Nosy Crow's Blog, page 194

Fictional Families from Children's Literature we wouldn't want to spend Christmas with

In a blog post for Harper’s Bazaar, Sam Baker lists the fictional families she wouldn’t want to spend Christmas with.

She included two families from children’s literature: the March family from Little Women (for the record, I would love to be part of the March family on any day of the year), and the Dursleys from the Harry Potter books (hard to argue with that).

Here are fictional families from children’s literature that the Nosy Crow team feels that we wouldn’t particularly enjoy pulling a cracker with:

I’d be a bit worried that Mr Darling from Peter Pan would mess up the day with one of his ludicrous ultimatum-based outbursts, and no amount of mawkish and self-indulgent attempts to compensate by sitting in a kennel would make up for the emotional trauma and indigestion.

Ola isn’t keen on spending time with Matilda’s family, the Wormwoods, from Matilda by Roald Dahl, who would watch the worst TV and never give books as presents. And she’s worried that the excessively blase parents from David McKee’s Not Now Bernard just wouldn’t notice if you weren’t there at all.

Tom doesn’t think he could spend Christmas with the Famous Five, on the basis that he likes to spend Christmas as lazily as possible, ideally sitting on a sofa watching Home Alone with a plate of mince pies, while the Five would want to break up a smugglers’ ring. He’s also doubtful his constitution would withstand a festive season with Mr Toad of Toad Hall, which he thinks would be likely to get out of hand. On the other hand, he feels that the wholesome piety and goodwill of the Cratchits from A Christmas Carol would grate after a very little while. I don’t think that A Christmas Carol is a children’s book, but he says the fact that there’s a Muppet version of it confirms that it is part of the children’s literary canon.

There’s a consensus that eating sprouts with Aunts Sponge and Spike from James and the Giant Peach would be no fun at all.

And, of course, the Grunts, though they love each other deeply really, would be unlikely to celebrate Christmas conventionally. A Christmas version of their roadkill diet doesn’t seem appetising, and Mr Grunt is an erratic gift-giver, having presented Mrs Grunt with a pair of barbecue tongs that she uses to pull out her nose hairs on one occasion and Sunny, the boy he stole from a washing line, on another.

Which families from children’s books would you not want to spend Christmas with?

Perfect Christmas book (and app) gifts for children of different ages from Nosy Crow: a post for Cyber Monday

Tom has pretty much refused to write this blog post, on the basis that “Cyber-Monday” is a dreadful old nonsense, and a US import Against Which We Should Take A Stand. But, as I pointed out, he is young, while I am an old and tired mum who is currently running two colour-coded spreadsheets for Christmas presents alone (one of things – often books – that we are giving, and one of things – often books – that we are suggesting to people asking about gifts that we would particularly welcome). I think that we all need all the reasonably-priced, will-last-beyond-26-December, easy-to-wrap present suggestions that we can get.

Though I am using Cyber Monday as a sort of hook for this blog post, I am not, though, suggesting that you order online, necessarily. Most of these books should be available in your local bookshop. And there is no nicer shopping experience than a local bookshop around Christmas.

Anyway, today, I am going to be shamelessly full-on and commercial and give you my recommendations age-by-age for Nosy Crow children’s books and apps. Selected from the 100-odd books (and 10 apps) we have published in our first three years of existence (a number that still seems astonishingly huge to me, to be honest), here are some books that I think would sit nicely under the tree or in a stocking. The books all have recommended retail prices between £4.99 and £10.99.

FOR BABIES 0 TO 1

Noodle Loves to Cuddle, which has found a fan in this mum blogger and her baby, is the bestseller in our Noodle series of touch-and-feel board books. I put this down to the blanket flap half-way through the book under which Noodle, the mischievous panda, is hiding.

FOR TODDLERS 1 TO 2

Bizzy Bear: Fun on the Farm is one of the strongest sellers in this series of sturdy toddler tab board books. And there’s an app. If you are dealing with a toddler who likes vehicles, Bizzy Bear: Fire Rescue might be a better bet, and if you are looking for something for someone who’s more of a soft-toy sort of a person, then Tiny Tabs: Bunny Boo might fit the bill.

FOR 2 TO 3 YEAR-OLDS

Pip and Posy is pretty top-notch for this age group, I think. These books gently explore the emotional turbulence of toddler life in deceptively simple stories and they are illustrated by the incomparable Axel Scheffler. As The Guardian said, “Scheffler’s talent at portraying the trials and tribulations of early childhood in this series is second to none.” In particular, Pip and Posy: The Snowy Day has a nicely seasonal feel. Again, there’s an app.

