Nosy Crow's Blog, page 66
February 8, 2019
Take a look inside The Boy Who Flew, the new book from Fleur Hitchcock
This March we’re delighted to be publishing The Boy Who Flew by Fleur Hitchcock – a thrilling tale filled with danger and heroism set against a backdrop of the invention of flight, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Peter Bunzl and Philip Reeve. And today you can take a very first look inside the book – we’re sharing an early look at the opening chapters!
Athan Wilde dreams of flight. When his friend, Mr Chen, is murdered, Athan must rescue the fl ying machine they were building together and stop it falling into the wrong hands. But keeping the machine safe puts his family in terrible danger. What will Athan choose – flight or family?
From the acclaimed author of Murder In Midwinter, The Boy Who Flew is a thrilling, murderous tale set among the steep rooftops and slippery characters of Athan’s intricately imagined world.
Here’s an exclusive early look inside the book:
Pre-order The Boy Who Flew.
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February 7, 2019
It’s our February publication day!
It’s our February publication day – and we have some fantastic new books out this month! Here’s a look at what you can find in shops now from Nosy Crow.
There are two brand new books in our award-winning and internationally best-selling Felt Flaps series, illustrated by Ingela P. Arrhenius, out today – Where’s Mrs Kangaroo? and Where’s Mr Duck?. With bold, graphic artwork, these vibrant board books are perfect for sharing with babies and toddlers. Peek behind the bright felt flap on every spread to find a hiding animal – and then enjoy the fantastic mirror reveal on the final page. Here’s a look at each title:
We’re publishing two new books in Timothy Knapman and Joe Berger’s wonderful Superhero Parents picture book series – Superhero Mum and Son and Superhero Mum and Daughter, both out today in beautiful board book editions. Here’s a look inside each version:
It’s publication day for Dinosaur Farm!, the latest picture book in Penny Dale’s wonderful Dinosaur picture book series. They’ve built, they’ve zoomed, they’ve rescued, they’ve flown into space and they’ve even fought off baddy pirates, but now our dynamic team of dinosaurs have moved to pastures new – literally – working hard on the Dinosaur Farm! Join them as they plough the stony soil, feed the sheep, cut the corn in a combine harvester and much more! But what are they preparing all their animals and crops for? And where are they travelling to in their tractor? Why, it’s a farm show! But will they win the grand prize? Here’s a look inside the book:
Leap Frog, written by Jane Clarke and illustrated by Britta Teckentrup, is out today – a beautiful and stylish new picture book from the creative duo behind Neon Leon and Firefly Home. Felix is lost. The jungle can be a scary place for a tiny tree frog, and all the strange noises are making him just a little bit jumpy . . . It’s time to find Felix a safe place to sleep . . . and might there be someone special to snuggle him down for the night? With vibrant neon ink, this is a wonderful book to share – here’s a look inside:
And we’ve also published a brand new paperback edition of Firefly Home by Jane and Britta today! There’s no place like home, but poor Florence Firefly is lost, and there are so many bright lights shining in the night sky she doesn’t know which way to go. She’ll need some help to find her way back home. In this brilliant interactive picture book, children can help Florence on her journey by encouraging her to fly faster, suggesting which direction to take and making a wish. Here’s a look inside the book:
We’re delighted to be launching a stunning new lift the flap board book series today – Animal Families: Jungle and Farm! Find out the different names for mummy and daddy animals in the farm and jungle – and then lift the flap to find the babies! A striking, satisfying introduction to animal families, with screen-printed artwork from Jane Ormes and bold neon ink to capture the attention and imagination of babies and toddlers. Here’s a look at the first two titles in the series:
It’s publication day for Snow Sisters: The Enchanted Waterfall, written by Astrid Foss and illustrated by Monique Dong – the thrilling conclusion to the fantastic Snow Sisters series – a beautifully illustrated, sparkly fantasy quartet, full of magic, adventure, and cute animals. It’s the Day of the Midnight Sun and the evil Shadow Witch is ready to use all her power to steal the magic of the Everchanging Lights and turn the skies dark for ever… The Snow Sisters must be braver and stronger than they ever imagined for their final quest. How will they reach Silfur Falls and return the Everchanging Lights to the sky before the clock strikes midnight? Here’s a look inside the book:
And finally, Unicorn Academy: Rosa and Crystal, written by Julie Sykes and illustrated by Lucy Truman, is out now – the seventh story in this series of magical, action-packed adventures, perfect for young readers! Rosa is over the moon to be starting school at Unicorn Academy. She can’t wait to go on a big adventure with her amazing unicorn, Crystal. When the magical map stops working, Rosa is sure a secret trip to the glittering cavern holds the answer. But to find out, she and Crystal must learn how to work as a team – fast! Here’s a look inside the book:
Congratulations to all of this month’s authors and illustrators!
