The winner of the Best Young Adult and Best Juvenile categories in the Edgar Allan Poe Awards are:
Acceleration by Graham McNamee (YA)
Bernie Magruder & the Bats in the Belfry by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (J)
April 2004 Archives
Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | Declarations of independence
The director, Paul Morrison, writes about his film 'Wondrous Oblivion'. Morrison has novelised his own screenplay. The book Wondrous Oblivion is published by Hodder Children's Books.
In my film, a Jewish father puts minding the shop before anything - wife, children, and especially his own needs for fun or recreation. His son's love of cricket is almost incomprehensible to him.
What exactly is a children's book?
If we are never too old for any good book, we can be too young, and this is where people make mistakes: competitive parents and teachers in particular, who want children to read above their age. But books are age-banded by publishers and reviewers not so much on the basis of stylistic difficulty but on emotional content. Few people consider the distinction. Jacqueline Wilson?s Girls In Love/In Trouble/Out Late/Under Pressure series, for instance, is aimed at teenagers with a not very advanced reading age; but the books are read ubiquitously by bright eight-year-olds perfectly able to cope with the language, even if the dating issues do not reflect their experience.
Nicolette Jones uses the announcement of the Carnegie shortlist as the occasion for an excellent meditation on the ideal age for reading particular books.
Highly recommended
Both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals are awarded annually by CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals). The 2003 winners will be announced at the British Library on Friday 9 July 2004.
For more information about the awards visit www.ckg.org.uk
THE CILIP KATE GREENAWAY MEDAL SHORTLIST
ANTHONY BROWNE The Shape Game
Doubleday Age range: 7+
ISBN: 0385601360
ALEXIS DEACON Beegu
Hutchinson Age range: 3+
ISBN: 0091768292
DEBI GLIORI Always and Forever
(Text by Alan Durant)
Doubleday Age range: 3+
ISBN: 038560503X
MINI GREY The Pea and the Princess
Red Fox Age range: 6+
ISBN: 0099432331
SHIRLEY HUGHES Ella?s Big Chance
The Bodley Head Age range: 6+
ISBN: 0370327659
DAVE McKEAN The Wolves in the Walls
(Text by Neil Gaiman)
Bloomsbury Age range: 9+
ISBN: 0747569533
BEE WILLEY Bob Robber and Dancing Jane
(Text by Andrew Matthews)
Jonathan Cape Age range: 7+
ISBN: 0224064657
CHRIS WORMELL Two Frogs
Red Fox Age range: 5+
ISBN: 0099438623
THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL SHORTLIST
DAVID ALMOND The Fire Eaters
Hodder Children?s Books Age range: 10+
ISBN: 0340773820
JENNIFER DONNELLY A Gathering Light
Bloomsbury Age range: 12+
ISBN: 0747563047
MARK HADDON The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Fickling Books Age range: 13+
ISBN: 0099456761
ELIZABETH LAIRD The Garbage King
Macmillan Age range: 10+
ISBN: 0330415026
MICHAEL MORPURGO Private Peaceful
Collins Age range: 10+
ISBN: 0007150067
LINDA NEWBERY Sisterland
David Fickling Books Age range: 13+
ISBN: 038560470X
New York Daily News - Business - Success story for kids book
"I'm so excited," Taylor said yesterday of his U.S. debut. Speaking from his vicarage on the Yorkshire coast, he added, "It's America, after all, the market with the most discriminating book buyers in the world." The Anglican priest and father of three is due here May 7 on the Queen Mary 2 for appearances that include the "Today" show and Pat Robertson's "The 700 Club," on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Author of the month
Dina Rabinovitch writes about Kevin Brooks in The Guardian's Author of the Month slot:
Brooks's first novel, Martyn Pig, won the Branford Boase award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie, and both his other novels, Lucas and Kissing the Rain, made several short-lists. His next novel, Candy, which is going to tell the truth about adolescent male love, is out this autumn.
See the recent ACHUKA interview.
Just back from the first session of judging the Branford Boase first children's novel award, and what a thrillingly strong shortlist we've arrived at. Can't reveal it yet, but it will be released very shortly. There are six books on it. And, in a strong year when the number of submissions was over thirty (the highest ever), quite a few really good books didn't quite make it. It's a shortlist that would flatter any award, let alone a first novel award. The judges (Kevin Brooks, Sarah Wilkie, Lesley Agnew, Julia Eccleshare and me - chaired by Anne Marley) meet later in May to pick the winner.
