Articles tagged with: picture books
Posted by Kate on Jun 13, 2011
Young British illustrator Frann Preston-Gannon has said that new British illustration talent is being forced to go abroad in search of work as the UK picture book market becomes increasingly conservative.
Comments on The Bookseller article reporting Frann Preston-Gannon’s remarks point out that library cutbacks and the shrinking of the independent bookshop sector are a factor in this increased conservatism in the UK market, and I do think that both libraries and independent bookshops have, historically, been particularly strong and important supporters of more experimental illustration styles in the UK.
However, from the point of view of an independent children’s book pulbisher, I’d say a couple of things:
The first is that the UK has always looked outside the UK to launch new artists. Selling co-editions (i.e. co-ordinating a single printing of full-colour books in several different languages for different countries so that some of the costs of the printing are spread across many copies, and each country benefits from a sort of “bulk discount” with the printer) has been at the heart of the picture book’s financial viability for over two decades. If opportunities for artists exist outside the UK, even if the UK market itself might not be a big market for a particular artist, UK publishers are often keen to find them, and to support new talent with international sales. So a book originating in the UK may sell better abroad. At Nosy Crow, and at other UK publishers, the UK print-run can be just a tenth of the total print-run – the rest is made up of co-editions.
Second, there are many illustrators who, initially, frightened the UK retail horses at the early stages of their career, but who are now well and truly part of the illustration establishment. Axel Scheffler is a good example. When I first published Axel, I was told his work was looked “too continental European”; that the eyes were too goggly and the noses too big. The first UK print run of The Gruffalo was very small – perhaps 1,500 or 2,000 copies, I seem to remember, and, whatever it was, UK sales were smaller! We persisted (as did Axel, of course) and great, distinctive, witty illustration won through won through.
Third, at Nosy Crow, we’re always looking for new illustrators. We’ve a small picture book list, but over the next 18 months it will include, among other new illustrators:
Nadia Shireen who graduated in 2010, and whose art complements a dark and funny text (involving characters being eaten) called The Baby That Roared by Simon Puttock publishing in January 2012 (her first book, Good Little Wolf, published by Random House, is out now);
Nicola O’Byrne who graduates this summer and whose book, Open Very Carefully is a witty celebration of the printed book that publishes in autumn 2012.
Of course there are some publishers who play very safe, and there are others who are a bit more edgy. Not being part of their decision-making process, I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for Nosy Crow. We’re somewhere in the middle, I’d say. We need to feel that an artists work will appeal to a child (rather than appeal just to an adult), and that’s really our starting point. we have to feel that there’s a market for an illustrator’s work somewhere in the world, especially if we think that the UK market won’t rush to embrace a particular style. We don’t always agree: as in so many areas of publishing, we’re making subjective judgements based on a complicated mix of taste, experience and knowledge.
The book market – UK and international – doesn’t owe us (or any particular artist for that matter), a living: we have to publish books that are commercially viable, but, at Nosy Crow, we’re always looking for new talent, and we’re willing to take risks on it.
And we congratulate Frann Preston-Gannon and wish her the best of luck, wherever she publishes.
Tagged with axel scheffler,
co-editions,
illustrations,
illustrators,
independent publishers,
nadia shireen,
nicola o'byrne,
open very carefully,
picture books,
simon puttock frann preston-gannon,
the baby that roared,
the bookseller
Posted by Kate Burns on Jun 03, 2011
As soon as Sarah’s agent showed me these loveable pre-school characters, I knew I wanted to publish them. Lucky for me then that the rest of the Nosy Crows shared my enthusiasm! And, since having met up again with Sarah to see how she is getting on with our first Zac and Zeb book, my enthusiasm has gone into overdrive, as has Steph’s. So much so, I thought I’d better become a true Nosy Crowite, and learn how to blog. Help, Tom, is this right?
Sarah Massini and I had crafted the first story together, and then it was down to her to think about how the story might work illustratively and graphically on the page. She rocked up with a sketch book simply overflowing with thumbnail sketches for the whole book – about three times over. Suddenly, these two characters were coming to life in front of our eyes – it was so exciting! The great thing about working with an artist like Sarah is that she is simply overflowing with creative ideas and vision, as well as having a fantastic sense of graphic design and how a story should work as a visual narrative for young children. It’s so wonderful to be picking out the best ideas from a whole wealth of ideas, and I do believe that the best picture books come out of these kind of meetings. It’s often tempting to cram every single good idea into one book but that might lead to a lack of visual clarity, and Sarah was fantastically open to us cherry picking through her thumbnails. Thank you, Sarah, and at least we know the second Zac and Zeb book will also be a visual delight.
