Nosy Crow's Blog, page 23

Take a look inside 2022 Nature Month-By-Month: A Children’s Almanac

Next month we’re delighted to be publishing, in partnership with the National Trust, 2022 Nature Month-By-Month: A Children’s Almanac, written by Anna Wilson and illustrated by Elly Jahnz.

And today we’re very pleased to be sharing an early preview of this new and updated edition, with one-third new material and revised design throughout!

Take an inspirational journey through the seasons, month-by-month, with this fantastic, fully illustrated handbook to 2022, including nature spotter guides, indoor and outdoor craft and activity ideas, seasonal recipes and celebrations of religious festivals and special events. 

A wonderful gift to treasure and explore over the coming year, this gorgeous almanac, which has been updated with one-third new material and revised design throughout, will encourage young readers to connect with nature and the world around them.

Take a look inside this new edition:

Pre-order the book.

Our new children’s almanac will be in bookshops and available online from October 7th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Amazon here, or from Bookshop.org here.

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to know about our new books, as well as exclusive giveaways, discounts and early previews.

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Ten books, ten years: the inspiration behind the Pip and Posy series

It’s been ten years since we published the first Pip and Posy title, and with a satisfying bit of numerical symmetry, the tenth title – The Birthday Party – is published this week. Since that time, the series has sold 5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 26 languages, and launched this year on Milkshake/Sky as an enchanting new animated TV series. But I must admit, when I wrote the first two stories for my then-two-year-old (now a full-sized teenager who’s just done her GCSEs) I never dreamed that they would see such success – it has been a career highlight, of that there is no question.

At the time, I’d noticed that while my daughter loved me to read to her and wanted to be entertained by books, she’d started to find board books and first-word books too slight, narratively. I could see that she was ready to engage with the story, to follow a plotline and to identify with characters but, equally, anything but the most basic of vocabulary and narrative thread left her baffled – she just couldn’t follow it. I also observed that she actively enjoyed a little bit of drama and some light jeopardy, and that she took pleasure in seeing how the characters resolved problems – but for her to understand what was going on, the plot needed to be incredibly straightforward.

So, that is how the books came into being – I was trying to fill a gap that I felt existed in the market for eventful, but simply-told stories, featuring characters that a toddler identifies with, and which have a satisfyingly happy ending.

I chose to write about two characters, a female and male, who are different animals but friends and equals. I had noticed that when toddlers play, they often pretend to be adults, so I decided that although the characters would have child-like concerns, they would inhabit a parallel, semi-real world without parents around to fix any problems – the characters needed to be independent and to have agency within the story.

The stories I came up with centred around the routines and concerns of ordinary toddlers – going to the park, navigating friendships, potty training, hurting themselves, feeling sad, bedtime issues. And broadly, every story would follow a narrative arc of 1) beginning/set-up, 2) introduction of a problem, 3) eventual resolution, and 4) final, happy ending. Whereas most picture book texts are around 500 words long, I wanted these stories to be much shorter – between 150 and 300 words, ideally. I also decided that, if possible, all the stories would be punctuated by the same set phrases – usually, Oh dear! Poor ! and Hooray! My instinct was that children like to get involved in a story, and by giving them phrases to join in with, they are drawn in and made to feel important. Looking back on it, I also think it helps them by signposting the narrative, so they become familiar and comfortable with a narrative arc and the conventions of storytelling.

I had written both The Super Scooter and The Scary Monster in 2009, before Kate and I had started to have conversations about setting up a new publishing company, and at that point, the characters were called Duck and Birdie – mainly because ‘duck’ was both my children’s first word and so I knew it was easy for most toddlers to pronounce. In the first few weeks of Nosy Crow’s life, it was Kate who suggested that Axel illustrate them, and she chose Pip and Posy as their names. I was, obviously, delighted that Axel was going to bring them to life – but it was decided that they should be a rabbit and mouse rather than birds, as he prefers drawing rodents! It was a good idea, it turns out, and they have huge warmth and charm as a result.