FOR 3 TO 4 YEAR-OLDS

Dinosaur- and vehicle-lovers will think that Dinosaur Dig! was made for them – as The Guardian said, “For the prehistoric speed freak, this is a roaring delight”. Meanwhile, Troll Swap, currently shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, celebrates being true to who you are, even if that means that you are someone who would “rather pick her nose than a flower any day of the week”. The Sunday Times said, “Funny and full of vim, the book has an exhilarating mix of childlike drawings, elegant design and jokes about burps”.

FOR 4 TO 5 YEAR-OLDS

Just Right for Christmas is all about the joy of giving at Christmas, and it has a little bit of an eco-twist: the things that aren’t useful to one person (or animal) turn out, with a little creativity, to be just right for another. The Sunday Telegraph said, “It’s hard to find a Christmas book that’s about giving without coming across all preachy (you can’t fool kids: Christmas is about receiving) but Just Right by Birdie Black and Rosalind Beardshaw delivers a warm glow with its waste-not-want-not message. The story follows a roll of cloth – “so red and soft and Christmassy” – as it makes a cloak for a princess with the leftover scraps passing down a human/animal hierarchy until it becomes a scarf for a mouse.” If you’re looking for something less Christmas-themed, then Open Very Carefully, a book about… well, a book, and a crocodile stowaway, is one of those books that I talk about when I am discussing what print and the page do that’s different from what a screen does. The same is true of Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm, a split page book we’ve struggled to keep in print this autumn. There’s an app too, though, which allows for a direct page-to-screen compare-and-contrast.

FOR 5 TO 6 YEAR-OLDS

I think that children of 5 and 6 are absolutely not too old for picture books. If you agree, then Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam would be a good bet. The Telegraph chose it as a book of the year, saying “Corderoy’s rich, rhyming text is a pleasure to read aloud and the ending got a big laugh in my house”. For pernicketty princess types, The Princess and the Peas which won the Oldham Key Stage 1 Book Prize last week, is a funny (not-at-all-gruesome) cautionary tale, which MIGHT encourage a child to tackle Christmas Day sprouts, but we’re not promising anything…

FOR 6 TO 7 YEAR-OLDS

Weasels, described by The Telegraph as “insanely brilliant” and currently both shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and nominated for the Greenaway Award, is a picture book that I think works particularly well for children of six and over, because of its design, the density of the illustrations and, honestly, because of the joke that’s at its heart. By the time children are six and older, though, we they are often able to deal with a different balance of text and illustrations and are easing their way into novels. Hubble Bubble: The Great Granny Bake-off should make them laugh, and, like the Hubble Bubble picture books makes a great grandparent gift. Independent readers, I find, really love a series at this age (if they’re putting in the time and effort required of early independent reading, they rather like the guarantee that a book is going to be similar enough to one they’re enjoyed to warrant the investment), and Vulgar The Viking: The Rock Cake Raiders or Rescue Princesses: The Secret Promise are both great places to start… and unlike many series, they’re each written by one author.

FOR 7 TO 8 YEAR-OLDS

The pull of series continues, I think, for many children in this age-group. Space Pirates: Stowaway is a great, roistering, funny adventure series. And Zoe’s Rescue Zoo: The Lonely Lion Cub is perfect for animal lovers.

FOR 8 TO 9 YEAR-OLDS

The Grunts in Trouble is the first of the titles in The Grunts series, described by The Telegraph as the “21st-century Twits”. Funny, silly, quirky, the books are by Philip Ardagh and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The second book in the series is currently shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and there’s a free app.

FOR 9 TO 10 YEAR-OLDS

Danny Danger and the Cosmic Remote is light-hearted gadgetty adventure that might appeal to a Doctor Who fan. Lyn Gardner’s Olivia books are deliciously traditional stage-school stories with appeal to the same kids who are watching X-factor. They attract an extraordinarily loyal following.

FOR 10 TO 11 YEAR-OLDS

Recommended by Julia Donaldson and Michael Morpurgo and described by The Daily Mirror as a “fabulous debut”, The Secret Hen House Theatre explores family and friendship in a story that has warmth, drama and an extraordinary sense of place – a quintessentially British farm. If your recipient likes a laugh, then My Best Friend and Other Enemies, described as “hilarious” by Harry Hill and “properly funny” by The Independent, is a cleverly-observed story of managing mean girls by a stand-up comic.

FOR 11 TO 12 YEAR-OLDS

Twelve Minutes to Midnight has an end-of-the-year setting… though the year in question is 1899. Spooky and atmospheric, it’s set in a wintry post-Dickensian London. This is, again, a good book for a Doctor Who fan. And if you like the first book, the second in the series, Shadows of the Silver Screen was described by The Telegraph as “a serious (and playful) intelligent historical thriller for children.”

