Nosy Crow's Blog, page 171
October 17, 2014
What are your Top Taps?
All this week, Will, our Head of Apps Development: Engineering (otherwise known as the coding wizard who builds our award-winning apps) has been sharing some of his #TopTaps on Twitter – some of the little interactive surprises that we’ve hidden in our story apps for you to find. Here are some of our favourites:
If you tap this radio in NosyCrowApps</a> Cinderella, you may hear the theme from another of our apps. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TopTaps?src=hash">#TopTaps</a> <a href="http://t.co/W6YEcazIKy">pic.twitter.com/W6YEcazIKy</a></p>— Will Bryan (CodingCrow) October 14, 2014
CodingCrow</a> Well I am very fond of the first appearance of the wolf in THE THREE LITTLE PIGS... <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TopTap?src=hash">#TopTap</a> <a href="http://t.co/l8iQ1cAVNg">pic.twitter.com/l8iQ1cAVNg</a></p>— Tom Bonnick (tombonnick) October 14, 2014
CodingCrow</a> But I think my FAVOURITE <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TopTap?src=hash">#TopTap</a> is the pleasingly gelatinous quality of the frogspawn in FRANKLIN FROG <a href="http://t.co/Izze2GQJvq">http://t.co/Izze2GQJvq</a></p>— Tom Bonnick (tombonnick) October 14, 2014
Tap the snail in Bizzy Bear on the Farm to see him climb the roof and then slide back down. #TopTaps pic.twitter.com/xmjGimtNBu
— Will Bryan (@CodingCrow) October 14, 2014
Had you noticed that you can use single & multitouch to push the snowflakes around in NosyCrowApps</a> Rounds:... <a href="https://t.co/gqSxcbMJPF">https://t.co/gqSxcbMJPF</a></p>— Will Bryan (CodingCrow) October 15, 2014
And you can blow the snowflakes around as well, though I clap my hand on the desk in this #TopTaps clip. https://t.co/CnqmIRROYj
— Will Bryan (@CodingCrow) October 15, 2014
#TopTaps In Bizzy Bear all the workers work in time to the music… And you can flush the loo. https://t.co/B8B41YCJMH
— Will Bryan (@CodingCrow) October 15, 2014
Did you kids find the cheeky little mouse in NosyCrow</a>'s Cinderella app? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TopTaps?src=hash">#TopTaps</a> <a href="https://t.co/BLvdFVLZa9">https://t.co/BLvdFVLZa9</a></p>— Will Bryan (CodingCrow) October 16, 2014
You can blow or tap in NosyCrow</a>'s Cinderella app to make the candles flicker. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TopTaps?src=hash">#TopTaps</a> <a href="https://t.co/zV8tOPiUhJ">https://t.co/zV8tOPiUhJ</a></p>— Will Bryan (CodingCrow) October 17, 2014
Don't waste time flicking the butterflies & flowers away in NosyCrow</a>'s Grunts app until the last moment. #... <a href="https://t.co/XKL3qjrgpX">https://t.co/XKL3qjrgpX</a></p>— Will Bryan (CodingCrow) October 17, 2014
We hope that adding all of these hidden interactive “easter eggs” to our apps gives them a richness that’ll mean you’ll want to re-visit them time and time again – they’re simply FILLED with fun surprises.
If you have any of your own favourite #TopTaps from our apps, do please share them with us, either on Twitter or in the comments below! And if you’d like to stay up to date with all of our app news (including a first look at our next fairy tale app, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), you can sign up to our apps mailing list here.
October 16, 2014
Mouse's First Night at Moonlight School is coming to iBooks
We recently launched a programme of fantastic, enhanced iBook editions of some of our picture books, complete with read-along audio, text highlighting, music and sound effects… and there are more on the way!
Just in time for Hallowe’en, we’re releasing an iBook edition of Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School, written by Simon Puttock and illustrated by Ali Pye. It’ll be on sale next Tuesday – but you can pre-order it today!
Here it is on the iBook Store:
And here’s a look inside the book:
You can find more of our picture books on the iBook Store here:
And we’re celebrating the release of the new iBook edition of Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School by giving away some copies! If you’d like to win one, all you have to do is sign up to our Books Newsletter here and send an email to tom at nosycrow dot com with Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School in the subject heading – we’ll pick three winners at random at the end of the week.
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
October 15, 2014
The Grunts at giraffe
To celebrate the recent release of The Grunts in a Jam, the third book in the fantastic Grunts series written by Philip Ardagh and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, we’ve teamed up with giraffe restaurants to create an exclusive booklet. Be sure to pick one up (while stocks last!) when you visit your local restaurant from 13th October. It’s jam-packed with activities, plus an extract and Grunt-y gags that are guaranteed to make you groan!
You can locate your nearest restaurant here, and enter a competition to win a copy of The Grunts in Trouble here.