The final thing to mention is that I was very keen for the characters to avoid gender stereotypes and to be free from fixed personality traits – I wanted them both to behave, by turns, empathetically, resourcefully, sensitively, selfishly, greedily, or creatively. Quite often, I wrote a story and then swapped the characters, just to ensure that neither one ever became stuck with a certain set of behaviours.

Fittingly, the tenth, and possibly final title, is The Birthday Party and so has a celebratory feel. Of course, as with all the stories, something goes wrong – quite spectacularly in this case – but, as ever, it isn’t the end of the world, and Pip and Posy find a way of negotiating the apparent disaster. There’s a lesson for us all, there.

—

Take a look inside The Birthday Party below:

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The Secret Garden is out today!

Today we’re absolutely delighted to have published our beautiful new gift edition of The Secret Garden – the beloved’s children’s classics, retold by bestselling and award-winning author Geraldine McCaughrean and with gorgeous artwork by Margarita Kukhtina.

Like other books in our Nosy Crow Classics collection, The Secret Garden is published in a luxurious cloth-bound hardback, with a stunning foiled jacket, and a ribbon marker. For longtime fans of this classic and newcomers alike, this is a truly special gift – and a timeless keepsake to be treasured for generations.

When Mary Lennox is sent from India to live with her uncle at gloomy Misselthwaite Manor, she is the most spoiled and contrary child you could ever meet. But she is also extremely lonely. Until one day, she discovers a walled garden that has been kept secret for years. With the help of a little robin, Mary unearths the key and unlocks the wonder that lies beyond the garden walls – and finds that making friends can be every bit life-changing as a magical garden.

Take a look at the first few pages of this beautiful new book:

The Secret Garden is out today – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here. And if you’d like to find out more about our Nosy Crow Classics, you can discover the full collection here.

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to know about our new books, including early previews, giveaways, discounts and more.

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Read an exclusive preview of Following Frankenstein – the epic new adventure from Catherine Bruton

This October, just in time for Halloween, we’re publishing Following Frankenstein – a brilliantly conceived and hugely imaginative ‘sequel’ to Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, from the award-winning author of No Ballet Shoes in Syria and Another Twist in the Tale, Catherine Bruton.

And today we’re delighted to share an early preview of this exciting new adventure – you can read the first few chapters below!

Sometimes I was jealous of the monster of Frankenstein. I grew up believing my father cared more for him than he did for me. And was I wrong?

Maggie Walton’s father has dedicated his life to a single pursuit: hunting down the monster created by Victor Frankenstein. It has cost Maggie and her family everything – and now her father is staking everything on one last voyage to the Arctic, with Maggie secretly in tow, where he hopes to find the monster at last.

But there they make a shocking discovery: Frankenstein’s monster has a son…

A breathtaking, epic adventure, spanning the icy wastes of the Arctic Tundra to the vaudeville circus of New York, Following Frankenstein is perfect for 9-12-year-old readers this Halloween.

Take a look inside the book:

Following Frankenstein will be in shops this October – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

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Sometimes Babies has been shortlisted for the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award 2021!

Today the shortlists for the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Awards have been announced and we are absolutely over the moon that Sometimes Babies, illustrated by Charlotte Trounce, has been recognised in the Baby and Toddler category.

It’s a book that has always been special to me because of the way it was conceived – it was inspired by a real-life Nosy Crow new baby!

During the summer of 2019, our Deputy Art Director, Zoe Gregory, announced the arrival of her new baby so I popped out at lunch to pick up a card to send from the office. Many of my friends had also had babies recently, so I already had a favourite card in mind – Charlotte Trounce’s New Arrival card. The simple image of a mother and baby elephant is so striking, it works well for boys and girls, and the shiny silver lettering makes it feel extra special.

