Nosy Crow's Blog, page 87
February 8, 2018
Come and work for Nosy Crow! We’re looking for three people to join our Design team
A little while ago we announced that we were recruiting for three positions in Nosy Crow’s design team – Senior Designer, Designer, and Design Assistant – and there’s just over a week left to apply for the roles: the closing date for applications for all three positions is Sunday February 18th.
At Nosy Crow we’re proud of our design team and of the design quality of our books. We aim to make Nosy Crow an environment where designers truly thrive, where they can do their best work, where they are listened to, and where they feel part of the whole company and of our decision-making.
We think that excellent design is critical to our (multi-award-winning – just saying) brand and to our success, and, as our list grows and diversifies, we are looking to invest more in our design department and to hire committed, creative individuals for three roles.
While we’d hope to find inviduals who could work across all the areas of our full-colour list, the work allocated to each role will reflect the interests, skills and experience that individuals bring. We can be flexible.
SENIOR DESIGNER – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
DESIGNER – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
We’re looking for a creative, committed, talented and flexible Senior Designer, and for a Designer with comparable qualities, to work on our award-winning full-colour list. For success in both roles, you’ll need experience of childen’s publishing and will have worked on books from at least one of the areas of our list. Both jobs involve finding new talent; working with experienced illustrators; commissioning; and relationship management as well as making sure that words and pictures are combined on the page as meaningfully and beautifully as possible.
Proficiency in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes, excellent proven book design and typographic skills, and a love and knowledge of children’s book illustration are essential, along with good written and spoken communication skills and the ability to work to a deadline.
What distinguishes the two roles is the level of autonomy at which the individual will be working, which will be likely to be influenced by the level of proven skill and amount of experience that the candidate is able to bring.
These are both full-time roles, but, for the right candidate, we can be flexible. We’d want anyone in either role to be in our office near London Bridge at least three days per week.
DESIGN ASSISTANT – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
We have a great opportunity for a hardworking, creative and capable Design Assistant to become part of our design team, supporting them as they work on our full-colour books and on some of the print marketing for the whole Nosy Crow list.
Proficiency in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes combined with some evidence of book design and typographic skills, and a love and knowledge of children’s book illustration are essential, along with good written and spoken communication skills and the ability to work to a deadline.
This is a full-time role based our office near London Bridge.
For all three roles:
Candidates from outside the EU must have the right to live and work in the UK.
Please send a CV and cover letter, along with samples of your design work, to Nia Roberts (nia@nosycrow.com).
The closing date for applications for all three roles is 18 February at midnight.
Nosy Crow is an equal opportunities employer. We believe that employing a diverse workforce is an important factor in success and make recruiting decisions based on applicants’ experience and skills. We welcome applications from all members of society irrespective of age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief.
February 7, 2018
Take a look inside Max the Detective Cat: The Disappearing Diva
Next month we’re thrilled to be publishing Max the Detective Cat: The Disappearing Diva, written by Sarah Todd Taylor and illustrated by Nicola Kinnear – the first book in a new middle-grade mystery series with plenty of fun and drama and a vintage crime feel.
And today you can take a first look inside the book!
Max is a pampered cat, used to the finer things in life, until a fun mouse chase goes badly wrong and he finds himself scruffy and alone and hiding out at the Theatre Royal. It’s here that Max takes on his first case as a detective cat, when he notices that famous singer Madame Emerald is acting strangely. Why is her maid so terrified? And what kind of singer doesn’t like to sing in public? Soon Max is trapped in a complicated web of crime, dashing round dancers’ legs and over the rooftops of London in a race to catch a clever thief…
Beautifully written and highly illustrated throughout, this is perfect 7-9 fiction. And here’s a look inside the book:
Max the Detective Cat: The Disappearing Diva will be in shops in March – you can find out more about the book 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 at this page, or with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing:
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February 6, 2018
It’s 100 years today since the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act
Today marks 100 years since the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, when the first women were given the vote in the United Kingdom. There was still a long way to go to achieve Universal Suffrage (which would not reached for a further ten years) – the 1918 Act only gave the vote to women who were over the age of 30, and either a property owner, university-educated, or a member (or married to a member) of ‘the Local Government Register’ – but it was a hugely important first step towards equal representation.
And we are enormously proud to have published Make More Noise this month, to commemorate the #V0te100 centenary, the Suffragette movement, and the campaign for Votes for Women.
Make More Noise is an anthology of short stories by ten of the UK’s very best storytellers, celebrating inspirational girls and women. Not all of the stories are about the suffrage movement – there’s a wonderful mix of historical and contemporary stories, stories based on real events, and stories that are entirely imagined.
And we’re delighted by the reception that the book has received so far. On Saturday Make More Noise was named The Times’ Children’s Book of the Week – Alex O’Connell described the book as “a fine introduction to some terrific writers, or a treat for their existing fans.”
