Nosy Crow's Blog, page 9

Read an exclusive extract from The Horse Who Came Home by Olivia Tuffin

We’re very excited to be publishing The Horse Who Came Home next month – a fresh and thrilling novel about a girl’s fight for justice at her family’s stables from Olivia Tuffin.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing a preview of the book – you can read the first few chapters below!

Hannah’s dad, a former Olympic show jumper, runs a highly respected stables where they buy, train and sell ponies on for huge sums of money. The whole family helps, especially Hannah’s older sister, Millie – a social media star on the rise. But when Hannah rescues Bella, a beautiful Connemara pony, and begins to piece together her tragic history, she discovers that not everything at Heartwood stables is as perfect as it seems. Love of ponies, or loyalty to family? Now that Hannah knows the truth, she faces an impossible choice.

Read an extract of The Horse Who Came Home here:

 

The Horse Who Came Home will be published on July 6th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here. Do let us know on socials what you thought of the first few chapters when you’ve finished reading!

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

 

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Read an exclusive extract from Peanut, Butter, & Crackers: Puppy Problems by Paige Braddock

We’re very excited to be publishing Peanut, Butter, & Crackers: Puppy Problems next month – a hilarious graphic novel from Paige Braddock for pet lovers and fans of The Secret Life of Pets.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing a preview of the book – you can read the first few chapters below!

Butter and Crackers are rescue pets living their best (and quiet) lives. Butter, a laidback cat, has access to all the butter he can lick and Crackers, a slightly nervous dog, is free to bark at squirrels to his heart’s content. With an owner who goes to work every day, they spend their days doing whatever they want.

But when Peanut, a brand-new puppy with big floppy ears, arrives, everything changes. He has no appreciation for the quiet life, no idea how stairs work and he’s even afraid of the dark!

Butter and Crackers have had enough – this puppy needs to go! But when Peanut escapes and gets lost, it turns out that home isn’t home without the noisy little puppy after all…

Read an extract of Peanut, Butter, & Crackers: Puppy Problems here:

Peanut, Butter, & Crackers: Puppy Problems will be published on July 6th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here. Do let us know on socials what you thought of the first few chapters when you’ve finished reading!

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

 

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Read an exclusive extract from Friends and Traitors By Helen Peters

We’re very excited to be publishing Friends and Traitors next month – a gripping World War II story from Helen Peters about how two girls foil an aristocratic plot to bring down the government and hand the country to the Nazis.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing a preview of the book – you can read the first few chapters below!

When Sidney Dashworth’s school is evacuated to a huge stately home in the countryside, she thinks she’s going to spend the war being very bored. At least her brother must be having fun, flying his Spitfire all over France! But soon Sidney and a housemaid called Nancy discover that the Earl is up to no good. He has secret nighttime meetings with mysterious men from the government and seems to be hiding something sinister on his land. At first it’s all terribly thrilling, investigating by creeping about at night and finding secret passageways, but soon everything takes a deadly turn. Sidney’s brother goes missing over France and the war hits home with a terrible reality. The Earl and his evil plotters must be stopped, or nothing will ever be the same again…

Read an extract of Friends and Traitors here:

Friends and Traitors will be published on July 6th – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here. Do let us know on socials what you thought of the first few chapters when you’ve finished reading!

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

 

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A guest post from Gavin Scott, illustrator of Everything You Know About Sharks is Wrong!

This month we’re absolutely delighted to have published Everything You Know About Sharks is Wrong! – an informative, inventive and entertaining take on an animal book, written by Dr Nick Crumpton and illustrated by Gavin Scott. And today, we’re very excited to be sharing a guest post from Gavin!

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When I was at primary school, the absolute best thing my teacher could say was ‘today we’re going to work in our topic books’. This meant learning about science, history, and nature. But most of all, I knew it usually meant drawing pictures to illustrate my writing.

I was really obsessed with animals and nature. My mum loves to tell the story about me wandering into the kitchen at an early age proudly clutching a grass snake that I’d just found in the garden (the snake was unharmed). I would draw things I’d found in the garden and endlessly copy the illustrations from my books about animals and wildlife.

 

One of Gavin’s childhood books about sharks that he still owns.

 

I later went on to study illustration at art college, specialising in Natural History. This work tended to be super detailed and quite scientific. While I did enjoy this, I soon felt the need to develop my illustration in new ways. Since then, my career and art style have taken several different avenues. At one point I worked on branded character design, and then began illustrating young children’s books, which I’d always wanted to do. I eventually decided that I needed to get back to what I loved doing, which was drawing and painting nature. My style now combines illustrative elements that I’ve picked up along the way, combined with the more detailed scientific illustration techniques from earlier in my life. My animals still tend to be quite realistic, but with a little bit of ‘character’ thrown in. You could say I’ve now found a happy balance in my work.

