Nosy Crow's Blog, page 186

Our favourite female heroes in children's literature

There’s been a lot of discussion in the news and on Twitter recently about gendered packaging for books and toys – describing books as being “for boys” or “for girls”, along with all the concomitant linguistic and aesthetic choices that come with those labels. We’ve written about gender and packing several times before (here, here and here, for instance) and so I’m not going to wade back into the debate today.

Today’s post is a more light-hearted one: the gender debate taking place in the news lead to a discussion here in the Nosy Crow offices of our favourite strong female protagonists in children’s literature who we felt would appeal unequivocally and equally to male or female readers. It quickly became a rather encouragingly long list, and we found that we were having to be stricter and stricter with ourselves in order to prevent this blogpost spiralling out of control (my protestation that I loved Little Women as a young boy fell on deaf ears). Of course, this list comes with a large caveat of subjectivity – and we’d love to hear your suggestions for heroines in children’s literature who’ve appealed as much to boy readers as girls. Here, though, are some of the books (and female heroes) who we thought have truly universal appeal:

Lyra Belacqua, His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)

Nevermind the shapeshifting daemons, the giant talking bears, or the knife that cuts holes in the very fabric of space and time: for me, Philip Pullman’s greatest creation is the hero of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lyra. Brave, kind, cunning and clever, she is that rare example of a brilliant child hero who doesn’t possess an ounce of the insufferable precocity or goody two-shoes-ness which so bedevils the archetype.

Matilda Wormwood, Matilda (Roald Dahl)

A champion of literature and a tireless defender of the underdog, it’s probably no surprise that Matilda is on this list. I think she is probably Roald Dahl’s most likeable (undoubtedly the least grotesque…) hero – certain to appeal to every young reader.

Sophie Maxim, Rooftoppers (Katherine Rundell)

Katherine Rundell’s young hero Sophie is a very unusual girl: orphaned in a shipwreck, she is found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel and rescued by an eccentric academic, Charles Maxim. The two form a wonderful (and unconventional) relationship, which eventually takes them to France to evade social services and search for Sophie’s thought-to-be-deceased mother. Beautifully and intelligently written, it’s also got plenty of adventure, derring-do, and a gutsy, brilliant hero with wits and bravery aplenty. We’ll be discussing Rooftoppers at this month’s Nosy Crow Reading Group – you can find out more (and come along, if you’d like) here.

Mary Lennox, The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

I was intrigued by this suggestion, as I remember Mary Lennox being quite unlikeable (she is described as being a “disagreeable-looking” 10-year-old). She does, of course, redeem herself, and her resourcefulness, curiosity and bad manners are universally appealing qualities to readers.

Coraline, Coraline (Neil Gaiman)

The natural descendant of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, Coraline is very easy to root for: thrown into an uncanny, unsettling alternate reality, she manages to outsmart and prevail against the terrifying Other Mother. Gaiman’s clever, horror-influenced narrative is perfect for sophisticated child readers.

Penelope Tredwell, Twelve Minutes to Midnight (Christopher Edge)

The star of a fantastic trilogy of fast-paced, suspenseful thrillers, Penelope Tredwell is the feisty thirteen-year-old orphan heiress of the bestselling magazine, The Penny Dreadful. Her masterly tales of the macabre are gripping Victorian Britain, even if no one knows she’s the real author. The first book in the series, Twelve Minutes to Midnight, was the winner of last year’s Stockport School’s Book Award, voted for by children. The Telegraph described the sequel, Shadows of the Silver Screen, as “a serious (and playful) intelligent historical thriller for children”, and the final thrilling volume, The Black Crow Conspiracy, was published this January. Absolutely brilliant for 10+ readers everywhere, these are gripping, exciting mysteries with an incredibly strong heroine – perfect for fans of Sherlock Holmes. You can read the chapter one of the first book in the trilogy below:

Who are your favourite female heroes in literature? Do please share them in the comments below or on Twitter.