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February 5, 2019
Happy Year of the Pig!
Pigs. They’re everywhere in children’s books – from the pig baby in the arms of the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland through Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web to Peppa Pig in, well, so many books it’s almost indecent.
This is the start of the Chinese Year of the Pig, and we wish every reader good fortune, health and prosperity for the next twelve months. The internet tells us that people born in the Year of the Pig are realistic, enthusiastic, energetic and gentle and find that having something solid in their hand – a book, perhaps – gives them security. Not a bad description of Nosy Crow, actually (though, in fact, Nosy Crow is a Year of the Tiger kind of beast, it turns out).
In common with lots of children’s publishers, there are pigs in many of our books too. Nosy Crow has a very international perspective. We try to be respectful of different cultures, countries and religions, and, of course, we know that there are some publishers in some countries and some readers, both in the UK and elsewhere, who don’t like to see pigs in children’s books… but they also, in our view, add colour, fun and a great snorting opportunity that means that we do include them in many books about farms.
Here are a few of our books in which pigs are heroes:
Portly Pig, the sound chip book by Axel Scheffler, is complete with proper piggy grunting throughout.
The Three Little Pigs, whether the book or the app, is a deliciously fresh take on the traditional tale, illustrated by Ed Bryan. This was our first app, and remains our bestseller. I hold it in the most enormous affection.
In The Mystery of the Haunted Farm by Elys Dolan, nursery story meets Scooby Doo and Ghostbusters, as three pigs are called out to solve a spooky mystery.
The Piglet Pickle, by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton, is a two-colour chapter book caper in which two children “rescue” a pig from a city farm and take it home with predictably amusing results.
A Piglet Called Truffle is the first of Helen Peters’ Jasmine Green books, illustrated by Ellie Snowdon, and is another story of farms and rescue, but imbued with all the careful observation of rural life that Helen brings to this series.
And of course there are loads of Nosy Crow preschool and picture books (and another app) in which pigs play a supporting role – Bizzy Bear: Farmyard Fun is the book, and Bizzy Bear: On The Farm is the app in which Bizzy feeds apples to some cheerful pigs, and pigs feature in Old Macdonald’s Things That Go, Animal Families: Farm, Hello farm, Old MacDonald Things that Go, Look and Say What You See on the Farm, Who’s Hiding on the Farm, Listen to the Farm, Little Blue Truck, Can You Say It Too: Moo Moo!, and Look, There’s a Tractor!, amongst others.
Best wishes for the year to come!
恭贺新禧!
February 4, 2019
How To Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear is an ACE Awards Finalist
We are really proud that How To Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear, written by Jess French and illustrated by Angela Keoghan, has been selected as one of three finalists in the Best Children’s Publication category of the ACE Awards. Run by the Association of Creative Enterprises, these are awards that are for museums, galleries, places of interest and charities. How to Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear is eligible because it is published in collaboration with The National Trust, with whom we’ve been working since 2016 to produce books that encourage children to understand and enjoy the environment around them.
This beautifully illustrated book looks at different habitats around the world. There’s a species fact file for every habitat focusing on the fascinating creatures that live there, many of which are endangered, and a section on the actions that children can take to support that habitat, from planting native flowers for bees to never flushing wet-wipes down the loo. The book has had a particularly lovely response from parents and teachers, recognising the importance of the message that little things that children and families can do can improve the health of habitats around the world. Here are some of the comments that the bloggers and others have made:
“Utterly fascinating… a great new book for budding conservationists.”
– Read It Daddy blog
“Beautifully illustrated… the tone of the writing is perfect… a wonderful, positive book.”
– Odd Socks and Lollipops blog
“Lavishly and stunningly illustrated by Angela Keoghan, the book is very approachable and really speaks directly to the child – little things make a big difference, so everyone will feel encouraged to try.”
– Parents in Touch online magazine
“Find out about habitats around the world – from hedgerows and heathlands to oceans and jungles – and the creatures who live there. This book contains ways you can help animals, whether it’s looking after hedgehogs in your garden or campaigning to protect endangered species.”
– The Week Junior
“Perfect for all ages from 5 year olds to 105 years old, this is one not just for school but a perfect home addition as well.”
– Books for Topics
Here’s a look inside the book:
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony at the ACE2019 Gala Dinner on 28 February 2019 – congratulations, Jess and Angela!
January 17, 2019
Karen McCombie introduces her new book, Little Bird Flies
Little Bird Flies is the first in a gripping, dramatic new duo from much-loved author, Karen McCombie.
And today you can watch Karen introducing the book!