When Nosy Crow first approached me to illustrate Everything You Know About Dinosaurs Is Wrong! I couldn’t believe my luck. Every so often I get to work on projects that make me run to my desk in the morning and lose myself in my work completely. This was one of those jobs! I also learnt so much from Nick’s text – it was totally fascinating.

The latest book I’ve worked on in the fantastic series is called Everything You Know About Sharks Is Wrong!, which helps to show readers how incredible sharks and rays are, while clearing up many misconceptions about the creatures that have caused their persecution across the years.

 

 

My first experience of sharks was a visit to The Sea Life Centre, in Weymouth, when I was 8 or 9 years old. I remember watching the nurse sharks and I even got to stroke the back of a ray, which, to my surprise, wasn’t smooth and slippery as I had imagined, but rough like coarse sandpaper. One of my school topics around this time was about the Arctic – not a place that immediately springs to mind when you think about sharks – but we learnt all about the Greenland shark and what was known, and not yet known about this amazing animal (they can live for hundreds of years!). I still have my topic book with my own Greenland Shark drawing, and I dug it out when starting work on this new book.

Gavin’s topic book drawing, featuring a Greenland shark among other Arctic animals. 

 

My working process with Everything You Know About Sharks Is Wrong, as with any other project, was to begin collating all the reference I need. Then I started cutting out shapes to create a rough composition. Tina, the designer I worked with on Sharks, had already given me a rough layout of all the text that needed to be included, so at this stage it was more about discovering where the text would fit in relation to the illustrations. I often end up moving things around quite a lot, a bit like a jigsaw, to find the best placement. The final stage is always adding the detail and colour, and making sure all of the species shown are completely accurate.

There are lots of fun spreads in Sharks but personal favourite is probably Megalodon Lives, which sees a colossal extinct Megalodon shark hunting sea lions. The sea lions were a good tool to give some scale to this huge shark that lived in the Cenozoic Era, about 20 million years ago. Adding the dark, brooding, water made this scene quite dramatic – you have to feel for those poor sea lions!

 

 

I’ve always been really passionate about teaching my children, and all children, about the natural world. We’ve lost our connection to nature, and this has meant our planet and our own health has suffered as a result. Illustrating these books feels like going a little way to redress the balance, and to do my bit for nature. I try to show my children that humans are not separate from nature – they are a part of it – and they will hopefully live their lives with this in mind.

I’m currently working hard on another book, which is filled with some amazing mega(!) animals, and beyond that, another book in the Everything You Know About series, so look out for those coming your way in the future.

—

Thank you, Gavin!

 

Take a look inside:

 

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Nosy Crow’s Recommended Reads for Empathy Day 2023

Today is Empathy Day! Founded by EmpathyLab, Empathy Day inspires children and young people to learn more about empathy, have transformational experiences through stories and put empathy into action. There are lots of great, free resources available on the EmpathyLab website, which you can explore further here.

To celebrate Empathy Day this year, we asked our staff to come up with a list of some brilliant Nosy Crow books that encourage empathy!

Here are some of the Crows’ recommendations for Empathy Day reading:

Running Out of Time by Simon Fox (audiobook)

“Running Out of Time is an exhilarating sci-fi thriller that had my adrenaline pumping, but it also deepened my emotional understanding of the plight of refugees, tackling this social issue with real empathy and heart (just with a sci-fi twist). I loved listening to this story over audiobook as it really brought out the best this story has to offer!” Meghan Meloy, Assistant Audio Editor

Everything Possible written by Fred Small & illustrated by Alison Brown

“For me, empathy in books is all about seeing the world as full of different and wonderful and exciting experiences and possibilities, and that’s what Everything Possible is all about – after all, the clue’s in the name! It’s inclusive and uplifting and celebratory (as a book inspired by an iconic folk song should be!) and although it’s a picture book aimed at young children, really, it’s for all of us.” Rebecca Mason, Senior Publicity Manager

Growing Up: An Inclusive Guide to Puberty and Your Changing Body! by Rachel Greener & Clare Owen

“The reason I picked Growing Up as the book to highlight for Empathy Day is that I am so happy that we are publishing such an inclusive book about puberty! I wish my younger self could have had access to this beautiful resource.” Maria Orlando, Home and Export Sales Assistant

