Nosy Crow's Blog, page 26

The Secret Detectives is now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of The Secret Detectives, by Ella Risbridger – a hugely gripping historical mystery, inspired by The Secret Garden and the golden age of crime writing, perfect for 9-12-year old readers.

When Isobel Petty is orphaned, she finds herself being taken away from her home in India and sent to live with a distant uncle in England. On board the S.S. Marianna, she witnesses a shocking act – somebody being thrown overboard in the middle in the night. But when the ship’s captain insists that nobody is missing, Isobel and her two new reluctant friends must solve two mysteries – the identities of both the murderer and the victim – before they reach England and the culprit has the chance to escape.

You can buy the audiobook of The Secret Detectives from Audible, Amazon, 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 paperback copy of The Secret Detectives from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, and from Amazon here.

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Where’s Mr Pirate is out today!

We’re absolutely thrilled that Where’s Mr Pirate – the latest book in the bestselling Felt Flaps series, by Ingela P Arrhenius – is out today!

Little readers love this chunky board book series, with characters to find behind the soft felt flaps in each book. Can you find Mrs Parrot, Mr Monkey, Mrs Shark and finally Mr Pirate himself? Lift the flaps to discover the characters and then spot yourself in the hidden mirror at the end!

Take a look inside the book:

You can order a copy of Where’s Mr Pirate from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here.

If you’re looking for the other books in this brilliant series, you can find them here. You might also like the Peekaboo series, also created by Ingela P Arrhenius, with lots of sliders and that signature friendly artwork.

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter here, or using the form at the bottom of the page, to be the first to know about our new books.

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Diving into the artwork of The Wide, Wide Sea – a guest post from Jenny Løvlie

Next month we’re delighted to be publishing The Wide, Wide Sea, written by Anna Wilson and illustrated by Jenny Løvlie – an inspiring new picture book about protecting our coastlines from plastic pollution.

Today we’re pleased to share a guest post by Jenny on developing the artwork of The Wide, Wide Sea and her personal connection to this story and the visual landscape of the book.

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The first time I read The Wide Wide Sea, I wept. It was so beautiful and tender, and a subject close to my heart – I grew up on Ekkerøy by the Barents Sea in Northern Norway and loved seals most of all the creatures living in the sea.

My most memorable encounter was with a Greenland seal. I must have been about four or five years old and I had woken up very early on a Saturday morning. I decided to go down to the beach, only a stone’s throw away from our house and there it was. A lovely black and white seal, sunning itself on the beach. I had just watched a film about a baby seal being rescued and tried my best to drag this enormous adult seal down to the water, but I couldn’t shift it. It must have weighed about 250kg! I told Anna, the author of The Wide Wide Sea, about this in our first meeting at Nosy Crow and she, in turn, told me of the seals in Cornwall.

Having grown up by the sea, I found that the ideas flowed pretty freely with this wonderfully visual and dreamlike text. I love drawing animals and underwater landscapes! If I could have a superpower it would be to be able to breathe and see well underwater.

The human character development was actually the most challenging task in this book: it took a few rounds before we landed on a set of characters that complemented the landscapes and animals.

The landscape is a mix of the landscape on Ekkerøy where I grew up, and the Cornish coast where Anna lives. The underwater scenes are largely from my imagination. The grandmother character is based on my old neighbour, Jack. She taught me a lot about nature and animals when I was a child. I tried to imagine what she might have looked like as a child and used that as a basis for the child.

When I start a new project I usually do a lot of research first: I read, I watch videos and films, and I look at a lot of pictures for reference to flood my brain with the imagery I want to create. I find this especially helpful when working on narrative non-fiction because when I feel confident that I know what the world looks like, it makes it easier to populate it with characters.

Then I start doing some quick, loose sketches in my sketchbook. I let inspiration take the lead – sometimes the characters emerge first and other times the landscapes and world-building come first.

Once I feel like I’ve developed a visual language for the book I make a set of thumbnails of all the pages. I find it liberating to work small to start with, having the small boxes to fill allows for more of an overview of the flow of the composition and the page turns.

Once I’m happy with the thumbnails I blow them up to the actual size and start working them over, making sure that the composition still works on a larger scale. Then I’ll start colouring. I make a colour palette for every book I make, I work digitally in Photoshop and find that if I don’t limit my palette I can easily get lost in all the myriads of colours that are available. Similarly, I will limit myself to a selection of ten brushes or so to create the textures. It’s so easy to get carried away!