Bridie lives on the remote Scottish island of Tornish, the youngest of three sisters. Although she loves her island, with its wild seas and big skies, she guiltily nurses a secret dream of flight – to America and the freedom of the New World.
But her family are struggling under the spiteful oppression of the new Laird, and it seems that even some of the Laird’s own household are desperate to leave. When the Laird’s full cruelty becomes apparent, there’s no more time for daydreams as Bridie needs to help the people she loves escape to safety.
You can watch Karen introducing Little Bird Flies at the top of this post – and you can also read the book’s opening chapter below:
Little Bird Flies is out now – you can find out more about the book here.
January 14, 2019
“I think there is a lot to be said for laughing and learning…” – a guest post by When Good Geeks Go Bad author, Catherine Wilkins
Today’s guest post is by Catherine Wilkins, author of the My Best Friend and Other Enemies series and the hilarious new When Good Geeks Go Bad. Here’s Catherine on balancing humour with serious subject matter in her writing…
For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of comedy. Ever since I was a small child my favourite things were stories and silliness.
If you had asked tiny Catherine, circa the 1980s, what she liked most, she would have replied: French and Saunders, Victoria Wood, Timmy Mallet and Roald Dahl.
Then, when I was about ten, I attempted to use comedy to try and “process” a vaguely traumatic thing that happened on a school trip.
We were going to France, and my class had to board the Sea Cat Hovercraft to cross the Channel. (I think it was just a day trip to look at walls and buy Brie for our parents.)
On the journey back home we hit Gale Force Nine winds and had a very turbulent crossing. Almost everyone was sick, including most of the teachers. I had never seen so many sick bags in use simultaneously. And we all had to stay sitting, strapped in, next to each other, watching each other continuously vomiting, and setting each other off in a weird spiral of puke-escalation.
I think I was one of about only three people who wasn’t sick. Which then (like in the days of plague) elevated my status to “important go-between” as the teachers were unable to get to each other to discuss anything.
The next week at school we had to write about our trip. Most people wrote about how pretty the wall was, or how they had enjoyed practising their French to buy cheese.
I wrote a poem about how everyone had been sick. I remember deliberately trying to make it as funny and entertaining as possible, with call backs, exclamation marks, and attention-grabbing lines like, ‘But oh no! Ryan saw Drew being sick! We need another sick bag, quick!’
I didn’t get a very high mark for it. Possibly because the teacher who had to mark it was also described as one of the pukers. Or maybe I just hadn’t mastered iambic pentameter as well as I thought I had.
With hindsight, I now realise it might have seemed insensitive to go on about being sick so much, when maybe some of those people would rather not be reminded about it.
This is an example of how comedy can be a tricky thing to get right.
One of the things I most wanted to achieve in my new book, WHEN GOOD GEEKS GO BAD, was the balance of comedy and seriousness. My character, Ella, is thirteen. She’s a little bit older than Jessica, the main character in my previous books, and she has a bit more going on at school and a slightly more difficult home life. She is dealing with some quite big issues as well as going through a bit of an identity crisis. So I really wanted this to be a book that dealt with serious topics in a light way while still giving them the gravitas they deserved. But I also wanted it to be funny. But without seriously triggering anyone.
I think in the end, with the help of my fantastic editor, the balance was struck at the perfect pitch.
Comedy isn’t always taken as seriously as an art form in the wider world, which I think is a shame. After all, I learnt the word “specious” from The Simpsons; “eclectic” from Frasier and “sporadic” from the comedy film, Clueless.
I think there is a lot to be said for laughing and learning. Hopefully this book delivers both, as well as helping teenagers to make sense of darker times and feelings.
I find when things in my life go a bit dark, it can help me to laugh at them, make them less scary, make sense of them and bring them back into the light. I tried to put some of that into this book, to give Ella (and potentially the reader) the gift of coping mechanisms (mainly sarcasm).
Ella starts to use humour to vanquish her bullies, but also to show off in lessons and get into trouble.
She also starts to rebel, break school rules by flouting the uniform guide, and gets in with the wrong crowd.
By the time she realises all this hasn’t made her any happier, she feels like she’s slipping out of control even more, and isn’t sure what to do.
Will she ever get her life back on track? Will she shoplift? Do Boots have a good insurance policy? To find out you will have to read the book!
Thank you, Catherine! Here’s an exclusive look inside When Good Geeks Go Bad:
Read more about the book here.
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January 11, 2019
Watch Catherine Wilkins read an exclusive extract from When Good Geeks Go Bad
We’re absolutely delighted to have just published When Good Geeks Go Bad – a brilliantly funny new story from Catherine Wilkins, author of the much-loved ‘My Best friend and Other Enemies’ series.
