Nosy Crow tag

Summer Reading

Posted by Tom on Jul 29, 2011

Now that Summer is most certainly upon us (evidenced at Nosy Crow by the fact that almost everyone is on holiday), the ritual of reading round-ups has been getting its yearly airing in the press. Without wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth – we’ve been very pleased with the inclusion of our books in so many round-ups – there seems to me to be something a little… unsatisfactory about the criteria for these lists. Surely, in order to qualify as a great Summer read, a book ought to have more going for it than a recent publication date.

There is, of course, all kinds of ways one could choose to define a good Summer book. Some – like our Mega Mash-Up series – are brilliant for keeping children occupied on long journeys or during days at home. Others, like Noodle Loves the Beach and Bizzy Bear: Off We Go!, evoke Summer quite literally. And stories like Dinosaur Dig! somehow encapsulate the outdoorsy, spirit-of-adventure feeling that Summer represents when you’re young – or, as Camilla put it to me in an email from the road, “Summer is about liberation isn’t it – from school, parents and routine, and in theory, the weather.”

When I asked for everyone’s suggestions here (before they all left), we decided to restrict ourselves to books that actually take place over the Summer. Needless to say, as with every previous discussion on the subject of favourite books of one sort or another, the debate swiftly dissolved into endless one-upmanship, but out of this, I’m pleased to say, came some truly excellent suggestions.

As ever, we’d love to hear your favourites, so please leave your comments at the bottom of the page or on Twitter.

Adrian suggested some true classics – Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons and The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, as well as a long-forgotten gem, The Inviolable Sanctuary by GA Birmingham.

Dom, pipped to the post for The Wind in the Willows, chose Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, saying that, “Some of the scenes from that book were so vivid, they’ve become practically my own memories. It’s the book equivalent of Inception!”

Kirsty has nominated L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between, Falconer’s Lure by Antonia Forest, and Winnie the Witch at the Seaside, by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul, for “the best infinity pool ever.”

Camilla’s first suggestion is The Enchanted Wood, by Enid Blyton – and she has exactly the measure of a lot of Blyton’s books:
“Ginger beer, doorstep sandwiches and smugglers coves – in fact the very holiday I am just embarking on, though of course it never seemed to rain and I bet they didn’t spend hours sitting in a traffic jam on the A30.”

Some of her other choices are Iggy and Me on Holiday, by Jenny Valentine and Joe Berger, and Shirley Hughes’ Lucy and Tom at the Seaside.

Kate seconded Kirsty’s nomination of The Go-Between, and has also added Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden and What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell, both for older readers. Her other suggestions include Lyn Gardner’s Olivia’s Enchanted Summer, out next year, Greenwitch and Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which I believe has the distinction of somehow being included in every single one of the “Best of” lists that we produce.

My choices are, for much the same reason as Camilla, Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books, as well as A Spoonful of Jam by Michelle Magorian and Raspberries on the Yangtze by Karen Wallace, both of which have sort-of magical qualities about them. And finally, I believe I would be remiss not to mention the summer strips of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes cartoons (pictured above), which, like all of our choices, cannot capture everything that’s wonderful about Summer, but certainly go a long way towards trying.

Now – over to you!

We’ve had some Twitter recommendations with the hashtag #summerreads:

@rogue_eight suggested The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by Alan Garner

Kate (@nosycrow) pointed out that S.C. Ransom’s books Small Blue Thing and Perfectly Reflected both have strong sense of a London summer.

Tagged with benji davies, best books for children, bizzy bear, books, books for boys, books for girls, children's authors, children's books, children's fiction, dinosaur dig, lyn gardner, marion billet, mega mash-up, nikalas catlow and tim wesson, noodle, olivia, penny dale

Our publicist meets Helen Peters, to talk PR for debut fiction

Posted by Kate on Jul 08, 2011

Dom Kingston recently joined us as our “attached freelance” one-stop PR man, and he’s getting to know our authors. This week, he met Helen Peters, pictured above at a cafe in Muswell Hill, author of debut novel for 8 – 12 year olds (particularly 8 – 12 year old girls) The Secret Hen House Theatre, which Nosy Crow is publishing in April 2012.

This is what he said:

“Meeting new authors is always an exciting part of a publicist’s job.