We each had to take half a dozen of the submitted novels to the judging, which meant there was no room in my bag for unread ACHUKA reading, which I am inevitably much behind with. So I slipped into Smiths on Victoria station, had a quick scan of the adult fiction shelves, and selected I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti, which comes with five pages of rave review clippings, and has been made into a movie. I didn't quite finish it on the train, but it is transfixing, once I had overcome my annoyance at frequent comma splices, which might be the fault of the translator, not the author.
Book industry veteran picks the top 100 titles for kids
Here to help is industry veteran Anita Silvey, whose new 100 Best Books for Children (Houghton Mifflin, 192 pages, $20) represents a 20th-century canon for kids. Silvey, former editor of The Horn Book magazine and an ex-honcho at Houghton Mifflin, talked to a couple thousand people about their childhood favorites -- then reread 1,000 contenders in six months...
There are two reasons why the start to ACHOCKABLOG's week has been rather quiet and why Mail List subscribers didn't receive an update on Monday. Firstly, a lack of reportworthy news items. Secondly, an impending deadline for reading this year's Branford Boase submissions (the first judging meeting is tomorrow).
Here, as provided by Andrea Deakin (who has also added descriptive notes), is the shortlist for the 2004 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People:
Kevin Major: Ann and Seamus (Groundwood Books)
an historical novel written in poetic form.
Alternating poems from Ann and Seamus( a fictional character) describe the wreck of an Irish immigrant ship and Ann's courage and strength as an oarsman which was responsible for saving more than 160 lives.
Brian Doyle: Boy O'Boy (Groundwood Books)
During the last days of World War 11 Martin lives a difficult life in a troubled home. He does, however, own a cat, enjoy a best friend, and live next door to a hero. More trouble lies ahead, for when he and Billy join the church choir the organist appears to become very attached to Martin.
Jean Little: Brothers Far from Home:The World War 1 Diary of Eliza Bates (Scholastic Books)
the World War 1 diary of Eliza. It has been two years since Hugo, her older brother, went away to war. Now brother Jack too has enlisted, and Eliza longs for her brothers' safe return.
Priscilla Galloway: The Courtesan's Daughter (Penguin Canada)
set in ancient Athens.
Phano is of age to marry, and content with Theo's courtship. Her father has always told her that her mother died in childbirth. He has remarried Nera,"the most famous courtesan in Corinth". Now Theo's opponents, sensing scandal, are trying to embarass the young man in an attempt to cripple his political career. Priscilla Galloway has based her novel on an actual recorded court case.
Ted Stenhopuse: A Dirty Deed (Kids Can Press)
Set in 1952 in a small Canadian town, "Dirty Deed" deals with deception
and prejudice. Will and Arthur, a Blackfoot Indian, face up to the town
evil-doer, Howe, as he persecutes a young Indian, Catface.
In the Books section of Saturday's Telegraph, Justine Picardie and William Leith were given a page to review 'emotionally complex novels for adolescents':
Picardie reviewed Forbidden by Judy Waite ("foreboding mood of suspense"); Walking Naked by Alyssa Brugman ("sharply observed, with a tragedy at its heart"); Paradise End by Elizabeth Laird ("a galloping plot"); a new edition of Flambards by K. M. Peyton ("far more than a simple adolescent escapist fantasy"); and Boy2Girl by Terence Blacker ("a teenage book attmepting to move beyond gender stereotypes").
Leith reviewed Boy Kills Man by Matt Whyman ("excellent"); <i>Ruby Tanya by Robert Swindells ("a decent, well-turned story"); and The Dark Ground by Gillian Cross ("terrific... reminds me of William Golding's Pincher Martin)".
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | The voice of the nightingale
Adele Geras reviews In Hollow Lands by Sophie Masson:
Sophie Masson is an Australian writer of partly French descent who is becoming more and more widely read in this country, and with good reason. She writes a form of fantasy that is based firmly in folklore and the fairytale tradition. While her books may be read by any child who enjoys stories of other worlds bordering our own, the references to other times and places in her novels would stand up to scholarly scrutiny by any number of literary historians.
A Canadian review page...