And today you can watch a video of Catherine reading an exclusive extract from the book!
When Ella’s dad refuses to let her have cool school shoes or stay up later than 9:30, Ella decides to take things into her own hands. Being good hasn’t got her anywhere, so why not try being bad for a while? It certainly looks a lot more fun and what’s a few detentions here and there? But going bad is a slippery slope and soon things are starting to spiral out of control. Can Ella get things back on track? Or is she going to end up with egg on her face?
You can watch Catherine reading from When Good Geeks Go Bad at the top of this post – and you can also read the book’s opening chapter below:
When Good Geeks Go Bad is out now – you can find out more about the book here.
January 10, 2019
Our new January books are here!
Our first batch of books for 2019 are out TODAY! We’ve got a fantastic collection of new books – with wonderful new novelty, non-fiction, picture books and middle grade fiction in shops, there’s something for everyone. Here’s what you can find from Nosy Crow in January:
We’ve reissued three much-loved Bizzy Bear books by Benji Davies, now in white board with super-smooth slider mechanisms, perfect for little hands! The colours are brighter, but the rhymes are the same! This month we have reissued Bizzy Bear: Knights’ Castle, Bizzy Bear: Building Site and Bizzy Bear: Zoo Ranger. Rich in visual detail and with five chunky sliders to push and pull in each book, Bizzy Bear’s adventures encourage preschoolers to get involved in the storytelling.
We’re excited to have published You’re Not a Proper Pirate, Sidney Green!, written by Ruth Quayle and illustrated by Deborah Allwright. Sidney Green loves going on rip-roaring adventures with his dog, Jemima. Together, they race cars, sail all the way to Africa and build an enormous castle, complete with a moat full of crocodiles. But Captain Shipshape and his pirate band are NOT happy. They think it’s time for Sidney Green to become a Proper Pirate – right now, not “in a minute”. What will Sidney Green do?
Here’s a look inside You’re Not a Proper Pirate, Sidney Green!:
Today we’ve also published the second book in our So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? series, published in collaboration with The British Museum – look out for So You Think You’ve Got it Bad? A Kid’s Life in Ancient Greece. Written by the award-winning author Chae Strathie, and brought to life with rich, humorous illustrations by Maris Morea, this fascinating and hilarious book explores just how difficult life really was for children in Ancient Greece, from living on a diet of blood soup whilst wearing nothing but a cloak, to having to learn a poem that was over 15,000 lines long! Probably the first book about ancient Greece to feature a race between a go-kart and a goose, this is a must read for kids with a passion for horrible history!
Look inside:
The latest Secret Diaries book is out today – National Trust: The Secret Diary of Kitty Cask, Smuggler’s Daughter. Fact meets fiction in this thrilling story of 18th century smuggling and intrigue from Roald Dahl Funny Prize winning author Philip Ardagh and with hilarious illustrations from Jamie Littler. Kitty Cask is a smuggler’s daughter. In the Cornish coastal village of Minnock, Kitty and her family make their living as “free traders” – secretly bringing contraband goods into the country while evading the corrupt Redcoats who work for the King. Kitty isn’t supposed to be involved in any of her father’s schemes… but she’s very good at creeping out at night, and before too long she is caught in the thick of the action – salvaging shipwrecks, staging prison-breaks, and staying one step ahead of the tyrannical excisemen! This book is perfect for fans of Horrible Histories, combining fascinating historical facts with great characters and exciting plotlines.
Here’s a look inside the book:
Little Bird Flies, written by Karen McCombie, is out now – the hugely exciting first book in the gripping new middle-grade series. Bridie lives on the remote Scottish island of Torrnish, the youngest of three sisters. Although she loves her island, with its wild seas and big skies, she guiltily nurses a secret dream of flight – to America and the freedom of the New World. But her family are struggling under the spiteful oppression of the new Laird, and it seems that even some of the Laird’s own household are desperate to leave. When the Laird’s full cruelty becomes apparent, there’s no more time for daydreams as Bridie needs to help the people she loves escape to safety.
Here’s a look inside Little Bird Flies:
The third instalment in the Snow Sisters series has hit the shelves, introducing Snow Sisters: The Frozen Rainbow! Written by Astrid Foss and illustrated by Monique Dong, this is a a beautifully illustrated, sparkly fantasy fiction series for 7+ readers, full of magic, adventure and cute animals. In their third adventure, the girls rush to the mysterious Rainbow Pools. But the Shadow Witch is one step ahead of them! Faced with bubbling lava, can the girls reach the purple Everchanging Light before it’s too late?