If the child you’re buying for has access to an iPad (or iPhone, or iPod Touch), our multi-award-winning apps, which can be given as gifts, are very rich reading experiences to which children return again and again. The apps are priced between £0.69 and £3.99.

FOR TODDLERS

I’ve mentioned one of our Bizzy Bear apps, which, as it’s suitable for toddlers, is the youngest app we have.

I’ve also mentioned the Pip and Posy app, which is suitable for 2 to 4 year-olds.

FOR 4 TO 5 YEAR OLDS

The Flip Flap Farm app is funny and silly.

FOR 5 TO 7 YEAR OLDS AND UPWARDS

For curious 5 to 7 year olds, our Rounds apps provide lots of information (who knew that frogs crush their food against the back of their eyeballs?) with a lot of interactive fun. Rounds; Parker Penguin is nicely seasonal, and has just won the FutureBook Children’s Digital Book/App prize.

For 5 year-olds and over (and adults find them pretty compelling too, in our experience), our Fairy Tale apps are brilliantly interactive reading experiences, and the most recent, and, in my view, spectacular one, is Little Red Riding Hood.

It was hard making this selection, and I am painfully aware there are many books we publish, and that I think would make great gifts, that I left out of this particular list. And, it is, of course, hard to be terribly age-specific, particularly as children get older: one eight year-old is not the same as another eight year-old in reading ability or interest. But if these books don’t seem quite right for the child you have in mind, you could search other books we’ve published by age-group or genre (board books, activity books, novelty books, picture books and fiction).

Nearer Christmas, we’ll be doing a blog post about the books we all hope to receive, and those we’ll give, this Christmas.

A double award-winning day for Nosy Crow

Yesterday was something of a triumph for Nosy Crow books – awards were won at TWO separate ceremonies! The two awards – a Sheffield Baby Book Award and an Oldham Brilliant Books Award – are particularly meaningful to us as they’re voted for by readers and parents: exactly who we have in mind with every book that we publish.

At the crack of dawn, Camilla was on her way up to Sheffield, where Icky Sticky Monster, illustrated and paper-engineered by the wonderful Jo Lodge, had been nominated for the Sheffield Baby Book award 2013 – and the book won!

The Sheffield Children’s Book Awards this year celebrate its 25th anniversary and has, in that time, grown from a small-scale, local event to the grand occasion that it is today. It was an initiative started by the city’s librarians working with kids in schools, libraries and nurseries, and who describe their ambition as being to make ‘every Sheffield child articulate and literate by the age of 11’.

The awards are divided into four categories: Baby Book, Picture Book, Shorter Novel, Longer Novel and Young Adult, and what makes them slightly different from other awards is that the winners are chosen by the child readers themselves, who slowly work their way through the short list over the course of the year, and then vote for their favourite book at the end of it all.

A whopping 1336 children submitted votes for the baby book section and though it was apparently a close-run thing, Icky Sticky Monster prevailed, which makes it particularly satisfying. Here’s Jo with her splendid award:

You can order Icky Sticky Monster online here.

And later on that day, Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton, author and illustrator for The Princess and the Peas, were in Oldham for the Oldham Brilliant Books Award – where their fantastic first picture book collaboration triumphed in the Key Stage One category!

Here’s what Sarah had to say about the award:

“It was the most fantastic night. Oldham had really put on its Hollywood glitz. The best thing about it was the room was full of children who were the best behaved and best dressed we’d ever seen. I’m so overjoyed that this award was voted for by the children themselves, and the heart-felt hug by a little girl at the end of the evening really was a highlight for me! A massive thanks to Oldham for such an amazing night, thanks to Caryl (for just being so clever) and thanks to everyone at Nosy Crow for pairing us up to begin with.”

And here’s Caryl’s reaction:

“I was so surprised the we won the Key Stage One award – especially amongst such stiff competition! It’s only the second year that Oldham Council have run the Brilliant Book Awards – and they’ve done a fantastic job. We sat around tables in true Oscars style and were treated to live performances of extracts from all the shortlisted books.

The children were dressed up to the nines and all seemed to have a great time – topped by a parade at the end of the evening! We are all going to the amazing Oldham Library this morning to meet more children and run some workshops. I’m really looking forward to reading The Princess and the Peas and playing a story-making game with them.

It’s fantastic to be involved in these wonderful awards. They are a brilliant way to generate enthusiasm about books and reading and will hopefully help ensure that the children if Oldham are readers for life.”