Where I Work: G. R. Gemin

This is the latest instalment in an occasional series of blogposts, in which some of our authors and illustrators share their favourite writing spots. Today G. R. Gemin, whose debut novel Cowgirl came out this month, shares his favourite methods of procrastination…

My ruses to avoid writing are as follows:

1) As you can see I have a wonderful view overlooking a lovely park, but it doesn’t help. Yes I know that sounds really miserable, but it’s true. You will also note the many CDs on the shelves (there’s more on the other wall too!). These are in alphabetical order, and a constant, stimulating musical distraction. (Some say I have OCD – Obsessive Compact Disc-order).

This is a ruse to avoid writing, and it works wonderfully well.

2) You will also notice how neat everything is. I want to assure you this was not because a photo was going to be taken. It’s always this neat. If I have to pull out books, or things from draws I then need a period of time making it all neat again.

This is another ruse to avoid writing, and it works wonderfully well.

3) You may just be able to see a bird feeder out of the left window. I like birds, I get visits from Great Tits and Blue Tits (see close up) and Robins, and I was once fortunate enough to have visit from a Greater Spotted Woodpecker – it was extremely impressive. The birds are very close when they mount the feeder, consequently I keep very still and watch them (no sudden movements, like typing on the keyboard, is allowed).

This is my favourite ruse to avoid writing, and it works wonderfully well.

4) You Tube is a tempting resource for a variety of reasons. I often reward my inactivity by viewing a Laurel & Hardy film (“Towed in a Hole” is SO funny), or I look up some of my favourite operatic tenors and jazz musicians like Jussi Bjorling or Franco Corelli or Oscar Peterson or Jimmy Smith (and there’s more I could mention).

This is the most distracting ruse to avoid writing, I feel very guilty because I have so little to show for it – at least the birds get fed in ruse 3.

Now I really must crack on with some proper writing (he said unconvincingly). On the other hand, it just struck me that I haven’t dusted the ceiling in ages…

You can read the first three chapters of Cowgirl below, or order the book online here.

Previously in the series: Helen Peters, Caryl Hart, Elys Dolan

Come to the April Nosy Crow Reading Group!

Would you like to come to the next Nosy Crow Reading Group?

In April we’ll be reading the highly acclaimed, Blue Peter Book Award-winning (and Carnegie Medal, Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted) Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell: an absolutely beautifully-written story with an enchanting voice and a young hero worthy of Lyra Belacqua.

We’ll be meeting on Wednesday, April 9 at 6.30pm, here at the Crow’s Nest – 10a Lant Street, SE1 1QR. If you’d like to come to the physical event at our office in London, send an email to tom@nosycrow.com and we’ll try to fit in as many people as possible – if we can’t save a place for you this time, we can, if you’d like, keep you on our waiting list for cancellations and add you to our mailing list for future events.

And if you can’t make it here, we’d love for you to join in online, either on Twitter with the #NCGKids hashtag, or in the comments section of our blog for the evening.

You can buy Rooftoppers online here – and you can also read Katherine Rundell’s top 10 (literary) orphans on The Guardian’s website, here.

We’ll post some discussion points for the book a little closer to the date – we hope you can join us!

Four fab ways to change the world: introducing a brand new series from Holly Webb!

This May we’re launching an incredibly exciting new series from best-selling author Holly Webb – and you can take a look inside for the first time today!

How do you save the planet when your parents have a private jet and couldn’t live without their outdoor swimming pool? And what if you really want to be a vegetarian but you love bacon sandwiches sooo much? Holly Webb explores these questions and MUCH more in this fantastic new sequence of books about four friends who want to make the world a better place – entertaining, inspirational and ideal for 8+ year olds.

The series begins with Maya’s Secret, out in May – but you can read two excerpts today!

Maya loves her new school but she hates keeping secrets from her friends. Especially when she’s had the best idea for their class project! The trouble is, for her idea to work, she’s going to have to tell them who she really is. And that might just change everything.

Here’s the first chapter:

And here’s a further excerpt:

You can pre-order Maya’s Secret online here.

The series will continue with Izzy’s River in July, Poppy’s Garden in October, and Emily’s Dream in January next year.

Four fab books, four fab friends, and four fab ways to change the world – this is a series to look out for!

Win copies of our April titles!