Grandpa and the Kingfisher by Anna Wilson & Sarah Massini

“The title I have chosen for Empathy Day 2023 is the stunning Grandpa and the Kingfisher, written by Anna Wilson and illustrated by Sarah Massini. This is a book all about the power of nature, and about how death is a natural part of life. Talking about death with small children is hugely important, as should they, or someone they know, be dealing with loss, young readers can be armed with an understanding of what death means and where it fits within the natural circle of life, giving them space to reflect rather than being overwhelmed by a new, unknown and potentially frightening concept.” Rachel Kellehar, Publishing Director for Non-Fiction, Preschool and Activity

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

For me Caspar is the poster boy for empathy, he always thinks about other’s feelings and does his best not to judge Ren even though she has done something wrong. The world would be a much nicer place if we could all be a little more like Caspar. Hannah Kettle, Marketing Executive

Princess Minna: The Best Princess, written by Kirsty Applebaum & illustrated by Sahar Haghgoo

“Despite the regal setting, The Best Princess deals with a very common issue for small children: change, and the havoc it can wreak in their lives. Princess Minna is unsettled by the arrival of a new princess in her kingdom and tries to send her packing, in hilarious and increasingly desperate ways. When Princess Sky-Blue is not alarmed by Minna’s tales of plague and destruction but instead rolls up her sleeves to help, the two become friends, a friendship cemented in the face of a real unicorn rampage. Yes, change can make you question your place in the world but embracing it can be fun, especially if you make new friends along the way.” Kirsty Stansfield, Publishing Director, Fiction

Frank and Bert by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros

“Frank and Bert is a wonderfully heartwarming and hugely entertaining story about a comic duo, who serve as an important reminder that winning isn’t everything. Sometimes, being kind and empathetic is more important than being right…!” Laura Burke, Rights Assistant

Lands of Belonging: A History of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Britain, written by Vikesh Amey Bhatt, Donna Amey Bhatt & illustrated by Salini Perera

“I love this book because it helps me connect to a culture that I might not be familiar with.” Emma Hobson, Designer

When a Dragon Goes to School, written by Caryl Hart & illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw

“When a Dragon Goes to School is such an adorable book and I love that it encourages children to be kind, compassionate and considerate towards others.” Stephanie McClelland, Production Controller

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We hope you enjoyed reading about our picks! What are you reading for Empathy Day? Let us know on socials, @NosyCrow!

 

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STE(A)Ming Ahead! Nosy Crow and the University of Cambridge

Image credit: Pajor Pawel / Shutterstock.com

We are incredibly excited to announce that we have forged a STE(A)M-focused publishing partnership with one of the most influential institutions in the world, the University of Cambridge. For the uninitiated, STE(A)M stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths, which will be the core subjects featured on our brand new co-published list.

Discussions have been going on behind the scenes for a full year, so it’s wonderful to finally be able to talk about this in public and to announce the first books in our collaborative programme: Beasts from the Deep, written by Matt Ralphs and illustrated by Kaley McKean with additional consultation from Dr Rosalyn Wade and Dr Helen Scales, publishing in June 2024; and There’s No Such Thing as a Silly Question, 213 Weird and Wonderful Questions About the World, Expertly Answered, written by Mike Rampton and illustrated by Guilherme Karsten, publishing in October 2024.

Working on each and every book alongside our fantastic authors and illustrators are a range of academics, curators and subject specialists from the University of Cambridge’s research laboratories, museums and collections, making sure the information we’re giving young readers is as up to date as current research allows. On There’s No Such Thing as a Silly Question, we’ve had feedback from zoologists, biologists, mathematicians, plant scientists and even a researcher from the University of Cambridge’s BabyLab (a specialist centre within the department of psychology), and we’re only just getting started!

Of course, none of this would be possible without the formidable organisational skills of Ruth McPhee, the University of Cambridge’s Project Development Manager and our Publishing Programme Coordinator, who has forged the relationships between the University’s specialists and Nosy Crow’s authors, and Len Dunne, the CEO of Fitzwilliam Museum Enterprises, University of Cambridge, who saw the potential in our partnership and negotiated the deal.

Working with the University of Cambridge, alongside our longstanding publishing partners, the British Museum and the National Trust, is a huge privilege, and we really do feel honoured to have access to so many leading authorities on almost every subject imaginable.

I hope that the joy, passion and excitement of Nosy Crow and our co-publishing partners can be felt in every book we deliver together, and I very much look forward to continuing on this remarkable journey with the University of Cambridge by our side.