In the middle of this fascinating and detailed Bologna report from Graham Marks comes a dispiriting observation from Francesca Dow. Dispiriting, because if any publisher should be trying to establish YA fiction as a saleable 'category' in the UK it should be Puffin, with their massive marketing machine. Personally, I think Dow's wrong and that, as in other things, we are moving ever closer to the US model for YA fiction, with an increasingly sophisticated teenage readership that is hungry for novels in the YA mould. Dow and her team should be actively trying to find the next Aidan Chambers or Robert Westall, or another David Almond and Mark Haddon, not, as this comment suggests, deciding to put all their Puffin eggs in the 12-and-under basket. And if she thinks the 'Puffin Teenage Fiction' label is a turnoff, why not switch to using YA?
"The US regards teen fiction - upper YA - as a growth area, but it's not really a category in the UK," said Puffin's Francesca Dow, "and I can't see us creating one, not with the way bookselling works and the fact that the audience don't want to buy anything labelled 'teenage'."
The Charleston Gazette - APNews
Mary Rodd Furbee, an author of children's books and writing teacher at West Virginia University's journalism school, has died after a long illness. She was 49.
Outrageous Women Of The American Frontier by Mary Rodd Furbee
CNN.com - She's a bestselling author -- at 15 - Apr 22, 2004
"Flavia Bujor's European hit now in America..."
CNN report
"Dick and Jane, the children's book characters who taught an estimated 85 million children from the 1930s through the 1960s how to read, are back in print, and nostalgia-crazed baby boomers are scooping up the titles as fast as they are being released... ..."
From his online journal:
Thursday April 22 - I recorded a spoken word CD for Harper Collins which is currently called "The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection" although I hope that by the time it comes out it'll be called something more along the lines of "Two Goldfish, an Enormous Number of Wolves and One Tiger". On the CD are readings of: THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH [UK pub. Oct04], THE WOLVES IN THE WALLS, CINNAMON and the poem CRAZY HAIR.
pressconnects.com | 04/22/04 | Lifestyle Story
Author Avi finds stories in history... ...
Includes a report of Shan's Thailand visit and itinerary for his imminent US tour.
Newsday.com - AP Entertainment
15-Year-Old Author Writes Best-Seller:
a syndicated article about Flavia Bujor
abc7news.com: Children's Books Recalled
Nearly half-a-million children's books are being recalled in the US because they pose a laceration hazard... ...
Not noticed from Saturday's Times, until now, Amanda Craig's enthusiastic review of The Pig Scrolls by Paul Shipton and Helping Hercules by Francesca Simon.
"the most inspired comedy to come along since the Artemis Fowl series... Shipton?s book is a triumph. The jokes crackle like grilled bacon, the plot is juicy and the book will teach your child more about Ancient Greece than a dozen textbooks." AMANDA CRAIG
"Simon?s gloriously funny Helping Hercules has been reissued with sparky new illustrations by Tony Ross." AMANDA CRAIG
Macmillan Children's Books have anoounced that they are to be the 'new creative home' for Chris Riddell. In a major deal, concluded at last week's international Bologna Book Fair, Macmillan Children's Books acquired world rights in five new books to be both written and illustrated by Chris Riddell.
Read the rest of the Press Release...
Continue reading Solo Riddell.
Online interview with Belfast author Derek Kielty:
"I entered the Downtown Radio/Eason's short story competition and won my section with Fussy Felicity and Grotty Griselda. You can read it and others on my interactive children's website, www.keilty.btinternet.co. uk. Then I was taken on by Philippa Milnes-Smith of London literary agency LAW Ltd. She used to be a publisher and was head of Penguin Puffin books. She pitched my Back Up The Beanstalk title to Rena Dardis at The Children's Press and that was my first to go into print."
Locus Online News: Nebula Awards Winners
Neil Gaiman's Coraline has won a Nebula Award for best novella. The awards were announced at a banquet Saturday evening, April 17, in Seattle, Washington.
"The latest crop of young adult novels will pop a few gray hairs on the heads of parents who leaf through their sons' and daughters' recreational reading material... ..."
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
Wriggle And Roar by Julia Donaldson & Nick Sharratt
"This book will animate, engage and stimulate babies and have nursery classes jumping about with noisy enthusiasm." NICOLETTE JONES
Highly recommended:
Peni Griffin, in her latest Opinion Column for ACHUKA, focuses on William Mayne...
