Nosy Crow's Blog, page 51

No Ballet Shoes In Syria selected for the 2020 Read for Empathy Collection

We’re delighted that No Ballet Shoes In Syria by Catherine Bruton has been selected as one of the books in EmpathyLab‘s 2020 Empathy Day Collection! The collection provides teachers with a resource for educating children and young people about empathy, with themes covering family dynamics, relationships, and emotional intelligence, amongst others.

Founded in 2017, Empathy Day aims to drive a new empathy movement around the world – and each year the organisation selects books to enhance empathy skills. This year’s Empathy Day will take place on 11 June, with schools, libraries, young people’s organisations, publishers, and booksellers joining forces to emphasise the importance of empathy and the empathy-building power of books. By reading, we can learn to better understand each other and the world we live in.

No Ballet Shoes In Syria, selected for this year’s Read for Empathy Collection, is a beautifully-detailed, captivating story about an eleven-year-old Syrian refugee, seeking a new home in Britain. With an important message championing the rights of refugees, filled with such warmth, hope, and humanity, this is a fantastic selection for the collection – and we’re incredibly proud to see it featured on the list!

You can take a look inside the book here:



Buy the book.

And here’s a preview of the audiobook edition:



Buy the audiobook.

You can find out more about Empathy Day and view the full collection, here.

Q&A with Nizrana Farook author of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant and editor Kirsty Stansfield

Author Nizrana Farook sat down with her editor Kirsty Stansfield, to discuss her debut middle-grade novel, The Girl Who Stole an Elephant  – a thrilling adventure of friendship, flight and writing wrongs, featuring a band of animals and set in an enchanting jungle setting.

Chaya, a no-nonsense, outspoken hero, leads her friends and a gorgeous elephant on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing the queen’s jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?

—

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant is such a great adventure story! Did you always want to write something with loads of action?

Not really! To start off with, I was very interested in writing a mystery and that’s what I did. It didn’t have the kind of action that The Girl Who Stole an Elephant has. But I do love writing unexpected twists, and that’s something both stories have in common. I learnt to write lots of action on the job. The character of Chaya, the setting of Serendib, the situation that she was in, they all demanded that there be lots of action. How could I not take advantage of that waterfall, or the leopard, or the bandits!

Chaya is so brilliantly headstrong! Was she inspired by anyone in particular?

Chaya is very much an aspirational figure for me. She’s everything I would have found cool and exciting as a child (although not the thief part!). She’s so brave and confident but at the same time highly principled and knows her mind. I would have loved to be her when I was that age. Or if not, at least be her friend. And that’s very much where the character of Nour comes in…

Have you always written?

I suppose I’ve come quite late to writing, after enjoying it a long time ago during my schooldays. I did have a lifelong dream to be an author, but it was more of a fun thought, not something I realistically expected to happen. When I started to write seriously and aim for publication I didn’t tell anyone. So it was strange that, when I got my book deal and told people about it, nobody seemed very surprised. A lot of people said to me, ‘That was always your thing, wasn’t it?’, even those who haven’t known me that long. So I guess yes, it has always been my thing somehow.

What other books or authors have influenced you?

Without a doubt, Enid Blyton. She made me fall in love with books. Her books don’t make for very comfortable reading as an adult, but as a child I loved them with all my heart. When I read her books, and I mostly had access to the old editions with Eileen Soper illustrations, it brings back so many memories. I read a lot of the classics too – books like Little Women, The Secret Garden and Heidi have always stayed with me. Some of them are strongly associated with particular times and memories in my life.

Have you ever ridden on the back of an elephant?

Yes. It’s not very unusual in the part of the world I come from. I wouldn’t do it now. There was this one time we were on holiday in a rural part of Sri Lanka and the house we stayed in had its own resident elephant. She had been part of the dowry of the lady who owned the house. The elephant seemed quite happy mooching about the large grounds with her mahout, but she must have led a very lonely life as elephants are such social creatures.

Did you always know the role Ananda would play in the story?