 

Rachel Kellehar

Publishing Director for Non-Fiction, Preschool and Activity

 

 

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PRESS RELEASE: Nosy Crow announces STE(A)M children’s book publishing partnership with the University of Cambridge

Nosy Crow will be working with the University of Cambridge in an exclusive partnership to create a range of children’s books to sell in the UK and North America under the Nosy Crow imprint launching in 2024. Nosy Crow will have world rights in the books, and will be selling them internationally on an export, rights and co-edition basis.

Credit: Pajor Pawel / Shutterstock.com

The University of Cambridge was second in the influential 2023 QS World University Rankings, the highest rated institution in the UK.

The non-fiction books, which will be published with joint Nosy Crow/University of Cambridge branding, will make a variety of subjects, with an emphasis on STE(A)M, accessible to children aged 0 to 12. These books will draw on the University’s world-renowned academics and its many remarkable museums and collections in order to surprise and delight children with exciting and up-to-date takes on information and ideas.

The first title will be Beasts from the Deep, written by Matt Ralphs and illustrated by Kaley McKean with additional consultation from Dr Rosalyn Wade and Dr Helen Scales, publishing in June 2024 in the UK and in June 2025 in North America. It will be joined by There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question: 213 Weird and Wonderful Questions About the World, Expertly Answered!, written by Mike Rampton and illustrated by Guilherme Karsten, publishing in October 2024 in the UK and October 2025 in North America.

Kate Wilson, Group CEO and founder of Nosy Crow, comments:

“Working with the University of Cambridge is an enormous privilege and we’re hugely proud of having secured this partnership, alongside our ongoing publishing relationships with the National Trust and the British Museum. The passion, authority and expertise our partners bring to our list is remarkable, and we look forward to working with the University of Cambridge to further increase the breadth and depth of unique and trusted content with global sales potential.”

Rachel Kellehar, Nosy Crow’s Publishing Director for Non-Fiction, Preschool and Activity and who negotiated the deal, comments:

“It’s also an exceptional responsibility: we want to make books that are beautiful, fun and that, above all, engage children of different ages while respecting the extraordinary academic rigour that our work with these amazing experts will bring.”

Len Dunne, CEO of Fitzwilliam Museum Enterprises at the University of Cambridge, comments:

“We are thrilled to be co-publishing a range of books with Nosy Crow that will surprise, delight and engage young readers with STE(A)M concepts, while reflecting the University of Cambridge’s diverse range of collections and academic research. We can think of no better specialist children’s publisher with whom to inspire young scientists, engineers and mathematicians of the future.”

 

ABOUT NOSY CROW

Nosy Crow is a multi-award-winning publisher which began publishing child-focused, parent-friendly children’s books and audio books in 2011. It was named Children’s Publisher of the Year (2017 and 2019) and Independent Publisher of the Year (2020) at the British Book Awards, and was awarded the Independent Publishers Guild’s overall Independent Publisher of the Year twice (2016 and 2021). It has also won the IPG’s Children’s Publisher of the Year seven times, mostly recently in 2023. Nosy Crow’s perspective is international: it has won the IPG’s International Achievement Award five times; the British Book Award for Export twice; and is the only book publisher ever to win two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise for International Trade. Other prizes include the Stationers’ Company Innovation Excellence Award, the Nectar Small Business of the Year Award, the Growing Business Awards Young Company of the Year Award and many others for individual titles. Nosy Crow is also proud that it has been shortlisted for the IPG’s Sustainability Award and Diversity and Inclusivity Award.

For more information please contact Rebecca Mason t:07341 874893 e: rebecca@nosycrow.com

 

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities, with a rich history of radical thinking dating back to 1209. Its mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Cambridge was second in the influential 2023 QS World University Rankings, the highest rated institution in the UK.

The University comprises 31 autonomous Colleges and over 100 departments, faculties and institutions. Its 20,000 students include around 9,000 international students from 147 countries. In 2022, 72.5% of its new undergraduate students were from state schools and more than 25% from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Cambridge research spans almost every discipline, from science, technology, engineering and medicine through to the arts, humanities and social sciences, with multi-disciplinary teams working to address major global challenges. In the Times Higher Education’s rankings based on the UK Research Excellence Framework, the University was rated as the highest scoring institution covering all the major disciplines.

The University sits at the heart of the ‘Cambridge cluster’, in which more than 5,200 knowledge-intensive firms employ more than 71,000 people and generate £19 billion in turnover. Cambridge has the highest number of patent applications per 100,000 residents in the UK.

www.cam.ac.uk

 

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LGBTQ+ Open Submissions 2023

We are looking for more LGBTQ+ authors!