Often, especially if the book in question is their first book, meeting their publicist is an author’s first insight into life after the editorial process. And publicity is often a relative mystery to many new authors. Most aspiring writers know that they will have their book edited, but not so many think, when they’re writing, about what they’ll say about themselves, their book, and the process of writing it to a class of school children, a librarian, a bookseller, a journalist or a conference audience.

For some, the word and the idea of a ‘publicist’ has scary connotations – think Entourage. Or Ab Fab. Or the bit in Phonebooth before Colin Farrell actually gets into the phonebooth…

Luckily, publicists in the children’s publishing industry are always a four-day-drive-and-a-boat-trip away from this stereotype. Authors often seem to be relieved when you don’t arrive Gucci-ed up to the eyeballs, in a cloud of Kouros, and barking into the four mobile ‘phones permanently clamped to your ears.

As publicists, we just want to get to know and understand… The Author. It’s important that an author is totally comfortable with any promotional activity they’ll be doing.

So… how was Helen?

Well, she’s an English and drama teacher, so she’s totally at home when she’s talking to a room full of children and engaging them creatively with a subject.

Music to my ears!

She also kicks off our meeting with some excellent event ideas that will work beautifully for the age-group that she writes for.

A natural!

The icing on the cake is that Helen’s obviously going to be a dream interviewee. She’s eloquent, focused, funny and charming. And she has a story to tell. Couple these qualities with the autobiographical, made-with-love aspects of her novel (the farm setting, the characters drawn from her own family), and we’re soon bandying around possible feature ideas for both adult and children’s media.

Fabulous!

She’s also connected to, or connecting with, with lots of our world’s brilliant – and deliciously vocal – bloggers and tweeters. (Kate says, “speaking of this, you can read about Helen’s experiences as a first time author in this terrific blog post.”)

By this time I’m practically pinching myself.

So… Helen Peters – a lovely person, author of a lovely book and a publicist’s lovely dream . I CANNOT WAIT for curtain-up at The Secret Hen House Theatre…

ENCORE!!”

Tagged with book pr, book publicity, bookseller, books for girls, children's authors, children's fiction, debut novel, dom kingston, helen peters, librarian, pr, publicity, publishing, teacher, writing for children

As Father's Day approaches, a look at dads in books for children

Posted by Tom on Jun 14, 2011

It may well be true that Father’s Day is without a jot of authentic tradition to its name, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to celebrate. At Nosy Crow we’ve been listing our favourite dads in children’s literature all week, and what started out as a harmless pub game between Kate, Camilla and me has spiralled rather dramatically into a mammoth collection of categories, sub-categories and clauses.

Being a bit of a purist about these things, I initially protested to Kate that our list should be comprised only of nice dads, and that bad dads would go against the spirit of the exercise somewhat – this is for father’s day after all! – but we all realised pretty quickly that a lot of the best characters are really awful fathers.

This initial concession led to a proliferation of different categories.

Here are our best categories and our strongest nominations, with, where I felt it necessary, some context or justification. Please add your own categories or nominations in the comments below or on Twitter with the hashtag #kidsbookdads or Facebook!

Good dads:

William from Danny, the Champion of the World (written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, see the picture above). This is a pretty uncomplicated one – I think we can all agree that William is an amazing and exciting dad (even if he does lead his son into a life of crime). The opening chapter is a really lovely and quite moving tribute to the relationship between father and son.

The dad in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming is another good example of an exciting dad.

The dad in Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce is a favourite of Kate’s.

Big Nutbrown Hare from Guess How Much I Love You (written by Sam McBratney and illustrated by Anita Jeram). Big Nutbrown Hare is never specifically referred to as Little Nutbrown Hare’s father, but I think we’re invited to assume as much.

Gorilla from Gorilla and the dad in My Dad by Anthony Browne are pretty good entries from the outgoing Children’s Laureate…

… And we have two from the incoming one: Stick Man from Stick Man whose quest is to get back to his family tree, and the Gruffalo, from The Gruffalo’s Child, who tries to warn his adventurous child against the mouse. Both are written by Julie Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

Pa Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

John Arable from Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole, is an inspired choice by Camilla – the true story of the two male penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo who raised a baby penguin together.