You can take a look inside Make More Noise below – here’s the opening story in the collection, Out For The Count by Sally Nicholls:
In the speech from which this anthology takes its name, Emmeline Pankhurst said: “You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.”
We hope that our book inspires you to make more noise.
February 5, 2018
Watch our new February Books video!
We’ve got some wonderful new books out this month – and a beautiful new video to showcase them all! You can watch our February Books video at the top of this post – and you can find out more about all of the new Nosy Crow books out this month here.
If you like the video, subscribe to our YouTube channel and you’ll be the first to find out about new content – including author Q&As, readings, live-drawings, and more.
February 2, 2018
Lionel’s launch
Yesterday evening, illustrator Lisa Sheehan celebrated the publication of her first Nosy Crow picture book, Lionel and the Lion’s Share (written by our very own Lou Peacock who is the writing alter-ego of our head of picture books, Lou Bolongaro). Lisa shared her launch with lovely Paula Metcalf, whose book published by Oxford University Press, Dog in Boots, has also just come out (Paula is published by Nosy Crow, too: she illustrated Nothing Can Frighten a Bear written by Elizabeth Dale which we published last year). The idea of a shared launch worked so well: the community of people who love and work on picture books is close and small and pretty generous and kind to one another and so many of us were there to cheer both books on. Lisa and Paula had managed to bag the lovely Conigsby Gallery as a venue, and both of them had put such a lot of effort into the evening. At one point in Lisa’s book, Lionel the Lion swipes a lot of hats, so there was a fantastic display of hats.
Meanwhile, Paula’s sister had had a cookie cutter made in the shape of Dog, so there were dog biscuits (see what she did there?) as well as Lionel cupcakes all round. They signed and chatted for hours.
Lionel cupcakes and Dog biscuits
We first encountered Lisa’s work when she was on the excellent Children’s Book Illustration MA course at Anglia Ruskin University, and it’s so great, several years on, to be her publisher. The Financial Times has already reviewed Lionel and the Lion’s Share – here’s what they said.
Take a look inside the book:
Congratulations, Lisa and Paula!
February 1, 2018
Our February books are out now!
February may be the shortest month, but it’s also one of our biggest months for new books! From novelty and activity books that encourage interactivity, to chapter books and middle grade fiction, there’s something for everyone. They’re available now from all good bookshops. Watch our books video here, and let us know which books have caught your eye!
We’re publishing lots of exciting novelty and board book titles this month
Can You Say It Too? Tweet! Tweet!, illustrated by Sebastien Braun, is that latest book in our Can You Say It Too? series, and is full of fresh and bright pictures that are a perfect antidote to these grey winter mornings. Perfect for children who are just starting to talk, the sturdy flaps show familiar garden birds. Children are encouraged to spot, name, and mimic the birds, all while lifting the flaps to uncover more of the scene! If the page full of cherry blossoms doesn’t make you look forward to Spring, I don’t know what will!
Take a look:
The latest title in our series of Sing Along With Me! books, Five Little Ducks, is also published today. Who doesn’t love a good singalong? Scan the QR code on the inner cover and listen to the music while you read, or sing the tune for yourselves! Five sturdy slider mechanisms, featuring bright and cheery illustrations by Yu-hsuan Huang, mean little ones can interact with the story. Watch our Sing Along video here.
A new pair of First Concept books, published in collaboration with The British Museum, are out today – discover amazing animals, objects, and simple first concepts in these colourful and stylish photographic board books, featuring incredible objects from the Museum’s collection. Inquisitive toddlers will enjoy learning about the different objects from around the world, and parents and older children can scan the QR code and learn even more on our fact-packed websites.
We’ve published a board book edition of Books Always Everywhere, so even tiny hands can help turn the sturdy pages and get involved in story time. For the very young, books can be anything – from a chair to a hat, but the best thing they can be is a book! Written by Jane Blatt, and with delightful and nostalgic illustrations by Sarah Massini, it’s never too soon to share a good book with your little ones.
Take a look inside:
And we’re delighted to be publishing Superhero Mum today – a super-funny picture book celebration of all the amazing things a mum can d0, perfect for Mother’s Day! The mum in this story doesn’t wear a cape or fly to earth from outer space, but she plays the best games, tames unruly hair, and can make bumps and bruises better with just a kiss. This mum really DOES have superpowers! Written by Timothy Knapman and Joe Berger, the team behind Superhero Dad, this book celebrates all of the things, big and small, that make mums brilliant.
Look inside:
We’ve published the newest book in the Make & Play series today, to help you get excited for Easter! Illustrated by Joey Chou and with 3D press-out decorations, Make & Play: Easter is packed with hours of activity fun. Featuring 25 unique and colourful designs, the press-out pieces can be easily slotted together to create bright and cheerful Spring decorations, from adorable chicks to cute Easter bunnies. Turn to the back of the book and discover special Easter recipes, songs, and craft activities!