Tagged with children's authors,
children's books,
children's illustrators,
illustrations,
illustrators,
picture books,
sarah massini,
zac and zeb
Posted by Kate on May 16, 2011
I went up to Lincoln on Saturday to talk to a group of children’s authors and illustrators (and agent Elizabeth Roy, many of them aspiring to be published. The event was organised by writer and blogger Addy Farmer (pictured here with me) for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
It was hard to know what to cover (and Kate had a scary 90 minutes to fill), other than pointing people in the direction of our “submissions guidelines” and to telling them we prefer to receive submissions digitally, which is the work of a minute. But I talked about how Nosy Crow got started, and what’s important to us: identifying the core audience for each book or app that we do and trying to ensure that every aspect of that book or app is right for that audience; bringing our own creative energies and skill to projects as we work with authors and illustrators to shape and make books and apps; embracing digital technology both as a means of creating new reading experiences and communicating with people about them; and thinking internationally, and accessing international markets through our partners in key countries.
Of course, most of the people there really wanted to know what Nosy Crow was “looking for” and that’s a hugely difficult thing to define.
But here’s a shot at it:
Print books:
Fiction for 0 – 12, bearing in mind that a lot of the texts for board and novelty books are are produced in-house.
“Mum-friendly” books – no drugs, sex or gritty or gratuitous violence.
Strong commercial concept-driven or character-led series novels and picture books.
Brilliantly-written stand-alone novels and picture books, but nothing too intensely high-brow.
Great illustration with child and parental appeal – nothing too dark and arty.
Apps:
While some of our future apps may be based on our books, Nosy Crow is currently focused on commissioning apps that start as apps, not as books. We are interested in working with authors and illustrators who are excited by, and really understand how, touch-screen devices can enhance and extend the story experience. As we have engineers on staff, we don’t need people who can code apps, and we don’t need to see a ready-made app. Instead, we want to see really great ideas and really great art (and need art that is created digitally in layers for this medium).
I got to visit glorious Lincoln Cathedral:
And I even saw a little of the top part of the city (here are Addy and Elizabeth Roy in front of something lovely and half timbered) before leaving.
I got a couple of nice comments on Twitter, and Addy blogged about it.
Tagged with authors,
children's apps,
children's authors,
children's books,
children's fiction,
children's illustrators,
children's publishers,
children and reading,
facebook,
illustrations,
illustrators,
parenting blogs,
picture books,
publishing,
twitter,
web,
website
Posted by Deb on Apr 12, 2011
What with one thing and another, we’ve not mentioned some seriously big Nosy news: the first two books in Axel Scheffler’s Pip and Posy series, Pip and Posy: The Super Scooter and Pip and Posy: The Little Puddle are out now.
And they look lovely:
Kate’s been describing the books – rather tongue-in-cheek, of course – as “when bad things happen to good toddlers”. In each story, a bad thing happens – whether it’s that Pip forgets he needs a wee, and wets his trousers, or Posy snatches Pip’s scooter without asking and then falls off – but between them, Pip and Posy are able to sort things out and, together, go on to do something nice and happy. So they very much reflect the roller-coaster of pre-schoolers’ emotional lives.
Pip and Posy’s first outing was, in fact, at the Discover Centre in Stratford East and you can read about it here, but now they’re properly published. Axel nipped into Waterstone’s flagship store in Piccadilly to draw on their blackboards to celebrate and will be talking about Pip and Posy at Stratford, Hay, Edinburgh and Bath Literary Festivals this year.
We’ve sold rights to the USA/Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Holland already, with many more languages to follow.
We’re proud of all of the books and apps we publish and of all of our authors, but it is the case that we were unusually and particularly lucky as a new independent publishing company to be able to persuade Axel to illustrate for us, and we’re hugely grateful to him for his leap of faith.
We’re marking the release of Pip and Posy with a competition to win a signed set of books.
So to be in with a chance of winning, please post a comment on our Facebook page or in the Comments field below telling us why you love Axel’s artwork. The winner will be picked at random. The closing date is Friday 15 April.
Good luck!
Tagged with axel scheffler,
books for toddlers,
children's books,
contest,
illustrators,
picture books,
pip and posy
Posted by Kate on Feb 15, 2011
OK, so this is how it really happens.
This is how a picture book, in this case, one of Axel Scheffler’s Pip and Posy books is put together.
In this case, we had planned the book, but when the roughs were done and the text in place, we felt that the pacing wasn’t spot-on. The pacing of a picture book, particularly what is revealed when you turn a page (as opposed to what you can see already see on the right-hand side of a page when you are reading the left-hand side of a page), is tremendously important, and one of those things that makes creating a really good picture book such a challenge and a skill.
Anyway, we got to work with photocopies of Axel’s rough sketches, bits of paper with the text on it, a pencil and some really big scissors to redesign how the book worked. I know it’s not hi-tech, but for us, it’s the best way.