Two excellent suggestions by Kate B were Mr. Brown from Paddington (by Michael Bond) and Pongo from 101 Dalmations (by Dodie Smith).

Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird (by Harper Lee). I have had to lobby quite hard for inclusion of Atticus Finch: on the one hand, he is, of course, the greatest father in any book, but is To Kill A Mockingbird really children’s literature? Well, it was treated as such on its release in 1960, and it’s taught all over the world in schools, so I think that makes it not not children’s literature.

Kate made the very interesting suggestion of Anne Frank’s father, “especially in contrast to how she portrayed her mother”.

My contribution to the sub-category of real-life good dads is Michael Rosen in his poems about his son Eddie, which reach their heartbreaking conclusion in Michael Rosen’s Sad Book.

Kate B also suggested James Potter from the Harry Potter books, which to begin with seemed like a silly suggestion to me; certainly not worthy of the Pongo/ Mr. Brown company in which it stood – James isn’t even alive in the books! – but it is, of course, actually an excellent choice. James dies protecting his family from Voldemort – a powerful symbol of fatherly love, and he’s there in Harry’s mind throughout the books.

James Potter segues seamlessly into our next category…

Absent dads:.

There are quite a lot of these in children’s books, ranging from dads who’ve abandoned their children to dads who are absent through no fault of their own.

The father in The Railway Children. I can’t remember his name, but it doesn’t matter – he’ll always be “Daddy, my daddy!” to me, in the manner of Dead Poets Society and “Captain, my captain”.

The fathers in Jacqueline Wilson’s The Illustrated Mum and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women were both examples of Kate’s category of “Absent Dads who are the Deus Ex Machina, resolving things at the end or making the ending happy”, as is the dad in The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr.

Bad dads:

Interestingly, a lot of bad fathers are defined in terms of their absence (in another blog post I’m sure there’d be a lot to say about that…) Some literary dads, however, would leave their offspring a lot better off if they did disappear.

Surely the absolute worst dad ever is Huck Finn’s; the violent town drunk who locks his son in a cabin and leaves him to starve. If we can have To Kill A Mockingbird then we can probably sneak in Huck Finn.

An excellent contender for the same title must be Matilda’s dad (from Roald Dahl’s Matilda)

Kate B points out that many fairy tale dads, such as the fathers in Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and Cinderella, behave shockingly badly towards their offsping, though they’re often under the influence of wicked stepmothers.

Bad dads who become good:

This is a more heartwarming category and it seems to be an popular archetype in children’s books:

The father in our very own Olivia’s First Term, by Lyn Gardner is viewed by some of us as a bit of a bad dad, but others of us felt this was harsh, and that he really was doing his best in difficult circumstances.

Other complicated and difficult dads who are more or less redeemed at the end of the book or books include Lord Asriel, from the trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman; Mortmain, from I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith; Mr. Darling from Peter Pan; and Colin’s dad in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Secret Garden

Surrogate dads:

Adrian thought up the “surrogate dads” category:

Ben from Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy.

Tom Oakley from Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian.

Joe Gargery in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

The magnificent Akela from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Finally (!), here are a few that didn’t quite fit anywhere:

Kirsty called the dad in Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging “the best comedy dad”, and nominated the dads in Big Red Bath and Peepo“ for the title of “Best at giving baths dad”. And Charlie and the Chocolate Factory demonstrates the “Dad upstaged by grandfather” genre rather well…

As you can see, once you’ve started, it is hard to stop.

Over to you…

Tagged with best books for children, books, books for babies, books for boys, books for girls, children, children's authors, children's books, children's fiction, children and reading

Publication of Olivia's First Term and Perfectly Reflected

Posted by Kate on Jun 07, 2011

Last week (ahem – apologies, but life has got in the way of this post) we published two great new novels in print and ebook formats.

The first is Olivia’s First Term by Lyn Gardner, theatre critic for The Guardian newspaper. This is Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers meets Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes with a bit of Pamela Brown’s The Swish of the Curtain thrown in for deliciously good measure. It’s about friendship, family and performing, and its target audience is girls of 9+.

The Stage says it is “hugely enjoyable”.

Parents in Touch says it’s “the first in a very promising new series from Nosy Crow – a relatively new publisher. I can see the series being an instant hit with girls, who will love the thought of the glamour of stage school – or is it glamorous?”