And here they are with their fantastic awards:

You can take a look inside The Princess and the Peas below – and the book is available to order online here.

Many thanks to Oldham and Sheffield for these awards, and congratulations to Jo, Caryl and Sarah for their fantastic books and this much-deserved recognition!

Shifty and Sam on Bookaboo!

We’ve got some great news for fans of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, the fantastic picture book by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton – CITV’s Bookaboo programme is returning, and will feature the book over their Christmas broadcasts!

You’ll be able to watch Simon Gregson (aka Steve McDonald off of Coronation Street) read this BRILLIANT rhyming story on Boxing Day at 6.55am on ITV and CITV, and on Saturday 28th December at 7.25am on ITV and CITV.

Here’s a full list of Bookaboo titles that’ll be broadcast over the holiday.

If you haven’t come across Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam before, the book tells the story of two hapless robber dogs who decide on a career-change after one bungled burglary too many. With a funny, quirky story, a rhyme that simply trips off the tongue, and wonderful illustrations that are full of depth of detail and colour, this is a real treat – especially for dog-lovers everywhere.

And that’s not the only good news for Shifty and Sam today! The book has been featured in The Telegraph’s list of the best books of the year for young children. Helen Brown writes:

“It’s the kind of book that I might not have picked up had I not been nudged its way – but Corderoy’s rich, rhyming text is a pleasure to read aloud and the ending got a big laugh in my house.”

Here’s a look inside the book:

Here’s Steven’s fab animated trailer:

And you can download some Shifty and Sam colouring-in sheets here.

The paperback edition of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam (which comes with a free Stories Aloud audio reading) is available to order online here.

We hope you enjoy the book – don’t forget to tune in to Bookaboo on Boxing Day!

Look and Say with Pip and Posy

Next year we’re expanding the world of Axel Scheffler’s Pip and Posy with some FANTASTIC new books – here’s a preview of what’s in store for 2014.

In April, we’ll be publishing Pip and Posy: Look and Say – an engaging new picture book with richly-detailed scenes, a conversational, friendly text and Axel’s characteristic touches of humour.

With fun, busy scenes and lots to talk about, this delightful first book is perfect for sharing with an inquisitive toddler. A ‘Can you find these things?’ panel on each spread adds an ‘I-spy’ game element for extra fun – look for the objects along the bottom of each page, spot them in the scenes and then say the words – it’s great for speech development and an ideal book for parent and child to share.

Here’s a first look inside Look and Say:



Pre-order Pip and Posy: Look and Say online.

And in February, we’ll be publishing the first paperback edition of Pip and Posy: The Big Balloon, in a glorious, extra-large format and bundled with a free Stories Aloud audio reading – advance finished copies have just arrived in the Crow’s Nest and they look SPLENDID. It’s an absolutely charming story for anyone who loves balloons and bubbles – Pip is really proud of his big balloon, but when he accidentally lets it go and it pops, he is very, very sad… Luckily, Posy has a clever idea and soon Pip is smiling again.

Here’s a look inside the book:



Pre-order The Big Balloon paperback edition online.

And there’ll be lots more from Pip and Posy coming up in 2014 – keep an eye on the blog!

Introducing... Toot!

In February we’re publishing our first picture book by the incredible duo Catherine and Laurence Anholt – Toot Goes to Dinosaurland!

It’s a fantastic story featuring an adorably inquisitive new character – Toot. Toot’s little car has a most unusual feature – a magical sat nav system. So, when he presses the special button, off he zooms on an adventure with his trusty toy puppy for company. And where will he go first? To Dinosaurland, of course!

Here’s a first look inside the book:

Wonderfully imaginative and beautifully illustrated, Toot Goes to Dinosaurland is PERFECT for dinosaur-mad pre-schoolers, budding explorers, and – of course – fans of the much-loved Anholts.

Toot Goes to Dinosaurland will be published in a stunning, padded hardback format in February 2014 – you can pre-order the book online now. And if you’d like to stay up-to-date with all our book news, you can sign up to our monthly books newsletter here.

Talking Children’s Book Design at the WI

Last week, at the Welsh Borough Chapel, (handily round the corner from the Crow’s Nest), the local WI, of which I’m a member, held a book themed evening. They invited me speak alongside Gemma, who is currently writing and compiling an e-book guide for women travelling alone, and Lizzie, a project editor from non-fiction publishers Dorling Kindersley.

I was a little nervous when I arrived; especially once we realized the projector had gone AWOL, leaving my prepared presentation trapped on my USB stick. Thankfully I had a huge bag of books with me and was able to improvise with some beautiful props instead.