Unfortunately, the card didn’t get very far as it made its way around the office. As most Crows will know from time spent working in the busy Crow’s Nest – it was tradition for cards to go missing, often turning up in the same place (naming no names!). Before long I sent an email asking if anyone had seen it:

When Kate, our Managing Director, saw the ‘missing card’ email, I remember her shouting across the desks to me that the image would make a brilliant board book cover. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before, so set to work writing a rhyming text about the characteristics of different babies. Babies could be big, small, short, tall – but they could also be grumpy, jumpy, squeaky and cheeky. We wanted all kinds of babies to feature in the book with the key word ‘sometimes’ repeated throughout because we recognised that babies are growing and changing every day. Then, together with Holly, our Senior Designer, we came up with a host of animals beyond the mother and baby elephant that fit the text and we knew Charlotte could illustrate beautifully.

Once we had a strong concept, we approached Charlotte and were delighted when she said yes to creating a book with us. She brought the rhymes to life with her trademark bold shapes and sophisticated palette and with the addition of a mirror on the final spread and some shiny foil on the cover, all of a sudden, the new baby card had become a new baby book!

It also feels like a particularly poignant book as, believe it or not, there were a couple more babies involved in its creation. Holly went off on maternity leave just before we actually sent the files to print and Charlotte had a baby before we received finished copies, so now they’re both able to share the book they created with their very own new arrivals.

This is a special book that will capture the attention of babies everywhere – and will look super-stylish on a bookshelf too. It’s the perfect gift for a newborn and we’re utterly thrilled that it has been shortlisted by the Sainsbury’s Book Awards this year.

Congratulations, Charlotte – and good luck!

Take a look inside the book:

Buy the book.

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Four Nosy Crow books shortlisted for the 2021 Teach Primary Book Awards!

The shortlist for the Teach Primary Book Awards have been announced today – and we’re absolutely delighted that The Wide, Wide Sea by Anna Wilson and Jenny Løvlie, Magnificent Mabel and the Egg and Spoon Race by Ruth Quayle and Julia Christians, The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke by Kirsty Applebaum, and On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold! by Scott Allen and Antoine Corbineau, have been shortlisted this year!

The Teach Primary Book Awards, hosted in association with the literacy resources website Plazoom, not only celebrate books that children will love to read, but also books that support learning – for example, by opening up opportunities for deeper discussion and encouraging language play. The winners will be chosen by an expert judging panel of educators, literacy specialists, and authors.

Beautifully told and gorgeously illustrated throughout, The Wide, Wide Sea is a moving story about a young child who forges a special connection with a seal and goes on an unforgettable journey. Published in collaboration with our partners at the National Trust, this is a great book for starting conversations about plastic pollution, caring for our coastlines and protecting wildlife – and we are delighted that it has been recognised by the awards this year.

Buy the book.

Perfect for newly independent readers, Magnificent Mabel and the Egg and Spoon Race is the third book in this hilarious, highly illustrated series following the unforgettable Mabel Chase. With hugely relatable themes and experiences – such as sports day, wanting a dog and taking part in the school play – this series is ideal for readers aged 5-7, and fans of Pamela Butchart’s Wigglesbottom Primary series.

Buy the book.

For readers aged 9 and above, Kirsty Applebaum’s latest novel, The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke, is a gripping story about family, secrets and terrible power. Lonny is a lifeling and has the power to heal any living creature with just the touch of this hand. But he pays a price for this gift – by lengthening the creature’s life, he shortens his own. So Lonny has to be careful, has to stay hidden in the first, because if people knew about his gift, Lonny would have no life left at all…

Buy the book.

And finally, On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold has been recognised in the non-fiction category this year! Fun and fact-filled, this is a brilliantly informative guide to every Olympic and Paralympic sport, perfect for young sports fans and budding Olympians alike. From boxing to boccia, running to rowing, discover all sorts of sports, what skills and equipment you’ll need to start training, and even how to sound like a pro. With bold, energetic illustrations and text packed with weird, wonderful and wildly hilarious facts, this a must-have on any non-fiction bookshelf.