The School Run says “Girls will love this book, it is a great story, with many messages within the story about friendship… I am sure this series could become as popular as Enid Blytons Malory towers and St Clare’s series! I for one am looking forward to the next in the series to be released.”

The second is Perfectly Reflected by S C Ransom, and is the sequel to Small Blue Thing. A paranormal romance for young teens and pre-teens with an iconic London setting – the focus of the action is the River Thames and St Paul’s Cathedral, it’s about teenage schoolgirl Alex, and her battle with the evil Catherine, who has managed to cross over to our world from the world of the ghostly Dirges, who are doomed to steal the happiness of others in order to survive. Catherine has a grudge, and is determined to make Alex’s life misterable, and what better way to do that than to keep Alex apart from Callum, who is trapped in the world of the Dirges? You can find out more about the books on the series website.

Networked Blogs says, “If Small Blue Thing was a paranormal romance, Perfectly Reflected is a paranormal thriller … There’s always a worry that the second of a series may not live up to the expectations created by the first – happily this is not the case here and the twists and turns will keep you hooked to the last page.”

Congratulations to Lyn Gardner and S C Ransom on publication!

These books bring our total number of print/ebook publications to (drumroll) 12.

Tagged with books for girls, children's books, children's fiction, ebooks, lyn gardner, olivia, perfectly reflected, s c ransom, small blue thing

Philip Ardagh's event at the Hay Festival

Posted by Kate on Jun 02, 2011

I went to Philip Ardagh’s event at the Hay Festival yesterday. He was talking mainly, but far from exclusively, about his latest Grubtown Tales book for Faber and Faber, When Bunnies Turn Bad.

Honestly, I’d have gone even if he hadn’t been a Nosy Crow author (we’re publishing the first in his new series, The Grunts, next year, with illustrations by Axel Scheffler). His events are masterclasses in high-energy, interactive, stand-up comedy and for a child-and-parent audience, that weave together the story of how Philip became an author with lots of great scatalogical and tongue-in-cheek self-aggrandising material that had the child one along from me actually falling off her chair she was laughing so much.

However professional and brilliantly prepared Philip is, he can’t predict everything, and a high-point of the event was him putting his foot (clad, as everyone in the audience knows, in size 16) through the set of one of Hay’s two swankiest event spaces:

Philip worked the incident into the event so brilliantly that even the technicians in charge of the venue were laughing in the aisles. Here he is with a triangle of broken stage after the event:

I, for one, can’t wait for the Philip–Axel The Grunts double-act.

Tagged with axel scheffler, books for boys, books for girls, children's books, children's fiction, festivals, funny books for children, hay-on-wye, hay festival, illustrations, illustrators, philip ardagh, the grunts

Nikalas and Tim's Mega Mash-up event at the Hay Festival

Posted by Kate on Jun 01, 2011

Nikalas and Tim’s Mega Mash-up event at the Hay Festival yesterday was fast, furious and funny.

They took the – big and lively – audience through the creation of the series, a unique and silly blend of doodle book and young novel that they describe as “draw your own adventure” which they both write and illustrate.

They said that some of their ideas come to them on the Thinking Couch in their studio. Here’s Nikalas on the Thinking Couch:

And here’s Tim on the Thinking Couch:

However, they also confessed that they traded ideas for cookies with the elves at the bottom of their garden.

Conveniently, Nikalas is right-handed and Tim’s left handed, which means that they can illustrate the same picture at the same time without either getting in the other’s way… and they demonstrated this on a flip-chart at the event:

They pulled in audience suggestions and questions brilliantly. Here’s Tim getting a suggestion from half-way up the theatre:

They asked, for example, what the roundish object might be that they’d drawn being spotted through a telescope hurtling toward the Romans’ and Dinosaurs’ Martian city, Romasauria. “A grape!”, suggested one child (it was an asteroid). In turn, they were asked whether they liked brussels sprouts. So we covered a lot of ground, not all of it fruit-and-vegetable-related, as well as drawing mashed-up characters together.