—

Thank you Jenny for that insightful blog and for sharing your early sketches with us!

The Wide, Wide Sea is out on July 1st – you can pre-order a copy today from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here.

Take a look inside the book:

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Take a look inside Mummies Unwrapped

In August we’re publishing Mummies Unwrapped, illustrated by Tom Froese and published in collaboration with The British Museum – a fascinating and gruesome guide to ancient Egyptian mummies. And today we’re very excited to be sharing a preview of this new book!

What is a mummy? How exactly were they made? And is there really such a thing as a mummy’s curse?

Find out the answers to these questions and many more, in this gruesome guide to the mummification process. Filled with grisly detail, you’ll uncover secrets of the embalmers, tales of the tomb robbers and even what happened when pets were mummified!

Meet some famous mummies from around the world, from Tutankhamun to the ‘unlucky mummy’, and find out what happened when archaeologists discovered mummies thousands of years after they were buried.

With a glorious gold cover and quirky artwork, Mummies Unwrapped is a fantastic addition to any home bookshelf or school library.

Take a look inside:

Mummies Unwrapped is out this August – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Hive here, or Amazon here.

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

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Two Nosy Crow books shortlisted for the 2022 Laugh Out Loud Book Awards!

The shortlist for the 2022 Laugh Out Loud Book Awards (otherwise known as the Lollies) have been announced today – and we are absolutely thrilled that Octopus Shocktopus, written by Peter Bently and illustrated by Steven Lenton, and Wigglesbottom Primary: Break-Time Bunnies, written by Pamela Butchart and illustrated by Becka Moor, have recognised this year!

Run by Scholastic, the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards celebrate the best and funniest children’s books in the UK and Ireland, voted for by school pupils across the country – and we are delighted to see two of our books make the shortlist this year.

Octopus Shocktopus is a brilliantly bonkers story about an octopus who comes to live on the roof, with a heartwarming message about community and welcoming newcomers. With zingy, fun artwork and witty rhyming story, this picture book is a true joy to read!

Buy the book.

From Blue Peter award winner Pamela Butchart, Wigglesbottom Primary: Break-Time Bunnies is part of the hilarious school-based series where no two days are the same! With three short stories in each book, and fun two-colour artwork throughout, Wigglesbottom is perfect for encouraging independent reading.

Buy the book.

The winners of the Lollies will be announced next year, following voting in schools across the country in December. You can find out more about the awards here.

Congratulations Peter, Steve, Pamela and Becka – and good luck!

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Take a look inside Peekaboo House – the latest in the Peekaboo series by Camilla Reid and Ingela P Arrhenius

This month we’ve published Peekaboo House – the fifth title in this slider board book series, from the creators of the best-selling Felt Flaps series, Ingela P Arrhenius and Camilla Reid.

Designed for little hands, with 10 easy-to-use peekaboo sliders, bright artwork, and a surprise mirror ending, this is the perfect book to share with little ones.

And today we’re sharing a video demonstration of the book – you can see the book in action below!

Peekaboo House is available now – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, and Amazon here. If you’re interested in more Peekaboo books, you can discover the other books in the series here.

Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter here for our latest book news, exclusive previews, giveaways and more.

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Congratulations, Patrice!

Earlier this week we were delighted to see that author Patrice Lawrence (one of the contributors to our short story anthology, Make More Noise) has received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours Lists.

To be awarded an MBE for services to literature is a very great honour, and how wonderful that this should follow hot on the heels of Patrice’s recent success at the Jhalak Prize, where she won the inaugural Children’s and Young Adult Prize for Eight Pieces of Silva. We feel particularly proud because we are lucky enough to be publishing Patrice’s forthcoming picture book, My Granny Came to England on the Empire Windrush.

When we first announced that Patrice was writing a picture book for us to commemorate National Windrush Day, which occurs every June, she kindly wrote a few words to add to our press release. She said, “I am proud to write the book that I wish I’d owned as a child, especially when I was made to feel I didn’t belong in England. The struggles and achievements of the Windrush generation must never be forgotten.”