You too have evil in you - maybe not in your heart, maybe not in your mind - maybe in your hands or mouth or eyes. It comes with being human. Call it original sin, if you're religious; call it evolutionary baggage, if you're not. But you and I and J.K. Rowling are only better than William Mayne if we work at it; if we take note of our temptations and weaknesses, whatever they are, and resist them, consciously.
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Dynamic doodles
A treat! Not to be missed...
Joanna Carey profiles Sara Fanelli.
With nine books so far, Fanelli's originality has brought a breath of fresh air to the world of picture books. Even in her first book, Button (1994), it was clear that her work doesn't have its roots in the British traditions that have shaped so many of our finest illustrators. With an off-beat humour and an inventive approach to everything from page design and typography to choice of materials, she has the kind of vision you might associate with illustrators such as the Czech Kveta Pacovska or Wolf Erlbruch in Germany, or the American Lane Smith (of Stinky Cheese Man fame).
Sara Fanelli's latest book, Pinocchio
The X-rated additions to the lid, which was based on an illustration by Kate Greenaway, the early 20th-century children's illustrator, went unnoticed for years, until a vigilant shopworker spotted them. Production was halted immediately, but thousands of the tins had been sold.
One of the few remaining examples will be auctioned next week after being found in a collection built by a West Country aristocrat.
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'The Princess Knight' and Other Children's Books
New York Times Children's Book Reviews - 3 webpages
Nottingham Childrens Book Award
Very belatedly, the results of the 2004 Nottingham Children's Book Awards...
The 10 books shortlisted for the Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award, as selected by 13/14 yr olds, are as follows:
 Blinded by the Light | Sherry Ashworth |
 Starseeker | Tim Bowler |
 Malarkey | Keith Gray |
 Blue Moon | Julia Green |
 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | Mark Haddon |
 Eagle Strike | Anthony Horowitz |
 Another Me | Catherine MacPhail |
| Transplant | Malcolm Rose |
 No Angels | Robert Swindells |
 Poison | Chris Wooding |
To celebrate the award's 18th anniversary there are plans for web-casting the winning presentations.
A report of a talk given by Jim Trelease, the author of a New York Times bestseller The Read Aloud Handbook.
Some clips from the article:
"The parent is the most important professor [a] kid is ever going to meet..."Trelease cited a study called "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children," in which researchers observed healthy families in different economic classes. After years of collecting data, they were able to calculate the cumulative number of words spoken in front of these families' children.
What they found was that, by the age of 4, children in professional families had heard, cumulatively, 45 million words. Children in working-class families had heard 26 million words, and children in poverty-level families had heard 13 million words.
In other words, by the time these 4-year-olds enter kindergarten together, the professional-class kid has been exposed to 32 million more words than the kid living in poverty.
The father who only finds time to take his kid to the ballgame is a "boy-man," he said. But the father who also finds time to take his kid to the bookshelf is a "grown man."
"I think Harry Potter is the best thing to happen to children's books," perhaps in the history of children's books, he said. The books aren't sophisticated literature, but they are page-turners. Kids love them the same way adults love John Grisham or Danielle Steele.
Ultimately, good children's literature is like good adult literature. There needs to be "conflict. Something has to happen in the story," said Trelease.