Here’s a look inside Snow Sisters: The Frozen Rainbow:
Today we’re also excited to be publishing When Good Geeks Go Bad – a brilliantly funny new story from Catherine Wilkins, author of the much-loved My Best friend and Other Enemies series! When Ella’s dad refuses to let her have cool school shoes or stay up later than 9:30, Ella decides to take things into her own hands. Being good hasn’t got her anywhere, so why not try being bad for a while? It certainly looks a lot more fun and what’s a few detentions here and there? But going bad is a slippery slope and soon things are starting to spiral out of control. Can Ella get things back on track? Or is she going to end up with egg on her face?
Here’s a look inside When Good Geeks Go Bad:
And to coincide with the launch of When Good Geeks Go Bad, we have reissued Catherine Wilkins’ My Best friend and Other Enemies series with shiny new covers! Follow Jess on her wacky school adventures in: My Best Friend and Other Enemies, My Brilliant Life and Other Disasters, My Great Success and Other Failures and My School Musical and Other Punishments! This series is funny, wise and will touch a nerve with everyone who reads it.
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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January 9, 2019
Three Nosy Crow books included in the 2019 Summer Reading Challenge
The book collection for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge has been announced, and we’re absolutely thrilled to see that three Nosy Crow titles are on the list!
The Summer Reading Challenge takes place every year during the summer holidays. It encourages children aged 4 to 11 to read six books during the long summer holiday, to keep up their reading skills and confidence and to complete the Challenge.
Children receive special rewards each time they finish a book and there’s a certificate for everyone who completes the Challenge. The Summer Reading Challenge is open to all primary school aged children and is designed for all reading abilities. Schools work with local libraries and give out information to encourage children to take part, and most libraries run Summer Reading Challenge linked early years activity for pre-schoolers.
There’s a different theme each year – this year’s theme is Space Chase.
There are three Nosy Crow titles included in this year’s selection – here’s a look at each.
The Same But Different Too, written by Karl Newson and illustrated by Kate Hindley, is included in this year’s younger books collection.
These children and animals are all very different to each other. Some are big, some are small. Some are gentle, some are rough. Everyone is playful, but who’s the best at hiding? But one thing’s certain: they all love a good bedtime story! The perfect picture book for little ones who are just beginning to make sense of their place in the world.
Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Aliens Are Coming! written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Steven Lenton is included in the collection, with three more slapstick adventures from our favourite doggy detectives, all set in the summer sun. The much-loved picture book pooches appear here in a two-colour fiction format, ideal for children growing in confidence as readers and beginning to read alone.
And finally, the much-awaited The Boy Who Flew by Fleur Hitchcock has been included in this year’s older books selection.
Athan Wilde dreams of flight. When his friend, Mr Chen, is murdered, Athan must rescue the flying machine they were building together and stop it falling into the wrong hands. But keeping the machine safe puts his family in terrible danger. What will Athan choose – flight or family?
From the acclaimed author of Murder In Midwinter, Fleur Hitchcock’s The Boy Who Flew is a thrilling, murderous tale set among the steep rooftops and slippery characters of Athan’s intricately imagined world. Perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Peter Bunzl and Philip Reeve.
You can find out more about the Summer Reading Challenge, and read this year’s complete book collections, here.
December 19, 2018
Louise Bolongaro, Head of Picture Books, reflects on how we grew I Am the Seed that Grew the Tree
I’m tickled pink, in a toes-curling-with-delight kind of way. A short while ago, I Am the Seed that Grew the Tree won the inaugural Waterstones Children’s Gift Prize, 2018. Selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon and published in partnership with the National Trust, it’s the biggest book I’ve ever worked on and I am so incredibly proud. Thank you AGAIN to Fiona and Frann for creating such a beautiful thing. It’s been pretty momentous for us all and we wondered if people might be interested in hearing a little about how the book was made.
I say, a little . . . but with 336 pages of full glorious colour, this is going to be a big blogpost. If I were you, I’d get a cup of tea. Maybe a biscuit.
So . . . Kate first had the idea for the collection when we were in early talks with the National Trust about a possible partnership. It was an epic proposition from the very first moment but, at the same time, it seemed a perfect match – nature poetry combined with the Trust’s desire to get children back to nature, well, what could be better? Kate talks more about it in her recent blogpost so please do take look.
We secured the partnership with the Trust and I was the lucky one entrusted with the poetry collection, a real “pinch me” moment. I’ve always loved poetry, and have done collections before, but a full-colour one coming in at 336 pages!!? Jeez, Louise! It was the equivalent of 12 picture books! Daunted, me? Never!
We knew that we wanted to work with Fiona and Frann from the very first moment. We signed them up in a heartbeat and so it all began. If you know Fiona, you might have had the great delight to visit her at Frog Cottage. Every wall and every corner is crammed with books and Fiona started to sift through her books, carefully marking each poem and recording it until she had amassed 600 or so. The day she delivered them to the Crow’s Nest, we began to glimpse just how magnificent the book might be. There was just the small matter of selecting the poems first . . .