No! When I wrote the first chapter I didn’t know this was going to be a book at all. I ended the chapter with the king’s elephant trumpeting into the sky because I felt it was a nice finishing image for the chaos Chaya had caused at the palace feast. When she ends up being back there later and having to escape I got an idea to bring Ananda in again. So I had no advance warning that she was going to steal an elephant! I also didn’t anticipate how much of a starring role he would finally have. He ended up being in the title and on the cover!

What part of the book did you most enjoy writing?

The dialogue. I love how confrontational Chaya is with Nour, and I had great fun writing the conversations between them, with Neel trying to keep the peace. Some of the action scenes were a pleasure to write too, although I did feel quite tense when writing about some of the more dangerous situations they got into. Sometimes I’d come to the end of a scene and realise how rigidly I was holding myself, and have to tell myself to relax! You can get so carried away in the middle of the action.

The landscape is so beautifully done. Even the leeches are appealing! How easy was it to bring Sri Lanka to life on the page?

Thank you. Bringing the landscape to life was actually one of the easiest parts of writing the book. And because it is a work of fiction I could take some liberties with the geography and features to serve the story.

I’m surprised you found the leeches appealing! Not for me, they’re not! The leech scene actually happened. I went on a school trip a long time ago to a rainforest in Sri Lanka. I wrote all the jungle scenes in the book from just that experience because it was well before there was any commercial nature tourism on the scale it is today. Inexplicably, we had bare legs and flip flops! So we were barely more protected than the barefoot Chaya. We had a guide who was a local girl not much older than us (we were seventeen) and who seemed completely unfazed by the whole thing. She said things like, “Don’t worry about the leopards – they run away when they see people.” For anyone lucky enough not to know, it doesn’t hurt when leeches are attached to you and sucking your blood. There’s a sort of itching and you look down to see the horrible, previously skinny creatures ballooning up on your leg. Still, you can imagine the screams from a group of schoolgirls! Unlike in real life, the leech situation in my fictional jungle had to be completely toned down. In the book they were only in certain parts of the jungle; in reality they were everywhere.

—

Thank you, Nizrana! I will read that leech scene with new eyes next time. And thank you for taking time out from writing your next book to answer these questions. Hope it wasn’t too much time, mind.

You can take a look inside the book below:

Buy the book.

And if you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our book news, you can sign up to our books newsletter at this page, or with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing:

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Earth Heroes Poster Competition Winner!

Today we’re excited to announce the winner of our Earth Heroes poster competition! To celebrate the publication of Earth Heroes, by Lily Dyu – an inspiring collection celebrating the pioneering work of climate change activists around the world – we invited readers of The Week Junior to get creative and design a poster encouraging people to take action and save the planet.

We received hundreds of great entries focusing on important issues from recycling to reducing plastic use, saving water and protecting wildlife. We faced a tough decision, but we are delighted to announce that the winner is 7-year-old Mateo! His brilliant poster features a really strong, timely message and beautifully drawn animals.

Mateo will receive a signed copy of Earth Heroes and will be adopting a moon bear through the Born Free Foundation. His poster will also be published in The Week Junior and The Week Junior Science+Nature. He was delighted to win as he loves animals and is passionate about ecology.

You can see his entry below:

You can take a look inside Earth Heroes below:



Buy the book.

Thank you to all of the children and schools who sent in their posters. We were delighted to receive such a high volume of entries and it was great to see everyone’s passion to help save the planet. You can see a selection of our favourite entries at the top of this post – we hope they inspire you to take action and be an Earth Hero!

Listen to Alastair Chisholm’s Orion Lost playlist!

All the board the spaceship Orion, prepare to be transported to EOS FIVE…

Alastair Chisholm‘s hugely gripping new space adventure, Orion Lost, launched into the world just over a week ago. With a classic feel, aliens, space pirates, AI, and tonnes of action, this is the perfect intergalactic escapade for fans of Star Wars and Ender’s Game. And today we’re sharing the atmospheric playlist from Alastair himself!

Listen to the playlist:

The transport ship Orion is four months out of Earth when catastrophe strikes – leaving the ship and everyone on board stranded in deep space.