Next month is an EXCEPTIONALLY strong one for Nosy Crow titles – we have some truly incredible books coming out… and you could win them! It’s time for our monthly books giveaway – if you’re a resident of the UK or Ireland, you can win any of next month’s releases simply by subscribing to our Books Newsletter and sending us an email with the book you’d like to win. Here’s what’s up for grabs…

We’re publishing two new Bizzy Bear books by the incredibly talented Benji Davies – Zoo Ranger and Knight’s Castle. Absolutely PERFECT for toddlers, these books are packed with lots of wonderful detail, visual humour, and a very gentle rhyme… and all on a pleasingly sturdy board.

You can win Pip and Posy: Look and Say by Axel Scheffler – an engaging new picture book with richly-detailed scenes, a conversational, friendly text and Axel’s characteristic touches of humour. Here’s a look inside:

We’re incredibly excited to be publishing Nuts in Space – the second picture by Elys Dolan, creator of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted Weasels. A laugh-out-loud picture book (with a simply stellar story), Nuts in Space is absolutely FILLED with puns, visual gags, and all sorts of detail – this is a book to pore over again and again. Here’s a look inside:

And we’ll be publishing Hubble Bubble: The Pesky Pirate Prank – the second fantastic collection of illustrated stories from Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger, the creators of the brilliant Hubble Bubble picture books. The perfect next step after picture books, these are ideal stories for newly independent readers with a thirst for magic and mayhem. Here’s a look inside:

To win one 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@nosycrow.com with “Newsletter competition” in the subject heading and the title of the book you’d like to win 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.

It’s hungry work being a Rescue Princess!

This month we published the eleventh brilliant book in Paula Harrison’s fantastic Rescue Princesses series – The Rainbow Opal. When a young koala cub becomes ill in the kingdom of Mirrania, the Rescue Princesses must find a cure, even if it means going into the bush in the middle of the night. They just hope the magical Rainbow Opal can keep them safe…

And the Rescue Princesses series is currently featured in The Hut Book Club! If you visit any Pizza Hut Restaurant from now until 15th June, pick up a Book Club booklet packed with activities and offers, including some right royal Rescue Princesses activities, a special voucher to buy The Hut Book Club-featured titles for half price at WHSmith, and a competition to win a big bundle of books. You can read more about it here.

You can read the first chapter of The Rainbow Opal below:

Reading for Pleasure in schools - a guest post by a primary school teacher and "reading cheerleader"

Today’s guest post is by Rosie Chapleo, a teacher at Charles Dickens Primary School – Nosy Crow’s neighbours. Rosie is a member of our monthly book group and is also responsible for a number of literacy and reading-for-pleasure initiatives at her school – and here’s some of what she’s been doing to get her pupils excited about reading.

Despite the fact that I have spent the past three years as Science Co-ordinator at Charles Dickens Primary School (a somewhat obvious role given my unusual degree in Zoology), it felt like it was time to take on a new challenge. Fortunately, my head teacher was able to see beyond the ‘scientist’ pigeonhole and had also taken note of my interest in children’s literature.

My resulting role as something of a reading ‘cheerleader’ within the school means that I am currently lucky enough to be asked to devote a great deal of my endless ‘primary-school-teacher-enthusiasm’ towards reading. Tying-in with our whole-school focus on reading, my goals are both to raise interest in children’s literature amongst the school’s staff, and to encourage all of our pupils to read for pleasure.

As a member of Nosy Crow’s book club, I was asked to write this post to explain our approach towards rejuvenating our classrooms’ book corners – our first step towards building a deeper love of reading across our school.

To put it simply, we’ve opted for a two-pronged attack: a monthly injection of new books through our ‘Book of the Month’ initiative and purchasing a selection of new core books for every class’ reading corner.

‘Book of the Month’ is a straightforward attempt to encourage children to talk to one another about their reading. Each month, classes are given a few copies of the year group’s book which is linked to a whole-school theme (recent themes have included ‘dogs’, ‘witches and wizards’ and ‘winter’.) They are asked to talk about the books – with each other, on the school blog and with their teachers.