There was a long queue of enthusiastic children waiting for them to sign books, and I was surprised and pleased to see how many girls were in the audience, as I’ve always thought that these books skewed towards boys, and reluctant boy readers in particular:

Described by Library Mice as “… exactly the kind of books us parents need to be able to hand to our offspring in school holidays or on long car journey!” you can find out more about the Mega Mash-up books on the Mega Mash-up website, where you can also post your own pictures, like this one by Alex Kosowicz:

Tagged with books for boys, books for girls, children's books, children's drawing, children's illustrators, children and reading, festivals, hay-on-wye, hay festival, mega-mash-up, nikalas catlow and tim wesson

The books we never outgrow

Posted by Tom on May 25, 2011

This week’s Stylist magazine (free outside the tube station, thank you very much) has a very good cover story on the children’s books we never outgrow, complete with rather marvellous illustrations by Quentin Blake. The article fudges a little towards the end, giving a list only of ‘Top 10 Children’s Books’, which is, of course, practically meaningless, but the core idea of un-outgrow-able books is a lovely one.

Stylist includes The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlotte’s Web and Matilda in its list (all favourites of mine), and the second Kate saw it lying open on my desk she pounced, conducting the fastest straw poll I believe I have ever seen. Well, I am pleased to say that ours is a suitably eclectic list, spanning most of the twentieth century, picture books and fiction, autobiography and fantasy, blockbuster names and forgotten gems. Helpfully, we’ve had quite a number of visitors this morning, so this is also a more comprehensive collection than it might otherwise have been. And without further ado, here it is – Nosy Crow’s list of the books we never outgrow:

Kirsty chose Autumn Term by Antonia Forest, the first in the Marlow family series of novels, originally published in 1948.

Dom named Going Solo, the second installment of autobiography by Roald Dahl and the sequel to Boy.

Deb initially wanted Charlotte’s Web but, at the time of writing, had settled on The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

Adrian picked, without a second’s hesitation, The Land of Green Ginger, a choice that caused a lot of blank stares amongst the rest of us. A little Wikipedia-ing later and I now know that it was written in 1936 by Noel Langley, who went on to be one of the (many) responsible for the screenplay of The Wizard of Oz.

Steph, insisting that she didn’t want to go for a picture book, and after much deliberation, has gone for Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women.

Tim Wesson, co-creator with Nikalas Catlow of our very own Mega Mash-Up series, has picked a classic of quite a different sort, Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat.

Kate Shaw fought off stiff competition from Camilla to be the one who gets to name another Roald Dahl, Danny Champion of the World, as their own (personally I always found the novel’s gritty social realism a little disturbing).

Imogen, remarkably unfazed by my ambushing of her the moment she crossed the threshold, selected Janet and Allen Ahlberg’s absolutely wonderful Jolly Christmas Postman.

Despite this being her idea, Kate W simply could not make a final decision, and seemed visibly pained by my insistence that she only be allowed one choice. However, after much cajoling from me and soul-searching from her, she’s plumped for Rumer Godden’s The Dolls’ House.

Kate B, after considerable thought, has picked Snoopy, by Charles M. Schulz.

Camilla, once her first instinct had been nixed by my increasingly dictatorial approach to rules, chose A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young.

And, because I’m the one writing this blog, I’m going to allow myself two choices. The first is Susan Varley’s Badger’s Parting Gifts, a criminally overlooked picture book and one of the most moving treatments of grief I have ever read. And the second is Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, from 1876, about which nothing new can be said, but which still seems fresh and exciting and funny to me on every re-reading.

So, there they are! Between Nosy Crow and Stylist, Roald Dahl gets an excellent showing, as does American literature. But what have we missed? What books have you never outgrown?

Here’s what some of @nosycrow’s Twitter followers have said:

@rachelisking: Mine would be Matilda, although I also love Ursula Bear by Sheila Lavelle (sadly no longer in print)

@LizzyCampbell: Mine would have to be Anne of Green Gables

@Girl___Friday: I third Danny! :) Also Narnia.

@Rebecca Berry: I’ll never outgrow Cobwebs and Creepers. It isn’t in print anymore but I loved it!

@superjed79 JED: Pigs Might Fly by Emily Rodda (Aussie author). Awesome.

@musingsofayalib: I would most definitely choose Jon Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales!