Suddenly it’s up to thirteen-year-old Beth and her friends to navigate through treacherous and uncharted territory to reach safety. But a heavily-damaged ship, space pirates, a mysterious alien species, and an artificial intelligence that Beth doesn’t know if she can trust means that getting home has never been so difficult…

You can read the first few chapters below:

You can pick up your copy, here. And if you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our book news, you can sign up to our books newsletter with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing.

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Bookshop sightings of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant!

This month we’re talking all things The Girl Who Stole an Elephant – the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month for January! We’re delighted that so many bookshops are trumpeting about this fantastic jungle adventure, with wonderful displays spotted all over the country – as seen above and below. If you spot any displays in a bookshop near you, please share it with us on Twitter or Instagram!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Waterstones Folkestone (@waterstonesfolkestone) on Jan 10, 2020 at 2:55am PST

Chaya, a no-nonsense, outspoken hero, leads her friends and a gorgeous elephant on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing the queen’s jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?

Read the first few chapters below:

You can find a copy of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, with a blue cover, in your nearest branch of Waterstones, or pick up a copy online here.

Thank you again to all the booksellers and readers who have been championing this book!

From Sudoku to Space – a guest post by Alastair Chisholm

We’re thrilled to have just published Orion Lost, the debut children’s novel by Alastair Chisholm, which is a hugely gripping sci-fi adventure featuring aliens, space pirates, AI, and tons of action. And today we’re excited to be sharing a piece from Alastair himself, on his journey from Sudoku to Space!

____

This year started in the most awesome way, with the publication of my first novel, Orion Lost, by Nosy Crow. It’s a sci-fi adventure set on a stranded starship, with a group of children trying to figure out how to get everyone home – and who is lying to them.

Before this, I’ve written picture books for smaller children, and before that I wrote quite a lot of puzzle books for adults and kids. By day I’m a computer programmer, and I’ve been told a few times: It must be hard to switch from computer programming to writing children’s novels!

Well …

I’ve always been a bit of a nerd, and as a kid I loved reading or watching sci-fi – Nicholas Fisk, John Christopher, Jan Mark, John Wyndham, Doctor Who and Blakes 7, Star Trek and Star Wars …

There were two types of sci-fi I loved. The first was actually stories about people. In The Ennead, Jan Mark’s grim sci-fi world forces her characters into compromises and bad deals, and asks the question: what would you do to survive? Nicholas Fisk’s Trillions is as much about human paranoia as its marvellous tiny creatures. Star Wars would be nothing without Han and Leia bickering!

“Stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!” (Han and Leia bickering in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.)

The second type was where the author added clever twists to things you thought you knew. In Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, his robots had famous Laws about what they must and must not do, but in each story a situation arose where they seemed to do something completely different. It made no sense – until the cunning Chief Robopsychologist, Susan Calvin, explained it, and showed how the Laws had actually forced them do it.

That was my introduction to computer programming. It was amazing: you could set up rules that seemed perfectly reasonable, but in this situation they’d result in something bizarre, or terrible … or sometimes super-cool.

(I loved fantasy as well, by the way. I can’t leave without saying how much I adored Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, which again was as much about people as magic. I re-read The Grey King until it literally fell apart in my hands.)

The Grey King by Susan Cooper, re-read until it disintegrated

So I became a programmer, which is both fun and infuriating because computers always do what you tell them. They don’t think, Oh, he said to do this, but I know he didn’t actually mean right now. They just do it, and the trick is working out the rules to get them to do the right thing.

A few years later, Sudoku and other logic puzzles came along and became a world-wide craze, and I was hooked. I loved how their simple rules led to endless complex scenarios and solutions, just like the robot Laws. I learned how to create my own and published books of Sudoku, Kakuro, Hashi and others, for adults and children.

But even while neck-deep in logic puzzles and programming geekery, I was writing. I’d always enjoyed writing, in between coding sessions. And one day I thought: I should write a children’s novel.