It’s important to us that we publish a diverse range of voices that reflect the amazing variety of the world we live in. We want to promote empathy in the stories we put on children’s bookshelves and an understanding that there is no ‘right’ way for anyone to live their life. We hope that these stories will also inspire the next generation of people who love to scribble and sketch!

So, if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community and write picture books (and maybe illustrate them too!), send us your stories in June for Pride month.

Submissions open on Thursday the 1st of June. Authors can submit picture book stories, together with your own artwork (not someone else’s) if you are an author-illustrator.

Before submitting your stories to us, we would like to ask that you familiarise yourself with current fiction picture books for children aged around 3–5, especially if you’re new to writing for this age group.

Stories can be in prose or rhyme, and the themes and types of characters (magical, mythical, human, animal, and everything in-between!) are totally up to you. Stories informed by your LGBTQ+ identity and experience are especially welcomed.

Please send no more than three picture book texts to LGBTQPlus@nosycrow.com, along with a short biography in the body of the email. The window for submissions is for a limited time only, from the 1st of June 2022 to the 30th of June 2023. I’m afraid any submissions received after this time will not be considered.

With the help of my colleagues in the picture book team, I will review all submissions, and we will aim to respond to you by the 30th of September 2023 to let you know whether or not you have been shortlisted.

It’s free to submit stories, and we welcome submissions from around the world, but they must be in the English language and unpublished anywhere in any country. Authors and author-illustrators must be aged 18 or older.

Texts should be no more than 1,000 words each and submitted as a Microsoft Word document (or similar document that can be opened in Microsoft Word) or Adobe PDF document. They should be sent as an email attachment (no paper submissions).

If you are an author-illustrator, texts can be accompanied by your artwork. PDFs should be no more than 5MB in total. If you’re an author-illustrator, please also include a link to your website and/or social media pages, where we can view more of your artwork.

If you’re not an author-illustrator, you don’t need to include any illustrations. Feel free to include illustration notes if needed but keep these to a minimum.

Don’t worry if you forget to attach something to your email. Please resend the entire submission with an alert at the top to let us know to delete your earlier submission.

If you have any questions, email LGBTQPlus@nosycrow.com. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, either via your agent, or directly from you if you don’t have one.

Good luck!

Alice Bartosinski

 

 

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Read an exclusive extract from Deadlock by Simon Fox

We’re very excited to be publishing Deadlock next month – an explosive new adventure from the author of the unputdownable Running Out of Time, Simon Fox.

And today we’re delighted to be sharing a preview of the book – you can read the first few chapters below!

Archie Blake thought his policeman father teaching him how to pick locks and open safes was just a bit of fun. But when a diamond necklace is stolen and his dad is arrested, Archie realises the only way to prove Dad’s innocence is to go on the run and use everything he’s learned to uncover the truth.

But Archie soon finds himself deeply tangled in the criminal underworld, where it’s hard to know who to trust and even harder to see what’s right or wrong. Will Archie be able to find a way out before it’s too late?

Read an extract of Deadlock here:

 

Deadlock will be published on June 1st – you can order a copy from Waterstones here, Bookshop.org here, or from Amazon here. Do let us know on socials what you thought of the first few chapters when you’ve finished reading!

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with all of our latest book news, including exclusive previews, giveaways, award news and more, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

 

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Kids’ Club May 2023

Welcome to another instalment of our Nosy Crow Kids’ Club: a monthly feature with lots of engaging activities for the young readers in your life! Each month we’ll post a creative writing prompt based on one of our recent publications, and some downloadable activity sheets for you to print for your little ones.

Write a Story

Our writing prompt this month takes inspiration from The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat by Em Lynas and Matt Hunt – a raucous, rhyming tale that will have children (and adults) in fits of laughter!

 

Pick two animals and one object that rhyme with one another.

 

For example, you could have The Dog and the Frog and the Clog, or The Bear and the Hare and the Pear – anything you like that rhymes!

 

Once you’ve picked one you like, write a story about the hilarious antics they get up to, taking inspiration from Em Lynas and Matt Hunt‘s books, The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat and The Cat and the Rat and the Hat. 

 

Try to make your story rhyme as much as you can – the funnier the better!

Share your kids’ creative writing with us on social media, by tagging us @NosyCrow! You never know, we might even share a selection on our channels …

Activity Sheets

Children can design their own sail, play spot the difference and match words in these free activity sheets for The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat! Download the resources here.

 

We hope you enjoyed the fifth instalment of our Nosy Crow Kids’ Club! Be sure to let us know if your little ones partake in our activities, and if there’s anything else you would like us to include, by getting in touch via email or social media.

 

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