@sharontelfer: Wizard of Earthsea: original and best book about wizard school! Also another vote for the lovely Land of Green Ginger

@Lucy Coats: I’ll never outgrow The Wind in the Willows.P.S. Tell Adrian I used to LOVE the Land of Green Ginger. And Phantom Tollbooth taught me about dodecahedrons!

@macnelliebus: Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll books! Sweet, funny, heartful and wise

@kbalzart: The Poky Little Puppy!

@NatashaFarrant1: Anne of Green Gables. Never, ever, ever outgrown. Went to Green Gables last summer and embarrassed children by crying. A lot.

@loops777: Em…where to start?!I NEVER tire of the wonders of Mr Dahl.Hilariously witty. Always a special place for ‘A Little Princess’ too!

@rookibooks: Brambly Hedge series. Kids & i named one of our dog walks after them and we take popcorn for the mice! #kidsbooks #notoutgrown

@SarahTFergusson: Alan Garner’s The Owl Service. Beautiful and scary!

@cathiesue: Caddie Woodlawn

@Discover_Story: Tom’s Midnight Garden haunted me. I’m still hoping to find my real enormous garden.

@utzy: Now We Are Six. Bought my daughter old copy in a bookshop yesterday, and yes she will be six soon

@GilesCroft: The Man Who Was Magic by Paul Gallico. Time for a reprint.

@moongolfer:Agaton Sax

@classygenes: The Phantom Tollbooth! Fab! Still have it on my bookshelf. Who needs 3D when u have Juster’s imagination?

@tomfinnerty: Lovely article, thanks! I’d go for Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones

@KathLangrish: Finn Family Moomintroll. And – well, most of them, really. LOVED The Land of Green Ginger!

@AnabelMarsh: Another vote for Anne of Green Gables. Matthew’s death is a sobfest every time

@georgialeaper: The Jolly Postman, and Minnie&Ginger by Barry Smith http://amzn.to/msSyXK – Timeless lovestory

@Alex_T_SmithThe Tiger who Came to Tea – I’ve always wanted to go to a cafe in my pjs like the girl in the story

@vivlives001: Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

@dansumption: Another vote for Agaton Sax. Also, the Uncle stories.

@rebecsmart: The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown

@JustinSomper: Where the Wild Things Are + Ahlberg’s The Mighty Slide + Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ;-)

@neeshed: my childhood favourite was Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat – just started it with kids and still special

@Gem_Clair: Dogger, Shirley Hughes. (But I can’t talk about it because it still makes me cry!)

@alice_murphy: I also cried in the Book Shop about Michael Rosen’s The Sad Book. And Badger’s Parting Gifts… Among many others!

@janeconsidine: My childhood choice Where the wild things are.

@lesleytspencer: Eight Children and a Truck by Anne Catherina Vestly. Still got my battered copy:)

@Chiddle84: Ooh, the Jolly Postman!

@mightydanzy: The Monster at the end of This Book featuring the furriest, most favorite Muppet, Grover.

@katybeale: The Hobbit!

@Dreamteamsoft: Totally love Danny Champion of the World !

@LondonBessie: Gotta be Teddy Robinson. Just fantastic – funny, sweet, a bit bonkers and totally charming.

@Hilary Foster: The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark; The Dark Is Rising hairs standing up at memory

@stevemaythe1st: Any of Tove Jannson’s Moomin books – wonderful evocative stories & illustrations

@murhilltypist: ‘National Velvet’, ‘The Thirteen Clocks’, and ‘Are you my mother?’: the moving tale of a fledgling and a JCB.

@LuLhullier: In English, all Shel Silverstein books #kidsbookillneveroutgrow

@clarefenn: Mine are Danny Champion of the World and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

@julietanne: Hungry Caterpillar, Hairy McClary, The Little White Horse, The Tiger Child

@MissCellany: Beauty: Robin McKinley, Howl’s Moving Castle: Diana Wynne Jones and entire Little House on Prairie saga. And Mog! How could I forget Mog, The Forgetful Cat? (

@FlossieTeacake: YES TO PAMELA BROWN. Have you seen: http://bit.ly/mdNk9C

@bowbrick: ‘Peepo’ by the Ahlbergs. A board book worthy of the Booker. Literally one of my favourite books ever

@le_robertson: Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton. you have to love silly turkeys. ;)

So tell us on Twitter (there’s even a hashtag now, as we’ve only included Twitter nominations from people who sent theirs as a reply) or comment below.