We only needed 366 poems, of course, so my first task was to sort them into three piles: yes, no and maybe. There was so much to consider. We needed to think about tone, register and suitability but, also, crucially, how the poem might work visually. Did the poem spark an image in my mind? As a picture book editor, I want every image to tell a story and, in this case, each spread needed to feature a few poems, and those poems needed to connect to each other in some way. What story did each little collection of poems evoke?
We also decided to have what we called “hero” moments. These are the spreads that feature just one poem. Each of these poems really deserved a place of their own but it was also a question of pacing. With a book of this size, it could be overwhelming and we wanted to create pauses for the reader, moments to linger and let the world go by.
Once I had a good pile of “yes” poems, I scooped them up and took them all home. I then sorted the poems into seasons, depending on the particular content of each poem and from then into months. Then, within each month, I needed to decide which poem would fall on each day. In no time at all, it was as if a snowstorm of paper had hit my kitchen. Every surface was covered in piles of poems. Each pile represented a tentative spread, a story, and it was about then that I started talking to myself.
Clutching a poem, I’d roam about the room, knowing that it was a perfect match for another one, the-lovely-one-about-pigeons-but-God-knows-where-it-is. And as I sifted through the piles, I’d get distracted by another poem, fall down a rabbit hole, come up with a story for another spread, and then try to remember what I was looking for originally. This process repeated itself endlessly – my family moved out – until, a few days later, a tentative first draft came into being. I then scooped it all up again, bristling with paper clips and notes, and took it back into the Crow’s Nest to share with Kate.
There, we took over the boardroom and went through the same process again – roaming the room, clutching poems and talking to ourselves.
Now, sometimes Kate and I bicker. It turns out we don’t ALWAYS love the same poems and poets, although mostly we do. But we got there in the end, helped by lots of tea. Minstrels too. Occasionally biscuits. Victoria (now our Senior Editor for Non-Fiction) was an invaluable help and brought fresh eyes and new ideas to the oxygen-depleted room. We chatted to Fiona about our suggested choices and then switched, amended and shaped things again. We discarded a few poems, discovered a few more until, finally, we had 366 perfect poems, each one lovingly selected for its individual joy. Not only that but every poem was in order. There was also a LOT of counting.
And then we made the GRID. I can’t talk too much about the grid because I break out in hives. Suffice to say it’s an Excel document that charts every poem with its source, copyright material, subject matter, etc. etc. Fiona and Miranda, our Senior Editor at the time, made it a thing of efficient beauty for which I am ridiculously grateful.
That was just the first stage. Now it was time for Frann to start to weave her magic. But, BEFORE that, we had think about the look and feel of the project – the design of the thing. Holly, our Senior Designer, created a beautiful layout for each spread. We had to consider font choice (we needed many!), font size, leading, headings, folios, the design grid and many, many other things. We agonised over choices whilst the poems were typed up, then we flowed all the poems into the InDesign document until, at last, all 366 poems were in place. NOW we could think about the pictures!
Usually with a picture book, an artist will start off with thumbnails or roughs, to plan out the composition and get a sense of how the story of a spread might work. We might then revise those roughs, and maybe even think again before going to final art. But there was no time here. The book was too big and it would take forever. So we chatted to Frann and we all agreed that she would go straight to colour on each piece, and then do any amends that might be necessary. The good thing was that, unlike a picture book, each spread worked entirely independently, so there was no need to worry about narrative continuity or development. Frann just had to create beautiful individual pieces . . . 144 times!
Frann works digitally and would deliver her work to us in batches – a week or two here, a month there. We LOVED receiving the emails from Frann. Kate and I would gather round and wait for the link to download until, finally, a new set of treasure would appear. A glorious pheasant glowing in gold and red, a windswept prairie beaten by the rain or a tiny, tiny dormouse curled asleep in a nest. It was bigger and better and more beautiful than any of us could have hoped.
And then our baby, our book, had to take a back seat when Frann’s REAL baby, the gorgeous Effra, came along. We delayed publication by a year and had a little breather.
But we didn’t stop. In the background, like invisible stage hands setting the scene for a play, the Herculean permissions effort was underway. In a poetry collection, the publisher must contact the poet to seek permission to use the poem and then agree a fee. If you’ve got a copy of the book, take a look at the acknowledgment page at the back – best find a magnifying glass if you can. Every single reference to each poem represents numerous emails and exchanges with poets, agents or an estate. Fiona and Miranda made every effort to chase each poem down so that we could feel confident that each poem had been attributed and recognised correctly.