In just a few words, Patrice has eloquently summarised why picture books are so important and why they can be so powerful. They are both “windows and mirrors” – showing a child a world that reflects their own whilst also giving them a perspective into the way that others might live. With their beautiful illustrations and engaging stories, picture books are a way to help young children understand the world around them and to help them find their place in it. Like Patrice, I wish a book like this had existed sooner, to help the children of Windrush, and their parents, to make sense of the new world they found themselves in.

Of course, for a picture book to really work, it’s all about how the author tells the story. An author has to “show, not tell” – they have to demonstrate a fundamental truth by the way story events unfold, and how a character reacts and learns something about themselves, rather than making plain statements. Because stories stay with us. Because characters that we care about stay with us. Plain statements don’t.

It’s the way that Patrice tells the story of Ava and her beloved granny that makes it so powerful. The past and present collide as Granny tells Ava of the moment she arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948. The heat of Trinidad radiates off the page as Granny recollects her childhood home, but then we shiver in the bleakness of an English winter and the smog-laden skies of 1950s London. Patrice opens out the scale of the story yet further as she cleverly weaves in non-fiction elements, with reference to Rosa Parks and Winifred Atwell, so that Ava can really understand the scope and scale of her heritage.

But, ultimately, it’s the story of how a little girl adores her granny and of how there is no one else she would rather emulate. This is the way that Patrice tells us about Windrush and its legacy, how a personal experience can give us perspective on a crucial moment in history.

Patrice is a natural storyteller who is full of heart. She deserves every single accolade and award, and we can’t wait for this uplifting and important book to be available to everyone.

My Granny Came to England on the Empire Windrush is beautifully illustrated by debut artist Camilla Sucre, and will be published in May 2022 to commemorate National Windrush Day 2022.

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Take a look inside I’m Thinking of a Jungle Animal

Earlier this month we published I’m Thinking of a Jungle Animal, by Adam Guillain, Charlotte Guillain and Lucia Gaggiotti – the third book in this interactive, animal-themed board book series for babies and toddlers! With vibrant artwork, friendly rhyming text, and fun sliders to peek behind, this book is great for reading aloud.

And today we’re sharing a video demonstration of the book – you can see the book in action below!

Each child is thinking of jungle animal… What do they look like? What do they eat? And what noise do they make? Follow the simple clues, make a guess, then spot the animal hiding in the beautifully illustrated scene and pull the slider to reveal the answer! With four favourite jungle animals to find – and animal noises too!



I’m Thinking of a Jungle Animal is out now – you can purchase a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or Amazon here. You can find out more about the other books in the series, I’m Thinking of a Farm Animal, here, and I’m Thinking of a Pet, here.

Don’t forget to sign up to our books newsletter here to stay up-to-date with all of our latest books news, as well as early previews, giveaways and more.

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Nosy Crow acquire brilliantly original middle-grade adventure from début author Fiona Longmuir

Nosy Crow is delighted to announce the acquisition and publication of Looking for Emily, a hugely gripping mystery adventure from début author, Fiona Longmuir. Looking for Emily is set to publish in January 2022.

Tom Bonnick, Senior Commissioning Editor at Nosy Crow, bought world rights to Fiona’s debut from Julia Silk at Charlie Campbell Literary Agents.

Full of brilliantly original twists and turns, Looking for Emily is a contemporary, fast-paced middle-grade adventure, from a fresh and exciting new voice in children’s books.

When twelve-year-old Lily moves to the sleepy seaside town of Edge, she is sure that nothing exciting is ever going to happen to her again. But when she stumbles upon a secret museum hidden in the middle of town, she realises that there might be more to her new home than meets the eye. The Museum of Emily is filled with the belongings of one seemingly ordinary little girl, a little girl who, many years ago, disappeared from the town without a trace. With the help of her new friends Sam and Jay, Lily is determined to solve the mystery and find out who Emily was, why she disappeared and who has created the strange, hidden museum.

Tom Bonnick, Senior Commissioning Editor at Nosy Crow, comments: “I read a one-sentence pitch for Looking for Emily during a Twitter pitching event, and was immediately and completely hooked by the premise – a hidden museum dedicated to a single, mysterious person. Once I had the full manuscript in my hands, I just couldn’t put it down – it’s a truly original story, with fantastic twists, a brilliant trio of protagonists, and a villain worthy of Cape Fear’s Max Cady. And it’s a great privilege to be working with Fiona on her debut novel – she is a brilliant new talent to look out for!”