With regards to re-stocking our reading corners, I was faced with a somewhat larger task. My remit was to ensure that our children are exposed to classics as well as new titles – including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

We began the book corner revamp by inviting teachers and teaching assistants to brainstorm a list of books they felt were ‘absolute musts’. We asked for suggestions based on their own reading as a child, as well as those they have experienced children enjoying. We also reached out to the wider world via Twitter – resulting in a stack of Margaret Mahy’s books being donated by one passionate family! We felt it was important that we all had ownership over our choice of books, as enthusiasm for a good book is infectious. The enthusiastic response from all involved suggested that I was on the right track – everyone wanted to have their say.

Once compiled, I shared our list of books with teachers and teaching assistants – a process which led to some interesting conversations. Some staff assumed that I had made a mistake when I issued a long list of picture books earmarked for Years 5 and 6 (our nine to eleven year old pupils.) However, I managed to convince the detractors by reading Jon Klassen’s ‘I Want My Hat Back’ aloud in the staff room. By the time I had finished, people were fighting to have the book, and others like it, in their pile!

Before placing our orders, we dragged out all of our old books and had a thorough sort out. Those that had been loved to death, or were very old or torn, were culled (we later sold them in the playground to raise funds). The remaining books were sorted into themes – with the aim of making it easier for children to maintain a tidy book corner.

This week, we have finally had most of our newly selected books delivered and I have been like a child in a sweet (/book) shop! I have spent a lot of time sitting cross-legged on the staffroom carpet, sorting books into year groups and classes, then labelling and stamping each one. Sadly, once they’d been sorted and shared amongst classes, our seemingly long list had been spread very thinly. My neat piles of shiny new books handed to each teacher felt like a very meagre offering. I’d have liked to have given them more than double the amount of books but funds simply won’t stretch that far… Sadly, our huge, glaring constraint is budget – there will never be enough money to put all of the wonderful books out there into our classrooms!

In an attempt to combat the prohibitive cost of a classroom full of new books, book selections have been divided between the three or four classes in each year group. Every half term, the selections will rotate around the classes – meaning, in short, that the children will always have something new to discover!

So far, our focus on reading for enjoyment is working. ‘Book of the Month’ is already generating positive responses. I’ve enjoyed a steady stream of “Miss C, Harry Potter is AMAZING” on the stairs and at playtime, and have found reviews of ‘The Witches’ scrawled on scraps of paper and stuffed into my pigeonhole!

It’s unlikely that the book corners will remain looking as shiny, new and up to date as they do at the moment. With time, these new books will (it is hoped) become well-loved and dog-eared. At that point, we will take stock once more and I will be forced to undertake the delightful task of deciding which new books we will introduce to the children. Until then, I’m busy choosing spy-themed books… Suggestions welcome!

Meet us in Bologna: some advice for illustrators!

Are you an illustrator? Are you coming to this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair? Would you like to meet us? If the answer to all three of these questions is “yes” , this blog post is for you!

We’re holding illustrator surgeries on Tuesday, March 25 from 3.30-4.30pm and on Wednesday, March 26 from 2.00-3.00pm at the Nosy Crow stand (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.

I asked our Head of Design, Head of Picture Books, and Editorial Director what their advice for illustrators coming to Bologna would be, and here’s what they said:

Make sure your portfolio is as strong as it can be. Presentation is absolutely crucial, and you should pick your pieces carefully – don’t be tempted to cram absolutely everything in (Kristina’s motto is, “if in doubt, take it out”). The work that you show should demonstrate your ability, but also be relevant to children’s books (so, life drawing and religious iconography – to pick two examples named by people here as things they’d been shown at past fairs – would not be appropriate).

Plan in advance – target the publishers you particularly like the look of and check out their websites beforehand. You won’t be able to speak to everyone, so pick the companies who most interest you, and whose books look like a good fit for your work. If your art is in a completely different style to everything on a publisher’s list (very high-end vs. very commercial, for instance), it’s unlikely to be productive hunting them down.

Look at all of the international halls. It’s not not only a great opportunity to see what’s being published around the world, but will give you a lot of very valuable commercial insight. We work in an international market, and so it’s useful for you to know what other countries are doing, from Korea to Belgium. Picture book co-editions are a big part of our business, and thinking about whether your work will sell in other territories is an essential exercise.

So, if you’ll be at the fair, and you like the look of what we do, come and say hello!

Queen of Teen 2014

Today’s guest post is by S.C. Ransom, author of the Small Blue Thing trilogy.