Months passed, Effra grew bigger and Frann came back to work. She continued to send us gorgeous batches of work. Interestingly, with a project like this, the style evolves as you go along and, one day, Frann delivered the beautiful shell spread. It was graphic, less pictorial and stopped us in our tracks. Could we have more like this, please? It set us off on a new path and the contrast of the graphic scenes with the more narrative pages made for a beguiling mix that we hadn’t previously imagined.
By this point, perhaps two years had passed, and we took a brief pause to reflect. We suddenly had doubts about the font that we’d chosen for the title of each poem – a significant choice as it was likely to appear on the cover too. It had seemed beautiful and fresh but, as Holly pointed out, it was everywhere and suddenly felt overused. So we thought again. We also realised that we needed more hands in Design, so Holly focussed on the cover and Nia, our Head of Design, and Chloe, our Junior Designer, worked on the insides.
We made another change too. We had huge ambitions; it was going to be the biggest and greatest poetry collection ever but was it, erm, a bit too big? Our Head of Operations, Imogen, sourced a more economical format and we made it smaller, doing our best to cause minimal disruption (thank you again, Frann, for making the tiny adjustments!). It also meant numerous painstaking, sometimes invisible, revisions to the InDesign document but Nia, Chloe and Holly tirelessly tweaked until it was perfect.
All this time, Frann was still working on the insides – more birds, cats, dogs, many clouds, more birds, sometimes leaves, sometimes shells.
At the same time, we started to focus on the cover in earnest. As Kate mentions in her blogpost, we were lucky enough to have valuable input from Waterstones, plus other wonderful booksellers, teachers and librarians, at a very early stage. Kate and Catherine, our Head of Sales and Marketing, had numerous exchanges with key influencers and Holly created a number of versions, perfecting and tweaking at every stage. The idea to add a cloth quarter binding was a turning point, Holly worked her magic one last time and, at last, we had exactly the right thing.
And there were endless other conversations too. We wanted head and tail bands. But which ones? And we loved our new quarter binding. But what kind of cloth? What colour? And what about the ribbon? What colour? We sat with Imogen and pored over printer sample books like kids in a toy shop, whilst Imogen continued to talk to suppliers in the Far East, negotiating prices, trying to match our ambitions with what was realistic and affordable.
And what about the paper stock? We all had our hearts set on woodfree but now that the book had taken shape, we realised that many of Frann’s beautiful images were quite dark and rich, and we worried that the detail would be lost on woodfree paper (the texture absorbs ink more than a glossy, matt art paper and can flatten an image). We did endless test proofs to compare and contrast and finally settled on matt art, knowing that this would do the greatest justice to Frann’s images.
In the meantime, more flowers, dogs, cats, birds, foxes. More permissions, more copyright intricacies. I began to dream about the grid. In a bad way.
And it was around this time that the talk started. Kate and Catherine, and the UK and Export Sales Team started to sow the seed – “we’ve got something extraordinary.” Ola and her Rights team took it to Frankfurt – as a small but beautifully formed blad – and started their campaign. Of course, it’s poetry, how would people translate it? But people are attracted to beautiful things and who knew who might be interested?
Kate was also having numerous conversations with Candlewick, our publishing partner in the States. They loved it, they wanted it – hallelujah! – BUT we had to print together (the economics of a book of this scale are painful so a co-printing is very welcome) and that meant we had to follow their schedule. Which was earlier than ours. Of course it was.
I wondered if I might need therapy. There wasn’t time so I just ate more biscuits.
And then, one lovely autumn day in 2017, finally all the art was in. Each revision and amendment had been done. Each piece was perfect. Every poem had a story and we had 144 spreads of beautiful, beautiful art. Frann was a superstar.
But that wasn’t the end. Oh no. Next came the checking stage. And I had to sit on Kate to remind her to do the introduction. And we had to do all the end matter – the index and the acknowledgments and the contents. Oh my.
The index. Cripes. This is why I usually do books that are only 32 pages. We called in the experts and sent it to a brilliant freelancer, Rachel, in Devon. But because the timings were so horribly tight, we had to turn it around on a sixpence. Rachel’s husband drove up from Devon and back in a day to deliver the poems to my house and then we faced a bit of a challenge.
In order to compile the index, Rachel had had to put our original source material into alphabetical order by poet but, to successfully proofread the collection, we needed the poems back in the original page order. Argh. So my husband and I stayed up late and began to put all the poems back into order. We went to bed when we could no longer remember what came after G and Tegen, our Junior Editor, bravely and brilliantly finished the job the next day.