Read the first chapter of The Grunts in a Jam:
October 14, 2014
Come and work for Nosy Crow: we're hiring a Publishing Assistant
We have an incredible opportunity for a hardworking, bright individual with the right to live and work in the UK to join our team at Nosy Crow as a Publishing Assistant on a full-time basis, working in our London office near London Bridge.
The Publishing Assistant will work across the company, but primarily with the Rights Manager and Business Development Manager on Nosy Crow’s award-winning digital and foreign rights programmes. While the job is predominantly an administrative role, Nosy Crow is a fast-growing company with opportunities for career development.
The ideal candidate is likely to be educated to degree level, and, in addition…
• Will be able to demonstrate a strong interest in children’s books, in other cultures and languages, and in digital publishing and marketing
• Will be highly organised (and willing to do a lot of admin stuff), with great time management skills, and excellent attention to detail
• Will have perfect written and spoken communication skills in English, combined with an excellent grasp of arithmetic
• Will be a self-starter with lots of initiative who is ready to ‘muck in’
• Will have strong digital skills, an interest in various digital and social media channels, and be comfortable using content management systems
• Will be able to produce great copy, and will have some experience at writing – a blog, perhaps, or a student newspaper
• Although not essentially, ideally might have some foreign language skills
Please send Tom Bonnick your CV, accompanied by an application letter, as soon as possible via email (tom at nosycrow dot com).
The closing date for applications is Sunday November 2nd at midnight (UK time).
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
October 13, 2014
Dinosaurs in space!
This January we’re publishing a VERY exciting new picture book – the fourth Dinosaur story by Penny Dale. And this time, the dinosaurs are going to space! Introducing… Dinosaur Rocket!
I don’t like picking favourites (and this is a series that I’ve written about before) but I think Dinosaur Rocket! is my favourite of Penny’s dinosaur books so far – I love it almost to an irrational degree. It is SUCH a brilliant combination of subjects (so much so that unveiling the cover on Twitter produced actual gasps), with an incredibly exciting story, and illustrated with absolutely fantastic, loving detail by Penny. It’s guaranteed to appeal to young fans of dinosaurs and space – this is one of my top go-to, I’m-sure-you’ll-love-it picture book recommendations for next year. It’s an instant classic.
And here, for the very first time, is a look inside the book:
You can pre-order Dinosaur Rocket! from Waterstones here – and if you’d like the chance to win a copy, sign up to our books newsletter here for exclusive competitions and giveaways.
October 10, 2014
Here's the very first look at our next fairytale app
The Nosy Crow apps team are hard at work making our next fairy tale app – and today we have some VERY exciting stuff to share. Firstly… the fairy tale in question! Our next app will be… (drum roll) Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!
And that’s not all. We’re also very pleased to be able to reveal our FIRST piece of artwork from the app – does this scene look familiar?
Click the image to enlarge.
Snow White will be out early next year – if you’d like to find out more, you can sign up to our Apps mailing list here – we’ll be sharing the first image of Snow White herself with our subscribers soon, and giving away some other fun app stuff next week.
And if you’d like download a high resolution version of our first Snow White image to use as a desktop background, you can do so here.
We can’t WAIT to share this app with you – it’s shaping up to be our best fairy tale yet.
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
October 9, 2014
We've been shortlisted for three FutureBook Innovation Awards!
The shortlists for the FutureBook Innovation Awards have just been announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and we’re feeling just a bit chuffed, as Nosy Crow has received three nominations – the most of any independent publisher!
We’ve received shortlistings in the Best children’s digital book category for both Jack and the Beanstalk and Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Safari… and Kate has been nominated as most inspiring digital publishing person (which is how I shall introduce her from now on).
The winner of the most inspiring digital publishing person award is decided by public vote – if you’d like to have your say, you can choose from the eight nominees here.
The FutureBook Awards are especially meaningful for us – they’re the most high profile awards in the UK to celebrate book apps like ours, and they’ve also recognised our apps before – we’ve won twice, for our Cinderella and Rounds: Parker Penguin apps.
You can read the full shortlists in every category here – the winners of the awards will be announced at the FutureBook Conference in November. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Here’s the trailer for our Jack and the Beanstalk app:
And here’s a look at Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Safari:
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
Reading the Rescue Princesses - a guest blog by Zoe Toft
Today’s guest blog is by Zoe Toft, a mum of two young girls who’s kindly agreed to share this great story with us, on reading the Rescue Princesses books.
“Yes, you can choose whatever you want.”
“Really?
“Yes, really!”
I love books.
And my two girls love books.
But we definitely don’t all love the same type of books.
And as my 6 year old has gradually moved this last year from decoder to a fluent reader, I’m trying to find ways to help her (and me) discover which book flavours are her favourites, which ones get her salivating and eager for more.
I wasn’t a huge reader as a child, though I do remember saving my pocket money to buy the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. My eldest daughter cut her teeth on Steve Cole’s Astrosaurs series. But my youngest is different again. One way I’m trying to help us all find out what she really loves is letting her loose in the library and bookshop.