A few weeks ago I attended a corporate strategy session and I was asked to bring an object which special to me, and share the story with the group. It took a matter of seconds to decide that I wanted to take my Queen of Teen tiara. It’s completely over-the-top, glittery and, frankly, just a little bit too much for the office, but it was exactly what I needed.

Queen of Teen is a UK competition for authors writing for the teen market. Anyone can be nominated, and then the authors with the most nominations go through to the grand final. Voting then starts in earnest, with authors offering giveaways, visits, their first-born children – the usual stuff – to get the most votes. I was lucky enough to be included in the final the last time it was run, in 2012.

On the day of the ceremony the ten finalists were invited to a fancy reception where we met our ‘super-fans’ – a reader who had nominated us and who was randomly selected from the pile – and sized up the competition. It was lovely to get to meet some other writers of teenage fiction, and I had to try hard to remember not to get all fangirl-ish myself.

After lunch it was into the fleet of pink stretch limos and on to the grounds of the country pile where The Book People have their HQ. In the garden was a massive marquee, lined in pink (what else?), and stuffed with pink cupcakes, pink drinks and a completely over-the-top throne. Each one of us was introduced by our nominator, who gave us our tiaras, and then we gave a short speech to the crowds of local schoolchildren. Finally it was time for the results to be announced. The winner (as we all expected) was Maureen Johnson, who accepted the crown and promised to be a just and fair monarch (despite being an American).

We then got to meet all the kids, sign lots of books, and chat for hours about books and writing. Later we were all invited to an ‘after’ party at the local Waterstones store, where there was more signing and more cake (of course).

It was a splendidly surreal experience, quite unlike anything I had ever done before, and I would love to do it again.

But that isn’t the reason that the tiara means so much to me. It’s special because all the nominations and votes were cast by the readers – teens who had read my books and felt strongly enough about them to go on line and say so. Some read all the time and devour a book a week, others are less prolific. One wrote to me to say that Small Blue Thing was the first ‘proper’ book that she had ever read, but thanks to that she was now reading all the time and her grades at school had improved. My tiara is a reminder of her, and of the power of a book to change lives.

Nominations for Queen of Teen 2014 have just opened, and my first-born is up for grabs again. It’s time to wrestle Maureen off that throne!

Small Blue Thing fans can nominate Sue to be the 2014 Queen of Teen here. If you’re new to the trilogy, you can read chapter one of the first book in the series below, or order it online here.

Weird, wacky and wonderful: a reader review of Cowgirl

The following letter was written to G.R. Gemin, author of Cowgirl, by 12-year-old Ines, one of the book’s first readers. She’s kindly allowed us to re-print it here.

Dear Gian,

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read Cowgirl before it came out. I really enjoyed it and loved reading it. I like your story because it’s weird, wacky and wonderful (that’s a good thing by the way). It was very descriptive and I never knew what was going to happen next. It’s also a good book because many different age groups can still enjoy it. The book was very enjoyable and happy (which are usually the types of books I read). It was also very moving but funny at the same time. I liked the granny’s character a lot. Gemma was a very realistic character and when I read the book I felt as if I was in her shoes. Gemma was described very well and was one of the good main characters. I find Cowgirl’s character quite mysterious and I couldn’t work out what she was thinking some of the time which really made me want to read more. I also liked the fact that it felt like a true story as the setting was described well and the characters were described well. Frankly I’m pretty scared of cows myself and are terrified of the large ones. Hopefully I’ll get over that fear one day. When I started reading your book I wanted to carry on reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen next to the cows, whereas some books that are written by famous authors such as Enid Blyton (I think that’s her name) I find really boring and I don’t want to carry on. I think your book was very succesfull and hopefully you will carry on and write more books and I am certain that in a few years lots and lots of people will be reading your books. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your first ever book published it was absolutely brilliant. Continue writing more books. Thank you once again.

Ines

Thank you, Ines, for this lovely letter and review! Cowgirl is out this month – a funny, moving story for 9-12 year olds (think Michael Morpurgo meets Jacqueline Wilson) and an absolutely outstanding debut from an exciting new voice in children’s literature. If you’ve not discovered it yet, you can read the first three chapters of the book below, or order it online here.