Take a look:
The first of our fiction titles continues our Spring theme, with lambs a-plenty! A Lamb Called Lucky is the latest in the Jasmine Green series, written by Helen Peters and illustrated by Ellie Snowdon. It’s packed full of excitement, tension, laughs, and adorable baby animals. This time, Jasmine has her hands full with a tiny motherless lamb who needs her help. She’s determined to look after Lucky and keep him safe, but there are bigger dangers facing the flock… ones that come in the dead of night. This is brilliant storytelling, ideal for young animal-lovers, and fans of Holly Webb and Dick King-Smith.
Look inside:
Get ready for the latest hilarious instalment in the Izzy series, from the Blue Peter Award winners Pamela Butchart and Thomas Flintham: The Phantom Lollipop Man. Izzy and her friends are SURPRISED to find that their lollipop man has DISAPPEARED! Maisie thinks he’s gone to Rome but if that’s true, why do they keep seeing a strange floaty cloud around the school? Could it be the the lollipop man is a phantom and he’s come to spook them all?! The punchy, short chapters and laugh-out-loud humour are great for readers who are growing in confidence.
Read the first few chapters:
Possibly the sparkliest, most shimmery books ever, we’re thrilled to publish the first two books in our brand new Unicorn Academy series, written by Julia Sykes and illustrated by Lucy Truman. Imagine a school where you meet your own unicorn and go on adventures with them! That’s what happens for the girls at Unicorn Academy on the enchanted Unicorn Island. In each story, you can get to know a different girl and her unicorn as they discover their magical abilities together. This new series of magical, action-packed adventures are perfect for young readers eager for their first chapter book! Come for the holographic foil covers, stay for the magic!
Look inside Unicorn Academy: Sophia and Rainbow (book one):
Look inside Unicorn Academy: Scarlett and Blaze (book two):
The latest Secret Diaries book is published today – The Secret Diary of Thomas Snoop, Tudor Boy Spy. Fact meets fiction in this exciting tale of Tudor espionage and treachery from Roald Dahl Funny Prize winning author Philip Ardagh and with hilarious illustrations from Jamie Littler. Thomas Snoop is training to become a SPY (but shhhh!). Entrusted with a TOP SECRET (shhh!) mission by the mysterious Lord Severn, Thomas must travel to the magnificent Goldenhilt Hall in order to uncover a traitorous plot against the crown… This book is perfect for fans of Horrible Histories, combining fascinating historical facts with great characters and exciting plotlines.
Read the first few chapters:
Last and certainly not least, we are proud to publish Make More Noise!, a timely collection of ten short stories from ten of the UK’s leading women writers. The ten stories are a mix of modern fairy tales, real-life contemporary drama, historical fiction, and more. Featuring short stories by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-wining The Girl of Ink and Stars, M.G. Leonard, author of Beetle Boy, Patrice Lawrence, author of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize-winning Orangeboy, Katherine Woodfine, author of The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow, Sally Nicholls, author of Things a Bright Girl Can Do, Emma Carroll, author of Letters from the Lighthouse, and many more. This collection is published to celebrate women and girls everywhere, and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in the UK. £1 from the sale of each copy with go directly to Camfed, a charity working to educate girls and women in Africa.
Take a look inside:
Congratulations and Happy Publication Day! to all our marvellous authors and illustrators!
January 31, 2018
Go Wild in the Woods is a 2018 ACE Award finalist!
Go Wild in the Woods: An Adventure Handbook by the fantastic Goldie Hawk and illustrated by Rachael Saunders has been selected as a finalist in the 2018 ACE Best Product Awards in the category Best Children’s Product or Publication. Woohoo! Published by Nosy Crow in collaboration with the National Trust, this shortlisting is a brilliant accolade for a fantastic book, and we are literally crowing (sorry!) with joy here at Nosy Crow HQ.
But for those less in the know, what does this actually mean?
The Association for Cultural Enterprise (ACE) was formed to help museums, galleries and cultural attractions to maximise their commercial potential in the most positive, socially responsible and engaging ways possible. In a time of increasing public funding cuts for the arts, generating the income to flourish and grow in creative, engaging and innovative ways is paramount for the cultural sector, and ACE is the support network, resource centre and social generator that enables arts and heritage attractions of every size, shape and form to do just that.
The ACE Best Product Awards recognise excellence in cultural trading, and as the collaborative publishing partner of the National Trust, we feel very privileged to be acknowledged in this area, especially with such a positive, nature-inspired book that represents the very heart of what the National Trust does best . . . getting kids to put down the smartphones and step OUTSIDE.