As an end of holiday treat we visited our local Waterstones and we had the conversation above.
Then…
“Oooh.”
“Aaaah.”
“Hmmmm.”
And then the giveaway that she’d found something she really wanted to read.
[SILENCE]
“Ok, it’s time to go and pay”, I say.
[SILENCE]
[I browse a bit more]
“Come on now, we’ve got to get home.”
[SILENCE]
[Exasperated sigh from me]
“Please, come on. What have you chosen? Shall we go and pay for it?”
[SILENCE]
My 6 year old had disappeared somewhere I couldn’t immediately reach her. Whatever book she’d picked up, it had swallowed her whole and she was off somewhere exploring a world without me, but with something she clearly wanted to know much more about.
Eventually we did make it up to the cash register, which is when I saw she had chosen a book I would never have picked up; it had shiny foil lettering and princesses with floaty dresses and doe eyes.
But this wasn’t about what I’d choose for my daughter; it was about what she’d choose for herself. And she chose The Rescue Princesses: Animals in Danger by Paula Harrison, a volume containing three stories from what I later discovered is a whole series published by Nosy Crow.
Over the next 24 hours my six year old read the entire book. Twice. She had to be cajoled to eat any lunch (she’d rather keep reading). She stayed up late reading. She stayed in bed the following morning to read some more.
Here was a book my child wanted to hug, to sleep with, to wake with, to never end.
After finishing the book for the second time she came downstairs slightly spaced out to tell me, “There seems to be magic woven into the words, I just LOVE this book Mum!”
So I asked her a little more about the book, trying to work out just what it was that captured her mind and heart so dearly and why she had chosen it in the first place.
As you’ll hear, there was a visual similarity with another series she’s enjoyed – the Rainbow Magic books.
And what did she like about these stories, and how did they make her feel?
When I asked about why she likes books which are in a series I think she was trying to articulate the importance of familiarity, and having the space/time to develop an understanding of who the characters are and the world they live in
And so would my daughter recommend the Rescue Princesses?
And perhaps the final words should be what my daughter said about how she felt when she finished the book…
If a book can make my daughter feel like that about reading, then even if it doesn’t look like my type of book, it’s definitely a book I’m very glad we’ve both discovered.
Thank you so much for sharing your daughter’s experience, Zoe! If you’re curious about the Rescue Princesses books, you can read the first chapter of the first book in the series, The Secret Promise, below, or order it book online here.
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
October 8, 2014
Join in with our books-in-verse reading group next week!
This month’s Nosy Crow Reading Group is taking place next week and we’d love for you to join in!
We’ll be discussing three books written in verse: the 2013 Carnegie-shortlisted title The Weight of Water, by Sarah Crossan, the 1998 Newbery Medal-winner Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, and the 2001 Carnegie-shortlisted Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech.
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. How important is plot to each of these books?
2. Who do you think each book is “for”?
3. What effect does the verse form have on each book? How does it change your reading of them?
4. How well do you think the first-person narrative method works in each book? What impact (if any) does the age and gender of the protagonists have on each narrative?
We’ll be meeting on Thursday, October 16 at 6.30pm, here at the Nosy Crow offices – 10a Lant Street, London, SE1 1QR. There are still some places if you’d like to join us – if so, send an email to tom at nosycrow dot com. And if you can’t make it here, but would still like to take part, please do join in online, either on Twitter with the #NCGKids hashtag, or in the comments section of this post.
We hope you can join us!
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
October 7, 2014
Growth Capital: Nosy Crow in the Evening Standard
London commuters who picked up a copy of the Evening Standard yesterday might have spotted a familiar name in the business pages – Nosy Crow!
We were profiled for the regular Growth Capital feature, talking about disruption in print and digital, new approaches to business and innovation in the industry, the importance of high street bookshops for children’s publishing, the history of Nosy Crow, and more.
Here’s what Kate has to say about the so-called decline in reading among young people:
“For a peddler of fairytales, Wilson is a keen myth-buster. The idea that children are reading less and are no longer interested in books in favour of telly and tablets is a fallacy, she explains: ‘There is a prevailing idea that children find reading dull but not a lot of evidence. Children are mixing reading with lots of different entertainment. I have no interest in being part of a dodo industry.’”
And on the importance of the health of the bricks-and-mortar bookshop:
“So what might clip Nosy Crow’s wings? ‘The biggest challenge is what’s going to happen to the high street,’ says Wilson. ‘If parents want children to have books they’re interested in, there needs to be shops for them to browse. Children don’t search online, they run in and say they want the book with the digger or a dinosaur on.’”
You can read the full piece here (complete with suitably dramatic photograph of Kate).
And you might also be interested in this blogpost, by Kate, on “life after CEO”, and reflections on being fired (written after her appearance on The Bottom Line with Evan Davis).
We need your vote! Help Nosy Crow win the Smarta 100 Most Innovative Business Award by voting here.
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