We are delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of two books for readers of 9 to 12 celebrating girls and women: an anthology of 10 new short stories by contemporary female writers called Make More Noise! New stories in honour of the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage; and a glorious, full-colour, biographical celebration of ground-breaking and inspiring women called HerStory: 50 Women Who Shook the World.
Kate Wilson comments: “My older child was able to vote for the first time in the last election, and took a lot of pride in it. This brought home to me the importance of being able to vote, and when I discovered that the centenary of the date on which the first British women were given the vote was coming up, I thought that it deserved recognition. We are hugely proud be celebrating, and championing, the most remarkable women who have helped shape our world in HerStory, and to have gathered together such a stellar list of British female authors at the top of their writing game in Make More Noise!
“There’s nothing, we think, quite like HerStory for its accessibility and appeal to its audience in terms of the level of beautiful illustration, the register of the language, and the focus on the women’s early lives.
“With both books we will be celebrating girls, and inspiring them to, in the words of Emmeline Pankhurst, ‘make more noise’.”
Make More Noise! will publish in February 2018. Each story, written by a star-studded list of contributors including well-known, award winning and new voices in children’s literature, celebrates strong female characters, with subjects ranging from the ’43 Group to modern ghost stories.
The full list of authors contributing to the anthology is: Emma Carroll, Kiran Millwood Hargrave (winner of the 2017 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize), Catherine Johnson, Ally Kennen, Patrice Lawrence (winner of the 2017 YA Book Prize), M.G. Leonard (winner of the 2017 Branford Boase Award), Sally Nicholls, Ella Risbridger, Eva Wiseman, and Katherine Woodfine.
A donation of £1 from the sale of each copy will be given to Camfed, an international charity which tackles poverty and inequality by supporting women’s education in the developing world. The book will be published on 1st February 2018, in time for the centenary anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which was given Royal Assent on 6th February 1918, extending the franchise to women for the first time.
Author Kiran Millwood Hargrave, comments: “I’m honoured to be contributing to an anthology that celebrates girls in all their complexity and world-changing power: we need to hear and tell their stories.”
Katie Smith, Deputy Chief Executive Director, Camfed, comments: ‘‘We are really proud to partner with Nosy Crow on Make More Noise! These are stories about strong women told by talented women writers – an inspiration for girls and boys, men and women everywhere. They chime beautifully with Camfed’s work in girls’ education in Africa, and our partnership with the young women change makers who emerge. There are now over 100,000 of them in our CAMA alumnae network — young women who fought the odds, gained immense respect in their communities, and now use their stories and their resources to inspire and empower the next generation of girls.”
HerStory: 50 Women Who Shook the World will publish in March 2018, in time for International Women’s Day. Featuring fearless women through history who have enriched our lives with their bravery, vision and hope, the full-colour hardback is divided into thematic chapters: Believe and Lead; Imagine and Create; Help and Heal; Think and Solve; Hope and Overcome. With inspirational quotes and a wealth of biographical detail particularly about the childhoods of each of the 50 women featured, this is a glorious, and essential go-to for every child hungry to learn more about women from many countries and cultures and from Ancient Egypt to the UK today who have shaken, and continue to shake, our world.
Meticulously researched and written by Katherine Halligan, the acclaimed artist Sarah Walsh has illustrated HerStory with expressive portraits and vignettes on each spread.