And then we started the Checking Process. Checking and checking and proof reading and checking again. Three separate editors – myself, Miranda and Tegen – proofread every part of the book so that we weren’t reliant on a single pair of eyes. If one of us missed a mistake, another person would catch it. Tegen and Miranda checked and re-checked copyright material online. We sent it to Candlewick for them to proofread. They (brilliantly!!) discovered some inconsistencies so we checked and checked again.
The designers – I still don’t know how they managed it – managed to squeeze each last detail in. Nia and Chloe tweaked and amended and fine-tuned the position of each poem and piece of art until they sat together as a seamless whole. Then they wrestled with the end matter whilst Holly perfected the cover, making minute adjustments that most people wouldn’t even be aware of but which made it completely perfect. We did the Repro in-house, using our digital proofer, until, finally, one glorious day in January 2018, our baby went off to the printer. Imogen travelled to China to press pass it – checking the colour as it came off the printer to ensure it resembled the original art as closely as possible – until she was happy that a good job had been done, which took SEVEN days. We then checked the plotters, the running sheets were flown over in time for Catherine to show at the London Book Fair and, finally, we pressed the Big Print Button.
Then it sat on a boat for six weeks.
Finally, an advance arrived. Kate rushed over to my desk, beaming with delight. It was more than we could have hoped for – it was magnificent. Frann’s art was luminescent and even though we had read each poem a thousand times over, Kate and I felt like we were discovering it for the very first time. Curiously, I felt a tiny bit sad. As the editor, my direct hands-on involvement had nearly come to an end. We had crafted the most beautiful thing but now it was over to Kate and Catherine and the Sales and Marketing team to sell it to the world.
And, boy, did they do a great job! Kate discussed it at every available moment. Catherine, ably assisted by Maddie, made it the highlight of every sales presentation, conference, exhibition and book fair and her team started to build an expert PR campaign alongside the National Trust, covering the United Kingdom and Ireland. Point-of-sale material was lovingly crafted by Hester, our Senior Marketing Executive, until there wasn’t a bookshop in the country that didn’t have beautiful display material, alongside a very impressive outdoor and print advertising campaign. And all this was mirrored by an innovative digital campaign. Tom, our Digital Manager (and editor too), and Julia, our Digital Marketing Assistant, put together eye-catching video content which sat alongside an impressive online selling strategy by Frances and Hannah (Senior Sales Manager and Sales Assistant respectively).
Then, on September 6th 2018, it published. At last! We had a wonderful party at Sutton House, a National Trust property, to launch it in style. We held our breath but, thank heavens, people loved it just as much as us.
We couldn’t be happier with the wonderful reception it’s received. It’s been such a labour of love, but now our baby is out there in the big wide world and doing just fine. Indulge me if I’m a proud mum and include a few lovely quotes here. Before I do, my biggest heartfelt thank you to Frann, Fiona, Kate and all the crows that made it happen.
The Sunday Times
“A spectacular volume, every page colourful. Filling the mind’s eye, too, it is accessible and surprising and will connect listeners with the seasons, weather and the outdoors.” – Nicolette Jones
New Statesman
“Poetically inclined readers of 6+ will love Waters’ outstanding collection of nature poems for every day of the year, gorgeously illustrated by Preston-Gannon.” – Amanda Craig
The Guardian
“Gloriously illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon. Children’s non-fiction has seldom looked better and sales are soaring.” – Fiona Noble
The Telegraph
“A sumptuous anthology of nature poems for every day of the year, drawn from writers as various as Wordsworth and Updike.” – Emily Bearn
Julia Donaldson picked I Am The Seed as her Book of the Year on Book Trust.
“An absolutely beautiful (if rather heavy!) book. What I particularly love about it is that each illustration covers a double-page spread, picturing the theme of the poems concerned but without being too prescriptive, so that the reader’s imagination can still roam . . . I’m sure it will help to create very many young poetry and nature enthusiasts.”
Metro
“A huge, luxurious beautifully illustrated book of nature poetry old and new, featuring a poem for every day of the year.” – Imogen Russell Williams
Huffpost
“The bee’s knees. Fiona Waters hasn’t skimped on the greats . . . but Frann Preston-Gannon’s gorgeous pictures really do make it accessible.” – Nancy Groves
RTE Radio
Sarah Webb featured I Am The Seed on RTE Radio 1 and in her round up in the Irish Independent on Saturday, calling it “one of the best children’s poetry collections I’ve come across.” It was also featured on The Late Late Toy Show in Ireland last Friday.
The Irish Times
The Irish Times also featured an article written by Kate Wilson, which you can read here.
The Sunday Business Post
The Sunday Business Post had a roundup of books for presents which featured I Am The Seed: “So you don’t like poetry? Prepare to change your mind.”
Here’s our trailer for the book:
And here’s a look inside I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree:
Buy the book from Waterstones.
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