Here’s Camilla, hand sketching so fast that the camera couldn’t catch it, at work.
The reworked roughs went back to Axel, who redrew some of the images, and we’ll have a full book of art to take to the Bologna Book Fair at the end of March.
Tagged with axel scheffler,
children's books,
picture books,
pip and posy,
publishing
Posted by Imogen on Feb 08, 2011
Kate Burns writes:
“We’ll be revealing our titles for 2012 shortly, but we wanted to give you a sneak preview of one of them. Just like little bear’s porridge, we think that this lovely person is just right for the Nosy Crow list: she’s the multi-talented, award-winning author/illustrator/animator Leigh Hodgkinson. I love working with Leigh, something that always involves great books, loads of tea and ginger biscuits.
Leigh’s debut picture book for us is called Goldilocks and Just the One Bear. It’s the story of what happens when little bear is all grown up and has somehow managed to wander off the beaten track from the wood into the big city. The bear doesn’t much like the lights (too bright) or the honking and beeping (too loud) but his salvation comes in the unlikely form of a rather glamorous blonde lady who seems very familiar for some reason – and she really knows how he likes his porridge.
I believe that children enjoy and benefit from fractured fairy tales and that they are brilliant way to fire the imagination and teach children about word play, story play, looking at things from a different point of view and generally having fun with books…”
Tagged with children's books,
goldilocks and just the one bear,
leigh hodgkinson,
picture books
Posted by Kate on Jul 24, 2010
We’ve got to the end of the school year, and Kate’s older child has got to the end of primary school.
In the course of the last few days, Kate’s had a couple of conversations with parents who have been bemoaning the fact that their children – also coming to the end of primary school – seem to be going through a phase of re-reading. And Kate had, co-incidentally, also had a conversation of Dylan Calder, organiser of The StarLit Festival, who does a lot of work on reading and writing in schools at both the top end of primary and the bottom end of secondary, who was talking about the value of re-reading for children at transitional times.
Kate agrees about the value of re-reading. She thinks it’s a wholly worthwhile activity at a time of transition or at any other time. She just wishes she had more time for it herself. Nowadays, in the course of summer or Christmas holidays, she very occasionally returns to her own grown-up “comfort reads” (a selection would include Persuasion, The Time Traveller’s Wife and some poetry). She also re-reads titles whose plots suprise her, to work out how the author has put them together, like The Thirteenth Tale and Fingersmith.
But as a child, she re-read books all the time. Flat Stanley, anything by Enid Blyton, The Secret Garden, Charlotte Sometimes, The Doll’s House (Rumer Godden, not Ibsen), The Little White Horse, The Little House on the Prairie, Little Women (interesting “little” theme here), The Lantern Bearers, Anne of Green Gables, and Ballet Shoes all come to mind as books she went back to again and again.
She doesn’t remember reading, or even having, picture books other than a handful of Ladybird fairytales (strange, given how imporant picture books have been to her in her professional life), but, of course, re-readability is key to the appeal of picture books, and, as a parent, she reread favourites over and over again. Pages of the family’s copies of The Big Book of Beautiful Babies, Where’s Spot, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, The Gruffalo, Once There Were Giants, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Mog the Forgetful Cat, Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Winnie the Witch and the Katie Morag stories are dog-eared and torn and stuck together with yoghurt.
Now Kate’s children say they re-read several of the books she re-read:
The Secret Garden
The Doll’s House
Blyton’s Mallory Towers books
The Little White Horse
Charlotte Sometimes
Ballet Shoes
Anne of Green Gables
Little Women
They also say they re-read these books:
Just William
Chinese Cinderella
The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler (a good example of a children’s book where the ending is a surprise so you have to go back to see how the author did it)
The Mozart Question
All of the Harry Potter books
All of the Percy Jackson books
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Cloudbusting
A Spoonful of Jam
Noughts and Crosses
Walk Two Moons
They say that their friends re-read these books:
Enid Blyton books
Michael Morpurgo books
Jacqueline Wilson books
Into the Woods and Out of the Woods
Twilight
The Lovely Bones (Kate’s pretty horrified to discover this!)
The Dragonfly Pool
The Harry Potter books
The Cherub Books
Beano annuals
Tintin books
Artemis Fowl
The Alex Rider books
Clay
The Heartland pony/horse books
The school summer holidays are great, unpressured times for re-reading… and re-reading is to be celebrated.
What do you like to re-read now? What did you re-read as a child? Let us know by commenting.
Tagged with picture books,
re-reading
Posted by Kate on Jun 18, 2010
Well, we owe you an apology: we haven’t posted for a week, which is unlike us.
We have been busy bees, with no time for posting, and we just got out of the habit, but normal service will now be resumed.