I wanted to give some background to Nosy Crow, before I went into the role of a designer. I do feel that as a smaller company we are able to respond more to changes and make decisions quicker, which positively affects the design of the books we make. It’s also been the reason I’ve been given more responsibility and experience as junior then I might otherwise of had at this point in my career.

Then I hopefully offered some insight into how a designer works with the editor and the illustrator (and sometimes author) to create a book. I work in both novelty and picture books so I wanted to highlight the differences in briefing each. I was able to show a few roughs we’d done and compare to the final printed product.

I spend most of my days surrounded by children’s books and so it was refreshing to show the Nosy Crow books to an audience who aren’t. There were a few audible reactions to some of our pops, mechanisms, covers and foils, and I was thrilled to see a lot of people wanting to look through all the books once the talk was over. There was a lot of enthusiasm so I was thankful for such a warm reception.

Thanks to the Borough Belles for having me!

Rounds: Parker Penguin has won a FutureBook Innovation Award!

Yesterday the Bookseller’s FutureBook Conference took place – a day packed with insightful and thought-provoking talks from some of the publishing industry’s leading figures (a full blog post may be forthcoming). The day concluded with the third annual FutureBook Innovation Awards, and we were surprised and delighted to learn that our Rounds: Parker Penguin app, written and illustrated by Emma and Barry Tranter, won in the category of Best Children’s Digital Book!

The app faced off fierce competition from an incredible shortlist – including a second Nosy Crow app, Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm. We’re especially proud to have won after having been shortlisted for the same award last year, for the first app in the Rounds series, Rounds: Franklin Frog, and winning in 2011, for Cinderella.

You can read the full list of this year’s winners across every category here.

The judges for the awards were particularly impressed by the levels of interaction and creativity demonstrated by Rounds: Parker Penguin, saying that “the sliding feature is addictive and the mating call feature is more effective than [dating app] Tinder”.

If you haven’t used Rounds: Parker Penguin before, you can find it on the App Store here for just £2.99. Combining narrative storytelling with lots of educational information and interactive fun, the app is perfect for both the home and the classroom. It’s packed with lots of unique and imaginative features – you can help Parker to grow up, move around the Antarctic environment on land and in the water, hunt, avoid predators, march to his breeding ground, meet a mate, protect an egg and hatch a chick before starting all over again with Parker’s son.

Here’s a look at the app’s trailer:

Buy Rounds: Parker Penguin from the App Store.

And if you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our new apps, and news of special app discounts and giveaways, you can sign up to our apps mailing list here.

Thank you, FutureBook, and congratulations, Emma and Barry!

The Bear who had never seen Christmas on Daybreak!

Last week we wrote about the picture book we’ve made from the John Lewis 2013 Christmas Television Advert. And yesterday, the book was featured on ITV’s Daybreak! You can see Terry Wogan brandishing a copy of The Bear who had never seen Christmas at the top of this post – it was given as part of Daybreak’s Toybox Appeal, which collects presents for seriously ill children who’ll be spending Christmas in Hospices.

You can watch the segment online here (it starts at around 1:53:00).

The book is now available in John Lewis stores, and online here – and you can take a look inside below:

And if you’re one of the half-dozen or so people who’ve not yet seen the (incredible) John Lewis advert that inspired the book, you can watch it here:

Selling picture books in Poland

Above, you can see the advance copy of the Polish edition of Open Very Carefully by Nicola O’Byrne and Nick Bromley. We’ve written about this title’s international appeal before here – we’ve now sold it to twelve countries – but it is interesting to see that this is the first picture book we sold to Poland. It is, actually, the first picture book we sold to the, broadly understood, Eastern European market, where fiction and novelty books are much more prevalent – traditionally, books published there for this age group have a much higher text to picture ratio, so it isn’t easy for the booksellers to sell picture books to the public.

Here’s what the editor Marta Lenartowicz from the publishing house Wilga had to say about their reasons for taking the risk and adding Open Very Carefully to their list:

“The main reason we decided to buy this book was its unusual form and plot. We thought it wasn’t “just another children’s story”, but a surprising idea with a particular flair. And the die-cut in the back cover simply delighted us all! Yes, it’s a picture book, but not as you know it.

Whilst we are not planning to make picture books the core of our programme, we are now looking at the picture book market and considering picking out the more interesting titles.”

Personally, as much as I love receiving all of the foreign copies from the printer, there’s nothing quite like seeing a copy of one of the Nosy Crow books in my own language, and I can’t wait to see Open Very Carefully in Polish bookshops next Spring!

You can take a look inside Open Very Carefully below – the hardback edition is in shops and available online now, or you can pre-order the paperback edition (released in March next year) online here.