Nosy Crow is delighted to announce the upcoming publication of Writes of Passage: Words To Read Before You Turn 13, selected and with commentary by Nicolette Jones, children’s book critic for The Sunday Times. An inspiring celebration of words in all their forms and what they mean to us, Writes of Passage will be published in May 2021 with an RRP of £12.99.
Writes of Passage is a stunning and uplifting collection of over 100 pieces of writing – poems, prose, speeches, film, play, and song lyrics, quotations, and more – from Shakespeare to Stephen Hawking; Greta Thunberg to Galileo; and Lin-Manuel Miranda to Martin Luther King, Jr. It is, in turn, powerful, funny, moving, wise, and thought-provoking, expertly selected and with accessible, thoughtful commentary by Nicolette Jones. The lavish hardback format will have clothbound quarter binding, foil stamping, a ribbon marker, and beautifully designed interior pages printed in two colour.
Tom Bonnick, Senior Commissioning Editor and Business Development Manager at Nosy Crow, bought world rights for Nicolette’s selection and commentary in all languages from Abi Sparrow at SP Agency. Nosy Crow has also acquired world English language rights for the use of all of the material within the collection.
Bonnick comments: “Working with Nicolette on this book has been such a joy – to spend time discovering and re-discovering these texts, and to be able to do so with the incredible benefit of Nicolette’s wisdom and insight, has been the most enormous privilege. This is a wonderful collection, selected with brilliant care and attention, and I can’t think of a better book for the present time: it is filled with words that will inspire, comfort, challenge, and cheer us all.”
Nicolette Jones comments: “The words we surround ourselves with in life matter: the things we read and listen to, what we write and what we say or sing. They shape our thoughts and, as I put together this collection of scraps of language, I hoped they would echo, and help to form, our best selves. It’s a book to rummage around in till you find nuggets that seem shiny to you, as they did to me.”
Nicolette Jones, award-winning writer, literary critic and broadcaster, has been the children’s books reviewer of The Sunday Times for more than two decades. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, and a nominee for the 2012 Eleanor Farjeon Award for outstanding service to the world of children’s books. Originally from Leeds, she studied at Oxford University, and at Yale as a Henry Fellow. She is married to fellow writer and journalist Nicholas Clee, and they have two daughters. Involved in a number of literary, charitable and social initiatives, she lives in London, where she has been a local community activist and sees a lot of theatre.