Author Fiona Longmuir comments: “I’ve been telling stories my whole life and I could not be more excited to be telling this one with Nosy Crow. This book contains all of my favourite things: a mystery, the seaside, copious amounts of chips, an unreasonably large library. It has my whole heart and it’s been such a total joy to work on it with Nosy Crow, who not only accepted but delighted in all its oddities. I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a little kid and now that it’s here, it’s everything I hoped it would be.”

Fiona Longmuir was born in Paisley, Scotland. Shortly after, she picked up a pencil and never really put it back down. She writes stories about stubborn, oddball kids, having had a lot of personal experience in this area. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award and the Joan Aiken Future Classics Prize. Fiona now lives in the Irish countryside with her brilliant partner and their very surly rabbit.

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What we got up to on Empathy Day

Yesterday was Empathy Day! Founded in 2017, Empathy Day is an annual event focused on building empathy through books – encouraging everyone to read, share books and put empathy into action. We’re proud to have worked with EmpathyLab on the project for the last few years and to have had our books included in the Read for Empathy guides, which feature recommendations of great empathy-building books.

This year, we’re delighted that The Suitcase by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros and Talking to the Moon by S.E. Durrant were included – you can find out more about them, and previous recommendations, in an earlier blog here.

As a company, Nosy Crow tries to do something different for Empathy Day every year and this time we decided to celebrate by giving all staff the morning off. We recognise that the past 15 months have been challenging for all of us, and to have the gift of a few hours can be a true act of empathy.

Everyone was encouraged to spend their morning taking some time to be kind themselves or building their empathy skills, from reading a book at a local school to catching up with friends, or even a bit of litter-picking in the park! Here’s how Nosy Crow spent Empathy Day…

Managing Director, Kate Wilson, had a very productive morning: volunteering as a warden at Serpentine Swimming Club, litter-picking the park, and evening doing a bit of weeding at the lake! Later, she went on to donate some blood at the donar centre near Oxford Street: “Empathy Day was the prompt for organising this: it’s been a shameful number of years since I gave blood. I bumped into Rachel Kellehar while I was there.”

Head of Sales and Marketing, Catherine Stokes, spent her Empathy Day visiting a primary school in Banbury where she read to some of the children and gifted the school this wonderful Pip and Posy print. She then went on to share a (well-deserved) cup of coffee with a good friend in the garden: “We find it surprisingly hard to find ‘quality time’ to sit and chat with all our work and family commitments and this morning was the perfect excuse.”

Our PR team finally met in person! Coffee, cake and lots of chat followed…

Our wonderful Rights team also spent their Empathy Day together, eating some (utterly delicious) pancakes…

Senior Commissioning Editor Alice Bartosinski was supporting British Heart Foundation as they’ve recently funded research to create a test that could mean a quicker diagnosis of Acute Aortic Syndrome. You can still join in by clicking here.

Our lovely Office Manager Michelle shared the following: “My mother has cancer and has been undergoing treatment since September of last year.  She is currently having regular chemotherapy sessions and, as I work full time, my brother takes her for her treatments.  It just so happens that yesterday was her ‘Chemo’ day so I took her to the appointment, providing mum with ongoing support and my brother a break from hospital visits.”

Production Manager, Leila Mauger sent a care package to her sister who lives abroad and Digital Marketing Manager, Elke also headed to the post office with some cards she’d written to friends she hasn’t seen in a while.

Senior Designer Holly is on holiday but she still marked Empathy Day by taking her son to the beach for some litter picking and chatting to some locals.

Contracts Manager Nur Ben-Hamida went to a local food bank and also took some clothes to a charity shop now that they’re open again and accepting donations.

Senior Sales Executive Maddie went for an Empathy Walk and made plans to see a friend she’d lost touch with.

Also in the Sales team, Senior Sales Manager Frances went for brunch with Senior Commissioning Editor Victoria and her out-of-office even prompted one of her customer to look into Empathy Day and learn more about it.

Area Sales Manager, Alice Corrigan went to help out her family and niece, plus she built her garden furniture. We must say we’re very impressed and wish we had such comfortable-looking seats to lounge on in the sunshine.

We hope you had a wonderful Empathy Day!

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