So if you want to find out how to build a shelter, craft your own tools, cook food over a campfire . . . or even how to get drinking water from your own wee (none for me, thank you!), go wild and find a copy here or in all National Trust shops.
January 30, 2018
Take a look inside Running on Empty – the new book by S.E. Durrant
This March we’re incredibly proud to be publishing Running on Empty – the second book by S.E. Durrant, author of the highly-acclaimed, Carnegie-nominated Little Bits of Sky.
Finished copies of Running on Empty have just arrived at the Crow’s Nest, and they look absolutely STUNNING. And today we’re delighted to share a first look inside the book – you can read the opening chapter now.
AJ’s grandfather has always been the one to keep his unusual family together, so when he dies things start to unravel at the edges. AJ is worried about his parents but they don’t really seem to notice. In order to deal with his grief and to keep his anxiety at bay, AJ does what he and his grandfather did best: running. Round and round the Olympic Park, aiming for the cross country trials, running to escape, AJ only seems be heading ever closer to disaster.
Compelling fiction for 9+ readers, this is a beautifully told story of unorthodox families, grief, adolescence and running.
Here’s a look inside the book:
Running on Empty will be in shops in March – you can find out more about the book 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 at this page, or with the form below, and you’ll never miss a thing:
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January 29, 2018
Lionel and the Lion’s Share in the Financial Times
Last month we were very proud to publish Lionel and the Lion’s Share by Lou Peacock and Lisa Sheehan: full of fun and with stylish artwork, this lively picture books explores popular themes of friendship and the importance of sharing.
And we’re delighted to see that the book has received a rave review in the Financial Times!
James Lovegrove writes:
“Lionel is a young lion who wants everything. He wants all the musical instruments in the music shop. He wants all the hats in the hat shop. He wants all the balloons on the balloon stall. He wants all the birthday cake at the birthday party. He grabs whatever he can get his paws on, especially if someone else has expressed an interest in having it, and leaves the other animals with nothing. Lionel soon discovers the drawbacks of this youthful foray into unrestrained free-market capitalism — you end up lonely, with no friends — and learns the error of his ways. Lou Peacock’s lively, pertinent tale hinges on a very clever last-line pay-off and is wonderfully illustrated by Lisa Sheehan with pastel shades, scribbly textures and Richard Scarry-esque anthropomorphic caricature.”
Here’s a look inside the book:
January 26, 2018
Come and work for Nosy Crow: we have three vacancies in our design department
At Nosy Crow we’re proud of our design team and of the design quality of our books. We aim to make Nosy Crow an environment where designers truly thrive, where they can do their best work, where they are listened to, and where they feel part of the whole company and of our decision-making.
We think that excellent design is critical to our (multi-award-winning – just saying) brand and to our success, and, as our list grows and diversifies, we are looking to invest more in our design department and to hire committed, creative individuals for three roles.
While we’d hope to find inviduals who could work across all the areas of our full-colour list, the work allocated to each role will reflect the interests, skills and experience that individuals bring. We can be flexible.
SENIOR DESIGNER – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
DESIGNER – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
We’re looking for a creative, committed, talented and flexible Senior Designer, and for a Designer with comparable qualities, to work on our award-winning full-colour list. For success in both roles, you’ll need experience of childen’s publishing and will have worked on books from at least one of the areas of our list. Both jobs involve finding new talent; working with experienced illustrators; commissioning; and relationship management as well as making sure that words and pictures are combined on the page as meaningfully and beautifully as possible.
Proficiency in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes, excellent proven book design and typographic skills, and a love and knowledge of children’s book illustration are essential, along with good written and spoken communication skills and the ability to work to a deadline.
What distinguishes the two roles is the level of autonomy at which the individual will be working, which will be likely to be influenced by the level of proven skill and amount of experience that the candidate is able to bring.
These are both full-time roles, but, for the right candidate, we can be flexible. We’d want anyone in either role to be in our office near London Bridge at least three days per week.
DESIGN ASSISTANT – PICTURE BOOKS, PRE-SCHOOL, ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
We have a great opportunity for a hardworking, creative and capable Design Assistant to become part of our design team, supporting them as they work on our full-colour books and on some of the print marketing for the whole Nosy Crow list.
Proficiency in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes combined with some evidence of book design and typographic skills, and a love and knowledge of children’s book illustration are essential, along with good written and spoken communication skills and the ability to work to a deadline.
This is a full-time role based our office near London Bridge.
For all three roles:
Candidates from outside the EU must have the right to live and work in the UK.
Please send a CV and application, along with samples of your design work, to Nia Roberts (nia@nosycrow.com).
The closing date for applications for all three roles is 18 February at midnight.
Nosy Crow is an equal opportunities employer. We believe that employing a diverse workforce is an important factor in success and make recruiting decisions based on applicants’ experience and skills. We welcome applications from all members of society irrespective of age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief.
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