And, honestly, we have been doing some Secret Stuff that we can’t yet tell you about.
But we can say that we met an enthusiastic and efficient illustration agent, two important customers and three talented and, as it happens, exceptionally nice potential fiction authors, one of whom made us an excellent quiche, which has to be a good sign, we feel. We’ve been to a big WHSmith presentation for the unveiling of the Richard and Judy Book Club, which impacts on children’s books from February 2011, and which gave us some ideas that we’ll be talking to WHSmith about. We went to a big and wine-fuelled Clays (the printers) knees-up yesterday evening. Oh, and Kate and Sue Ransom met up for a Suzanne Vega concert. Not only was Suzanne Vega part of the sound-track to their early 20s, but her song, Small Blue Thing – which, very cheeringly, she sang second – provided the title for Sue’s novel.
And, of course, we read and edited and wrote and made cakes just as we do every week.
The 11 June edition of The Bookseller ran a category preview for Picture Books, Novelty and Baby Books which focussed on Autumn 2010 titles but looked at titles as far ahead as April 2011. Both of the things we submitted were covered (which was a surprise and relief, to be honest, we had very little to send by the deadline!).
Vanessa Lewis of The Book Nook, Hove, says of Pip and Posy and the Little Puddle and Pip and Posy and the Super Scooter
“Not only do these two stories deal with the ups and downs of toddler life but the two endearing animal friends are artfully brought to life by the renowned and enchanging pen of Axel Scheffler. Sure to attract attention.”
And here’s what she says about Bizzy Bear: Fun on the Farm and Bizzy Bear: Ready, Steady, Go:
“I am always looking for exciting new board books for the very young and with bright bold illustrations, a cute central character and strong rhyme, this offering from fledgling company Nosy Crow looks very appealing.”
So that’s all good, isn’t it? Hooray for perspicacious independent book shop people!
Tagged with novelty,
picture books,
pip and posy,
the bookseller
Posted by Kate on Jun 01, 2010
Kate’s had two more glorious, sunny days in Hay.
Hay Fever (the children’s festival) highlights included Ben Cort’s interactive and action-packed Aliens Love Underpants event (children in pants pictured, with Ben at the back) and Holly Webb’s gentle and engaging event in which she talked about her animal books, her Triplets books (a favourite with Kate’s children when they were a little younger) and her historical fantasy Rose quartet. It’s great for Kate to have an opportunity to meet up again with people she’s published in the past, and, in the case of Holly, to meet up with someone she not only published but she and Kirsty Stansfield worked with.
Grown-up events included a breakfast with quietly impressive and sensible Justine Roberts of Mumsnet and an interview with warm and funny Jo Brand.
And, of course, that she tweeted all events goes without saying.
Kate also ended up at an improbably splendid and super-cool Soho House GQ dinner party for 350 people at the home of the chair of the Hay Festival.
The highlight of Adrian’s festival, though, has been a breakfast with Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi – the brilliant cooks behind the Ottolenghi books and cafes/delis.
Meanwhile, Imogen and Deb are back in the office working on opals and apps among other things.
Tagged with festivals,
picture books
Posted by Kate on Mar 19, 2010
Today’s big news is that Axel Scheffler, who illustrated the 3.5 million copy bestseller, The Gruffalo, will illustrate a series of picture books for toddlers for Nosy Crow. The series is about Pip and Posy, and the first two titles are Pip and Posy: The Little Puddle and Pip and Posy: The Super Scooter. Like Axel, Camilla’s got a toddler and, as she points out:
“I’ve really noticed that once children have got the hang of walking and made a start on talking, they begin to get bored with simple board books and become interested in longer stories. Their concentration levels increase and they are able to understand plot as well as starting to relate to character more and more.
“And as toddlers, children begin to encounter all sorts of new situations and experiences, not all of which are positive! Whether they are losing a treasured balloon, falling off a scooter or having an ice cream, a toddler’s world quickly becomes much more complex – and their emotional spectrum broader. From delight, to frustration, to jealousy, to fury, and back to joy, a two year-old can experience a whole range of feelings – often in the course of a single hour!”
Pip and Posy books explore the high drama of toddler life.
Axel is, of course, one of the illustrators in our Who’s your favourite children’s book illustrator survey, and your last chance to take the survey is at before 6.00pm today, when voting will close. We’ll announce the winner in our Monday post.
Tagged with axel scheffler,
picture books,
pip and posy
Posted by Kate on Feb 13, 2010
Kate met Catherine Barr, one of the Evolution authors, in Hay-on-Wye to talk about web copy and about possible illustrators: we need something that combines accuracy and naturalism on the one hand, with bold use of colour and an element of picture book friendliness on the other. We have a couple of illustators we both think might work, and we will pursue them.
Tagged with evolution,
illustrations,
picture books