Buy the book.

You can find out more about the Teach Primary Book Awards, and view the shortlist, here. The winners will be announced in Teach Reading & Writing magazine and Teach Primary magazine in November.

Congratulations Anna, Jenny, Ruth, Julia, Kirsty, Scott, Antoine – and good luck!

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Adam-2 is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of Adam-2 by Alastair Chisholm – an exciting and hugely gripping science fiction thriller, from the author of the highly-acclaimed, Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-shortlisted Orion Lost.

And you can listen to a preview of the new audiobook edition below!

The robot Adam-2 has been locked in the basement of a lost building for over two hundred years – until one day he is discovered by two children, and emerges into a world ruined by a civil war between humans and advanced intelligence.

Hunted by both sides, Adam discovers that he holds the key to the war, and the power to end it – to destroy one side and save the other. But which side is right?

Surrounded by enemies who want to use him, and allies who mistrust him, Adam must decide who – and what – he really is.

With incredible twists and turns, and an action-packed story, Adam-2 is a thrilling, unputdownable adventure.

And we’re delighted that this new audiobook edition has been brilliantly read by the Scottish non-binary actor Maggie Bain.

You can buy the audiobook of Adam-2 from Amazon, Audible, and Apple now – and you can listen to a preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

You can also read the opening chapters of the book below:

And you can order a signed copy of Adam-2 from Waterstones here, and the standard edition from Bookshop.org here, and from Amazon here.

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How to help children prepare for their first day of preschool

Starting school is a big milestone. Knowing what to expect can help ease that transition. Caryl Hart’s new book, When a Dragon Goes to School, follows a dragon as it explores the routines and manners that children, will experience in preschool.

Read on to discover why the author decided create a story to help toddlers get ready to start school for the first time, why good manners matter in school and the challenges around creating the book. You may pick up some handy tips to make sure your little ones are all set for this next big phase in their lives. When a Dragon Goes to School is available to buy now.

Question: What inspired you to write When a Dragon Goes to School ?

Caryl Hart: The first book in the series, When a Dragon Comes to Stay, was so popular that my publisher, Nosy Crow, asked if I’d like to write a second book where the little dragon starts school. Of course I said yes straight away!

I remember only too well how difficult it was to settle my own children into school when they were small – we had lots of tears and leg-clinging, which was hugely upsetting at the time. Little did I know that, while I felt terrible for the rest of the day, my girls skipped off to have fun as soon as I was out of sight!

Starting school is such a huge milestone for young children and creating fun, reassuring books is a great way to help prepare them. Our story includes common routines like hanging your coat and bag on a peg, entering the classroom, sitting in your special place, listening to the teacher and being kind to your new friends – all things that most children will experience during their first days at school.

Children who are already familiar with the school environment can sometimes struggle to talk about their experiences and might not know how to tell their grownups when things don’t go quite right. Reading books like When a Dragon Goes to School can help open up this dialogue and give children the tools they need to process difficult, exciting, or new experiences, ultimately helping them feel happy and safe.

Question: Why are manners in school so important?

CH: Young children are often used to being the sole focus of attention at home, so learning to get along with others can be quite a challenge. Understanding school routines and learning to consider other people’s feelings help the school day run smoothly, which ultimately makes the experience a pleasant and rewarding one for everyone!

Most children do actually want to behave in a way that will please the adults in their lives, and modeling appropriate behavior in picture books can help them work out what is expected of them. Demonstrating funny scenarios of what would never do is a funny and endearing way to discuss the behaviors they are aiming for.

Question: Can you recall a teacher that you had in school who helped you learn good etiquette?

CH: I can’t remember anyone at school specifically teaching me about manners – my parents were pretty good at that!  I think learning good manners is just part and parcel of the fabric of school life.