CBCA Book of the Year Awards - Shortlist 2004
2004 Book of the Year: Older Readers
NOTE: These books are for mature readers
Gardner, Scot Burning Eddy Pan, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2003
Marchetta, Melina Saving Francesca Viking, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Metzenthen, David Boys of Blood & Bone Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Moloney, James Black Taxi Angus&Robertson, HarperCollinsPublishers Australia, 2003
Murray, Martine How to Make a Bird Allen & Unwin, 2003
Nix, Garth Mister Monday
(Keys to the Kingdom, Book. 1) Allen & Unwin, 2003
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2004 Book of the Year: Younger Readers
Base, Graeme TruckDogs: A novel in four bites Viking, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Herrick, Steven
Illus. Magerl, Caroline Do-Wrong Ron Allen & Unwin, 2003
Millard, Glenda
Illus. Magerl, Caroline The Naming of Tishkin Silk ABC Books, 2003
Starke, Ruth Stella by the Sea Aussie Chomps, Puffin, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Stephens, Michael Mudlark Angus&Robertson, HarperCollinsPublishers Australia, 2003
Wilkinson, Carole Dragonkeeper Black Dog Books, 2003
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2004 Book of the Year: Early Childhood
Allen, Pamela Grandpa and Thomas Viking, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Barbalet, Margaret
Illus. Andrew McLean Reggie, Queen of the Street Viking, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Cox, Tania
Illus. David Miller Snap! Went Chester Hodder Children?s, Hodder Headline Australia, 2003
Gleeson, Libby
Illus. Ann James Shutting the Chooks In Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia, 2003
Wild, Margaret
Illus. David Legge Baby Boomsticks ABC Books, 2003
Wild, Margaret
Illus. Ann James Little Humpty Little Hare, 2003
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2004 Picture Book of the Year
NOTE: Some of these books may be for mature readers
Blackwood, Freya
Text John Heffernan Two Summers Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia, 2003
Curtis, Neil
Text Joan Grant Cat and Fish Lothian Books, 2003
James, Ann
Text Libby Gleeson Shutting the Chooks In Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia, 2003
King, Stephen Michael Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat Allen & Unwin, 2003
McLean, Andrew
Text
Margaret Barbalet Reggie, Queen of the Street Viking, Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Thompson, Colin The Violin Man Hodder Children?s, Hodder Headline Australia, 2003
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2004 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
Carlyon, Patrick The Gallipoli Story Penguin Books Australia, 2003
Dale, Kim Bush Babies Lothian Books, 2003
Malbunka, Mary When I Was Little Like You Allen & Unwin, 2003
Morecroft, Richard & Mackay, Alison
Illus. Karen Lloyd-Diviny Zoo Album ABC Books, 2003
Nicholls, Christine Art, History, Place Working Title Press, 2003
Nicholson, John Animal Architects Allen & Unwin, 2003
"THE BIG NEWS at the opening of the Bologna Children's Book Fair this week was that Shadowmancer author G P Taylor has signed a substantial, multi-book, five-year deal with Faber, jointly with Penguin Young Readers Group in the US - which gets North American rights," reports Publishing News
Gillie Russell, Editorial Director of Fiction at HarperCollins Children?s Books, has acquired two action-packed books by first time novelist, 23 year-old, Joe Craig, about a character called Jimmy Coates.
A 5 figure sum was paid for a two book deal. The first book, Jimmy Coates: KILLER, will publish in paperback in April 2005 and is aimed at the 9-12 boys? adventure story market.
Joe Craig says, "I'm amazed and excited to be signing up with HarperCollins. The enthusiasm from the HarperCollins team won me over immediately. I stumbled out of university 18 months ago, slightly embarrassed about wanting to be a writer, but the idea for this story wouldn't go away. I can't believe how quick the whole process has been. I sent a synopsis to Sarah Manson to find out whether it was worth pursuing my writing; she became my agent, and here I am, less than a year later with a dream book deal!"
Agent, Sarah Manson adds, "I was delighted that HarperCollins immediately recognised the exciting potential of this title and of Joe Craig as a promising new author."
Garth Nix has triumphed at the prestigious Aurealis Awards for fiction, winning awards in 3 of the 5 categories. The Awards recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror writers and were presented at a special ceremony in Perth earlier this week.
Abhorsen, the third book in Nix?s Old Kingdom trilogy, was the Winner of the Fantasy Category and Joint Winner (with Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson) of the Young Adult category. Abhorsen was published in UK a fortnight ago by HarperCollins Children?s Books. It is the 2nd best-selling Children's hardback fiction title this week.
Mister Monday, the first in his exciting Keys To The Kingdom series, which published in UK in January by HarperCollins Children?s Books, was voted Winner of the Children?s (8-12) category. Grim Tuesday, the second book in the series, comes out in June.
BBC Radio 4 - Factual - Desert Island Discs -Michael Morpurgo
Sue Lawley's castaway on Radio4's Desert Island Discs this week is the widely respected children?s author and the current Children?s Laureate Michael Morpurgo.
The website lists his choices. The prgramme was first broadcast on Sunday and is repeated tomorrow at 9am.
CBS News | 'Who Reads What?' List Out | April 14, 2004?18:12:58
Laura Bush joins actors, writers and a former British prime minister in pitching her favorite books for America's annual "Who Reads What?" list, out in time for National Library Week...
R.L. Stine, author of the "Goosebumps" series, called Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" his favorite.As for Ken Follett, classic children's author Beatrix Potter caught his attention with "The Story of a Fierce, Bad Rabbit." Follett called it "the