested in the story of how we came to be publishing the book, you can read Kirsty’s nail-biting account here. My Brother is a Superhero will be published in July, and you can pre-order it today, here.

We’ll be talking about this book a LOT over the upcoming months – if you want to find out more (and be in with a chance of winning some fantastic My Brother is a Superhero prizes) you can sign up to our books newsletter here.

The Bookseller 100

This post is rather late, and also a bit blowing-your-own-horn embarrassing to write, but we were all very pleased last Friday to see Kate on The Bookseller 100, The Bookseller’s list of the most influential people in the trade. It felt like a significant moment for Nosy Crow, too – this is the first time Kate has been on this particular list since being fired from her big, important job in corporate adult publishing, and so it is quite gratifying to see that running Nosy Crow now merits a place.

Here’s what The Bookseller said about Kate:

“Nosy Crow’s imaginative enhanced books for children have been netting it awards and shortlistings all year, including three titles on the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway shortlists, a Smarta 100 Award listing for Most Innovative Business, and a win at the Growing Business Awards. Wilson herself was named the Most Inspiring Digital Publishing Person at the FutureBook Innovation Awards 2014, where Nosy Crow also won Best Children’s Fiction Digital Book, for Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Overall, it was also encouraging to see how big a part children’s publishers, digital innovators, and independent organisations played: as well as Kate, there were welcome acknowledgements on the list for people like Sam Aspinall, CEO of app developer Touch Press, Dan Kieran, founder of Unbound, Peter Usborne, founder of Usborne Publishing, and Bridget Shine, CEO of the Independent Publishers Guild (of which we are very proud to be a member).

It’s nice to read, every now and again, that even though (or perhaps because) we are small, we are still significant.

You can read the full Bookseller 100 list here, and read The Bookseller’s analysis of this year’s list here.

Turn any of your photos into jigsaws - where will your creativity take you?

Last week we wrote about an exciting new feature in the Nosy Crow Jigsaw app: you can now make jigsaws from ANY of your own photos. Any images saved in the Camera Roll of your iPad or iPhone can be turned into jigsaws and used like any of the existing artwork in the app – you can turn your pictures into puzzles from 4 to 300 pieces.

And on Twitter, Will, our Head of Apps: Engineering, has been posting some of the best photo jigsaws he’s created.

You can turn Paris into a jigsaw puzzle:

Or the New York skyline:

Or the dramatic Monument Valley landscape:

…And even Weymouth Beach:

Will’s made jigsaws from flowers at Kew Gardens:

Bookshelves at the Nosy Crow office:

The inside of a submarine:

…And (because why not?) his lunch:

The GREAT thing about this feature is that allows you to make jigsaws that range from the charmingly simple, as with this bucolic scene:

…To the fiendishly difficult, as with this head-ache inducing pattern:

This update is PERFECT for sharing your holiday snaps, family photos, your children’s artwork, and more. Here’s a quick video look at the new feature:

The make-your-own-jigsaws option is available as an in-app purchase for $4.99/ £2.99 – and once you’ve unlocked it, you can make unlimited jigsaws from your photos. To unlock the new feature, navigate to the Make a Purchase menu accessible from the icon that appears in the top right of the screen once you’ve selected any jigsaw.

And we’d love to see what jigsaws you make! Send us your best ones, either on Twitter to @NosyCrowApps, or by email to apps at nosycrow dot com, and there’ll be prizes for our favourites!

You can download Nosy Crow Jigsaws from the App Store here – we hope you enjoy the app!

Will got married!

Sometimes, we share the personal stuff.

On Saturday, in Little Wymondley in Hertfordshire, Will, our fantastically brilliant head of apps development: engineering (who codes our award-winning apps), married Beatrix. It was a lovely, friendly, simple ceremony, and it was great for me to have the opportunity to meet Will’s mum, dad and brother; Ed’s wife and family and AJ’s wife. Will and Beatrix were very happy.

This is our fourth Nosy Crow wedding. Joanne got married last year, and Zoe and Ruth got married this year.

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Celebrate Thanksgiving with our Cinderella app - just 99¢ for today only!

It may not be the most OBVIOUS Thanksgiving story, but it does feature pumpkins: we’re celebrating the holiday (and Black Friday) with a special one-day sale for our Cinderella app, which is available on the App Store for just 99¢/ 69p, for today only!

Winner of a FutureBook Innovation Award, a Publishing Innovation Award, a KAPi Award, iLounge Award, AND a Junior Design Award, Cinderella is one of our most highly-acclaimed story apps: a beautifully-illustrated, richly-animated, and imaginatively-told 21st century version of the classic fairytale, filled with interactivity.

Here’s a look at the app:

The app is available at this special Thanksgiving price for today only – so don’t delay!

And if you’d like to be kept up to date with all of our special app offers, news of our new and upcoming releases, and more, you can sign you up to our apps mailing list here.

Turn your favourite photos into jigsaws with Nosy Crow!

On Monday we blogged about an upcoming update for the Nosy Crow Jigsaws app, with a big new feature… and today it’s available on the App Store!

As well as featuring hundreds of ready-made jigsaws using beautiful artwork from our books and apps, the new version of the app also allows you to make jigsaws from ANY of your own photos. Any images saved in the Camera Roll of your iPad or iPhone can be turned into jigsaws and used like any of the existing artwork in the app – you can turn your pictures into puzzles from 4 to 300 pieces.

The new feature is available as an in-app purchase for $4.99/ £2.99 – and once you’ve unlocked it, you can make unlimited jigsaws from your photos. To unlock the new feature, navigate to the Make a Purchase menu accessible from the icon that appears in the top right of the screen once you’ve selected any jigsaw.

We’re incredibly excited about this new feature: now you can turn your holiday snaps, your children’s artwork, and your favourite family photos into jigsaws to share and play with – it’s lots of fun. And you can share the jigsaws you’ve made on Twitter, Facebook, and by email with our integrated Social Share options – we’d love to see what jigsaws you’ve created, so do send us yours to @NosyCrowApps on Twitter or on our Facebook page!

Here’s a quick look at the new feature:

You can download Nosy Crow Jigsaws from the App Store here – we hope you enjoy the app!