What should it be about? I recalled the children’s books I’d loved. What was it I’d liked about them? Did they have anything in common? Well, I thought: even the sci-fi ones were really about people. The adults behaved like proper adults, with their own lives and motivations. The kids felt real – they bickered, they joked, sometimes they got stuff wrong. With two children of my own, I knew I wanted something about the way we grow up, and take on more than we can manage, and figure it out.

And a scene kept slipping into my head: a girl, waking up alone on a starship. It’s very quiet, and the lights are dimmed, and as she walks down an echoey corridor, a voice says: You have to save us.

So: mystery, adventure, sci-fi problems, people. But how did the ship get there? What was it doing? What had happened to leave this girl in command? Who were the other children?

Basically, what was the plot?

Puzzles and plotting have a lot in common. You know that feeling where you have several pieces of a puzzle, and lots of ways they could sort-of-fit, but not quite? Plotting is like that. The pieces are characters, events, scenes, dialogue. He could do this, you think. She could do that, they could go there … but then she has to come back here, and he has to say this, and then this has to happen … And the pieces can change shape. Villains can become heroic, heroes can be cruel – so maybe it’s not him that says this but her, but that would mean …

It can be maddening! But, like a puzzle, you know when the pieces aren’t quite right. You try something else, rearrange events, move conversations. And gradually you start to get a feeling that, yes, this. And when it’s right, you know it’s right.

Caution: Writer at Work. (Homer Simpson, from The Simpsons.)

So: Is it hard to switch from computer programming to writing children’s novels? No, not at all! We computer geeks were raised on tales of future worlds. We build scenes and characters out of software. We constantly imagine situations that don’t exist, and say, yes, but what if…? We love puzzles. We can spot a plot hole at a hundred metres.

But also, you don’t have to be one thing or the other. Be both, at the same time. Take what you do and use it to make stories. Programmers can be storytellers. Artisan bakers can be storytellers. Mountaineers, accountants, artists, pig farmers, footballers, gardeners …

I’m a computer geeky, puzzle-creating storyteller. What kind are you?

_____

Thanks, Alastair!

You can take a look inside Orion Lost below:

 

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant now available as an audiobook

Today we’re delighted to share a brand new audiobook edition of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farook –a thrilling and enchanting jungle adventure, perfect for 9-12 year old readers. You can listen to the first chapter of the new audiobook edition here!

Currently being championed as Waterstones’ Children’s Book of the Month, The Girl Who Stole an Elephant is adventure at its best – a brave, outspoken heroine, a mystery, a jewel thief, and an escape into the jungle with an elephant at your side!

Wonderfully narrated by Aysha Kala, you can buy the audiobook of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant from Audible and Amazon now – you can listen to the preview of the audiobook below.

Buy the audiobook.

You can also read the opening chapters of the book:

You can find a copy of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, with an exclusive green cover, in your nearest branch of Waterstones, or pick up a copy online here.

Four Nosy Crow books included in the 2020 Summer Reading Challenge

The book collection for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge has just been announced, and we’re absolutely thrilled to see that four Nosy Crow titles have made the list!

The Summer Reading Challenge is a Reading Agency initiative, and takes place every year during the summer holidays. It encourages children aged 4 to 11 to read six library books during the long summer holiday, to keep up their reading skills and confidence and to complete the Challenge. In 2019, over 700,000 children in the UK took part.

There’s a different theme each year – this year’s theme is Silly Squad, and is a celebration of funny books, happiness and laughter.

There are four Nosy Crow titles included in this year’s selection – here’s a look at each.

Bad Cat!, by Nicola O,Byrne is included in this year’s younger books collection.

Fluffykins is a lovely cat. He wouldn’t do anything naughty . . . would he? But what’s this? He’s knocked over the flowers, tangled up all the knitting, bent the blinds, trodden on the laptop AND scratched the sofa . . . and he won’t say sorry. What a bad cat! Whatever will Fluffykins do next? This witty and perfectly-paced story by award-winning author-illustrator Nicola O’Byrne revels in all the mayhem of living with a feline friend.