Tagged with best books for children, books for boys, books for girls, children's books, children's fiction

Get ready for The Grunts: new fiction series by Philip Ardagh, illustrated by Axel Scheffler

Posted by Kate on Mar 23, 2011

Woo-hoo!

We’ve acquired The Grunts.

This is a series of four books by award-winning author Philip Ardagh. The books, which feature the eponymous and disgusting Grunt family, will be illustrated in black and white by Axel Scheffler and the first book, The Grunts in Trouble, will be published in May 2012.

Philip makes me laugh – as a person and as an author. Always has done, always will. His combination of professionalism and irreverence make him the perfect Nosy Crow author, and we are pleased and flattered that he’s chosen to publish with us. Pairing him with Axel Scheffler is going to make this an utterly irresistible series for children of 9 and up.

Philip says:

“I’m delighted that The Grunts, my latest series of (very silly) novels, is to be published by Nosy Crow with the crow so fresh from the egg, and still slightly yolky. For Axel Scheffler to have agreed to illustrate it — without my having to resort to threats of any kind — is the real icing on the metaphorical cake. I very much look forward to working with him, Kate Wilson, and the rest of the Nosy Crow team on what I hope will be some of my most outrageous books to date. These are exciting times! FUN just doesn’t express it.

And Axel says:

“It’s been several years since I’ve illustrated fiction, but there was an anarchy and humour in the outrageous Grunt characters that really appealed to me, and I look forward to working with Philip on his series with Nosy Crow.”

This is the most high-profile of several recent great fiction acquisitions, including a series of four titles by best-seller Holly Webb, that make it clear how serious Nosy Crow is about fiction publishing as well as full-colour publishing. We’ve got world rights in all languages for all of them, so there’ll be lots to talk about at the Bologna Book Fair next week.

Today, as well as announcing this acquisition, we have added our 2012 titles to the Books section of our website. We will publish 25 new titles this year, and at least 35 next year. This year we’ll launch 5 apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch and we’re planning to make at least 8 new apps in 2012.

It’s “all systems go” here at the Crow’s Nest…

Tagged with apps, axel scheffler, books for boys, books for girls, children's fiction, philip ardagh, publishing, the grunts

What - and how - do girls draw?

Posted by Kate on Jan 30, 2011

Over the last week or so, the question of girls’ drawing has come up both in an interesting submission from an author and in a conversation about future publishing ideas.

Of course, there’s an entirely separate conversation to have about whether and why girls’ drawing subjects and styles are different from boys’ drawing subjects and styles. As a publisher, I am not aiming to publish in a way that excludes any reader, and I personally can’t imagine publishing a book called something like “Drawing For Girls” or “Stories For Girls”, though such books often sell well. However, but I am realistic and recognise that books – and drawing, for that matter – exist in the context of other factors, whether genetic or social, that predispose many children towards subjects that conform strongly to stereotypes of what the different sexes are interested in. Most girls really do seem to like fairies and princesses, and most boys really do seem to like dinosaurs and diggers. We can’t change the world, as publishers. We exist in a commercial environment. When we choose to publish a book, we do so with a strong sense of the ultimate likely reader in mind, and, generally, but not always, the attributes of that notional reader include the reader’s sex.

Anyway, several people have already been really helpful, via Twitter, on the question of what girls of 10 and 11 draw and in what style. Here are some of the – very helpful – answers we got:

“She loves drawing people, animals, still life, landscapes. Works in all mediums but her favourite would be soft pastels.”

“My 9 year-old draws her WebKinz plush toys. Right now her WebKinz are also cast as characters from Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. So drawings are of Husky WebKinz as Wolf.”

“My 12 year-old daughter (turned 12 two weeks ago) draws everything. A main theme is girls her age in various settings. She experiments with all sorts of styles, playing with them. She has her own style arrived from a synthesis of many. She also adds little poems to the drawings. She draws endlessly and writes endlessly.”

“[My 10 year-old says she draws] ‘Other girls, I draw eyes a lot, random animals, stars, lips, faces – friends draw beauty products’. She also draws cartoon-style large-headed characters with small bodies or captioned cartoon pictures. It was really interesting talking to her about it. Some of them are ace! A cow stuck in a bog entitled Silly Cow!!”