We raise our hands when we want to speak, we share our toys and equipment, we cooperate in our role play, we look at the teacher when they are talking…I’ve met many, many very patient  teachers who reinforce this good behavior constantly throughout the day. And many, many fabulous children who know what is expected and delight in helping to create a positive atmosphere in their classrooms.

My favorite teacher at primary school was a lady called Mrs. Jack. She could play the guitar, and sing, and was great fun. We used to think she lived at school and I remember being very surprised when I saw her in the street once!

Question: Why did you choose a question-and-answer format for your Dragon books?

CH: This concept actually came from Nosy Crow – they came up with the idea of putting a Little Dragon into a home setting in the first book, When a Dragon Comes to Stay,  to see what she would do. The refrain, “Why no! Dragon’s don’t do that!” was also their concept. All I had to do was create a story to fit!

I actually think this format works brilliantly as it gives young children a chance to think about how they might behave in certain situations. Or perhaps how their friends or siblings might behave. Children love to take the moral high ground and the When a Dragon books give little ones a perfect opportunity to identify the right way to go about things. It also gives us, as creators, an opportunity to inject a great deal of humor into the story and to show that, just like the little dragon, we are all still learning!

MP: What was the most fun part of creating When a Dragon Goes to School? What was the most challenging part?

CH: I hesitate to use the term “naughty” because I think it’s rather judgmental and negative, but the best bit about writing the book was thinking up some cheeky things that our little dragon might do when she started school. I wanted to choose things that young children would find funny and endearing without making our little character seem mean or unkind. I hope we succeeded!

This article first appeared on the Magination Press Family blog. Click here to view the original post. 

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Introducing Sunday Funday: A Nature Activity for Every Weekend of the Year!

This October we’re very excited to be publishing Sunday Funday: A Nature Activity for Every Weekend of the Year – a gorgeous gift book of 52 seasonal activities for family and friends to enjoy, published in collaboration with the National Trust.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing an early preview of the book – you can take a look at the first few activities below!

Make every Sunday a fun day with an inspirational nature activity for every weekend of the year! From green-fingered gardening projects and outdoor obstacle courses to creative crafts and warming winter recipes, there is something for everyone, whatever the weather. Packed with super seasonal activities for children (and adults!) of all ages, this book will make every family weekend a fantastic one.

Written by HerStory author, Katherine Halligan, and with beautiful full-colour artwork by Jesús Verona, illustrator of the Look What I Found series, this wonderful hardback is a book to be treasured for years to come.

Take a look inside:

Sunday Funday will be published this October! You can pre-order a copy today from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date will of our latest books, including early previews, giveaways and offers, you can sign up for our newsletter at this page.

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Take a look inside Where’s Mr Fire Engine – the latest book in the bestselling Felt Flaps series

This month we’re delighted to have published Where’s Mr Fire Engine – a brand new book in our bestselling, award-winning Felt Flaps series, illustrated by Ingela P Arrhenius. And today we’re sharing a video of the book in action – you can watch it below!

With five colourful felt flaps to lift, friendly characters throughout, and a fun mirror ending, there’s so much to discover in this Felt Flaps book. From Mrs Doctor to Mrs Witch, Mr Owl to Mr Lion, there are over twenty books to collect in this stylish series for babies and toddlers – a must-have for any nursery bookshelf.

“The felt flaps in this sturdy board book are perfect for little ones to turn and tug, which means you can get even the tiniest tot into books and finding the activity fun… A perfect book to share with very little ones!” – BookTrust

Where’s Mr Fire Engine is out now – you can buy a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

If you’re looking for more books for babies and toddlers, you might like the Peekaboo series, also created by Ingela P Arrhenius, with 10 sliders in each book and that signature friendly artwork.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all our book news, including early previews, giveaways, and exclusive offers, you can sign up to our books newsletter here.

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