Find out more

Mr Brown’s Bad Day, written by Lou Peacock and illustrated by Alison Friend, is also included in the younger books collection.

Mr Brown is a Very Important Tiger who works in a Very Important Office. He carries a Very Important Briefcase and does Very Important Things all day long. But when his Very Important Briefcase goes missing, Mr Brown’s world is turned upside down. He goes on a VERY wild chase all over town, but will he ever get his briefcase back? And what about the Very Important Things inside?

Find out more

Wigglesbottom Primary: Break-Time Bunnies written by Pamela Butchart and illustrated by Becka Moor, with three hilarious adventures from our favourite classroom!

All is chaos in Year 2! An unexpected visitor, a bewitched violin and an invasion of bunnies! What can it all mean? This series is ideal for children growing in confidence as readers and beginning to read alone.

Find out more

And finally, On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold! written by Scott Allen and illustrated by Antoine Corbineau has been included in this year’s lineup for older children.

From boxing to boccia, find out just what it takes to become an Olympic and Paralympic star in this hilariously informative guide to the games. For each sport you’ll discover why it’s great, why it’s not so great, what skills and equipment you’ll need to start practising and even how to sound like a pro! With bold, energetic illustrations and a text packed with weird, wonderful and wildly hilarious facts, this is a laugh-a-minute, fascinating guide to every Olympic and Paralympic sport.

Find out more

You can find out more about the Summer Reading Challenge, and read this year’s complete book collections, here.

New books out in January!

The holidays may be over, the tree taken down, the decorations packed away, but the fun isn’t over – we’ve got a bunch of brilliant new books flying your way today! From wonderful sing-along board books to heart-warming picture books, a fun non-fiction sticker book, and four fantastic fiction titles, we’ve got something for everyone this month.

Here’s a closer look at what you can find in bookshops (and online) from Nosy Crow this month. Which of these books are you most excited for?

Sing Along With Me! Incy Wincy Spider, by Yu-hsuan Huang, out now in whiteboard:

Buy the book.

Sing Along With Me! The Wheels on the Bus, by Yu-hsuan Huang, out now in whiteboard:

Buy the book.

Sing Along With Me! If You’re Happy and You Know It, by Yu-hsuan Huang, out now in whiteboard:

Buy the book.

Superhero Gran, written by Timothy Knapman and illustrated by Joe Berger:

You can buy the book here. The paperback edition also comes with a free audio reading – find out more here.

British Museum: So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? A Kid’s Life in Ancient Rome, written by Chae Strathie and illustrated by Marisa Morea:

You can buy the book here – now available in paperback.

British Museum: 101 Stickers! Ancient Egypt, illustrated by Sophie Beer:

Buy the book.

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farook:

Buy the book. You can also buy an exclusive Waterstones edition, here.

Orion Lost, by Alastair Chisholm:

Buy the book.

The Monster in the Lake, written by Louie Stowell and illustrated by Davide Ortu:

Buy the book.

Unicorn Academy: Isla and Buttercup, written by Julie Sykes and illustrated by Lucy Truman:

Buy the book.

Congratulations to all of our author and illustrators with books out today!

Take a look inside Magnificent Mabel and the Rabbit Riot!

In February we’re excited to be publishing Magnificent Mabel and the Rabbit Riot, written by Ruth Quayle and illustrated by Julia Christians – a truly hilarious and one-of-a-kind new fiction series for young readers, featuring three unforgettable adventures, beautifully illustrated throughout. And today you can take a look inside the book!

Sometimes life isn’t fair for Mabel Chase. Like for instance she doesn’t have one SINGLE pet in her whole life. And ALL the people in her class are losing their baby teeth. And she doesn’t EVEN have a sprinkler in her own garden. But none of that matters in the end… because Mabel is still MAGNIFICENT.

Here’s the first few pages of the book:

Magnificent Mabel and the Rabbit Riot will be publishing on February 9th! You can pre-order your copy from Waterstones here, from The Hive here, or from our website here.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our books news, sign up to our newsletter at this page, or with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing.

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