“[Drawing] is by far her favourite thing. Girls, dreams, cats, birds, freaky people, fantasy houses, people turning into animals… Fairly stylised but [she has] a distaste for cartoon/Manga style as it’s not unique to her. It helps that her dad draws a lot. I see most other kids by her age decline in drawing appetite & confidence, in comparison.”

“[My] nieces say they copy cartoons, especially club penguin, and animals.”

“[My daughter] draws everything: scenes, cartoon characters (SpongeBob, Moshi, Facebook game characters), animals, designs (floor plans/fashion/shapes) us (the family) … she just loves to draw!”

“[My daughter is] a bit older now, but she did draw lots: people she knew including the family, animals, and lots of anime-style pictures of people & ferrets.”

“It’s manga all the way.”

“Mine [10] draws houses & gardens mostly.”

“[Of 11 year-old} Jedward. Herself and Jedward.”

“My 9 year-old draws mainly figures and fashion.”

“At the moment she designs t-shirts/clothes for her friends/family. Flowers, hearts etc. popular too. She draws/doodles a lot. She’s 10.”

If you’ve additional comments about girls in this older age-group, please tweet or comment below, telling me the age of the child you’re talking about.

But this post is also about younger girls aged 6 to a maximum of 8. What do they like to draw and what does their drawing look like?

A number of twitter response really show why we’re right to be spitting up the age-groups:

“My daughter drew rainbows and princesses 6/7, fashionable girls and puppies 8, rock stars age 9 (now).”

“My kids draw a lot and they often draw their family when they’re really little and friends when a little older.”

“I have girls in both age groups. They both LOVE to draw. 7 draws profiles & characters. 10 draws reptiles & maps.”

“[Girls aged] 10/11: clothing styles, horses, portraits of others; 6/7: themselves, their families & friends (stick figures), generic ‘landscapes’.”

We’d be really grateful if you could tell us what your younger girls draw, and, even better, send us some samples, or links to samples of your girl’s drawing. You can send samples to hello@nosycrow.com. The images won’t actually appear in a book, and we won’t post the image or name the child without your permission, but the images you send will help to shape a particular book or books that we plan to make.

The image above, Rainbow Bunny by Ella Chia, came via Twitter, and we are very grateful for it.

Tagged with books for girls, children's drawing, girls' drawing

Guest post: A writer's first year by S C Ransom

Posted by Kate on Nov 18, 2010

S. C. Ransom, author of Small Blue Thing writes a guest post for our blog:

Exactly a year ago today, on the 18th November 2009, I sat at my computer, took a deep breath, and pressed “send”.

The email was addressed to Kate Wilson, a contact of a colleague, who I had been told would be happy to give me a view on whether the book I had written for my daughter’s 12th birthday was anywhere near publishable. I had already submitted to one agent but not yet heard anything. By return, I got a nice response from Kate approving the Suzanne Vega reference in the title. That was was encouraging. Then on the 20th (I keep a note of these things!) I got an email back asking for the full manuscript and suggesting that we meet up.

Hugely excited, I sent off the vast file and sat back to wait. And wait. And then wait some more. I didn’t want to approach any more agents as I was hoping that Kate (who hadn’t even started up Nosy Crow at this point) would give me an ‘in’ which might short-circuit the slushpile. But Kate was busy (very busy, I discovered later), and I heard nothing more for a while. I got a rejection from the first agent. It seemed that my novel was destined to be a family affair, not an international bestseller.

In the New Year, I gave Kate a gentle prompt, and – hurrah! – we finally arranged to have that coffee. We met in Café Valerie near Sloane Square on the 12th January. Sizing each other up, we decided we liked what we saw, and by the end of the meeting I had an offer for the book which was to be Nosy Crow’s launch publication. On the 27th January, I met with Kate and Camilla at the Nosy Crow “North London Office” – the Wellcome Trust Cafe on Euston Road – and signed a contract for not just Small Blue Thing, but for a trilogy of books. (The photograph is of Kate and me, with Kate signing the contract.)

My feet haven’t touched the ground since!

Tagged with books for girls, s c ransom, small blue thing, sue ransom