July 2012 Archives

Nosy Crow Blog Post On Writing Children's Apps

Excellent blog article posted by @NosyCrow at the weekend, but which I missed at the time (probably due to the Olympics).

In it, Kate Wilson is responding to a blog post on Picture Book Den by Moira Butterfield in which she was calling for greater involvement by picutre book authors in the creation of original apps, rather than leaving it to techies to codify traditional tales and existing books (I summarise her post - Kate links to the full piece).

Kate responds by arguing that apps are NOT like picture books, and a different, more collaborative skillset is required to create them. I hope she won't mind me quoting the differences she cites in full:

[W}riting a highly interactive, multimedia children's app that is a satisfying reading experience is not the same as writing a picture book. Here are some ways in which, in our experience, writing a children's story app is different:

Creating an app is a highly collaborative process. More, perhaps, like writing a film-script than writing a book. Of course, picture book authors are used to being edited, but writing something truly interactive which accommodates other media does require a different level of flexibility and team-playing. Our apps are highly interactive and include illustration, animation, voice audio and music: the text is, just by virtue of the arthmetic a smaller part of that mix than it is in a picture book... which is not to say that it's not a hugely important part of the mix.

Creating an app is a technical process. Moira writes about "teccies" and "computer whizzes", and I think that authors who are interested in working into new media need to get to know "teccies" and "computer whizzes" and understand their kind of creativity, their sensitivities and what they regard as excellent in their fields. That's not to say that authors need to come to publishers with a finished, coded app (we wouldn't want that, for example: we have our own technical team, and we want to use code we've created), I do think that having some understanding of what does into animation and coding is helpful.

Creating an app is a new process. Authors who write picture books know their genre inside-out, and can draw on a huge experience of reading picture books themselves and, usually, of reading picture books to children. In August 2009 Winged Chariot launched Europe's first picture book app (you can read about it here and elsewhere), so we're looking at a genre that is just three years old. We began work on apps that we expected would be used on a screen bigger than the one we had available several months before the launch of the iPad, which turned out to be the name of the device we'd been expecting, in May 2010. So apps are new, and they're developing fast. I think that authors who are interested in writing in this space need to keep up with developments, immerse themselves in this world and get to know the best of the apps that are out there, and, even better, spend time with children who are reading those apps to see how they use the screen and what they expect from it.

Apps are voracious: in our experience, they need more content than a picture book aimed at the same age-group. Writing a picture-book length text isn't going to provide enough text for an app. Which is not to say that you can have even as much text on a screen at any one time as you can have on a printed page.

Apps are non-linear, or, at least, not completely linear: in our experience, understanding the balance of narrative story-telling and other non-linear elements is important.

Random House Authors Back New Mobile Charity App

Plan UK's Education For Girls App Gets Author Support...

John Boyne, the author of the international bestseller The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, is backing the launch of a mobile app which helps children around the world receive education. Boyne and fellow authors from Random House Children's Publishers Dee Shulman and Louise Yates are joining global charity Plan UK to promote the app called Education For Girls. The app draws upon the nostalgia of popular childhood books, asking users how many on the 50-strong list they have read and which is their favourite. The users are then asked if they would like to show their support for Plan UK by making a £3 donation to buy a virtual book. It costs the charity £3 to send one girl to school for a week in Sierra Leone.

The Queen Of Story And The Road Robber

Joy Cowley remembers her fellow-author, margaret Mahy:

It seemed to me that Margaret was never entirely satisfied with ordinariness. She would pick up a prosaic topic and run with it into new territory, much to everyone's delight. Sometimes, we made story talk together. On one occasion in Christchurch, she picked me up after I'd finished some school visits, and took me back to her house. The drive, however, was complicated. The school was in an unfamiliar part of the city and we got lost because an expected road seemed to have vanished. Now who would want to steal a road? we wondered.

The idea seeded a story that grew so fast it became a major preoccupation and we continued to drive down wrong roads and dead- end streets. When we finally found our way to Governors Bay, we had the Road Robber, a giant who stole roads, rolled them up like carpets and then sold them at ridiculous profit for tennis courts and airport runways. Margaret and I looked at each other with the satisfaction of friends who'd completed a piano duet and I told her she should turn the story into a picture book. She said: "No, you write it because I stole your story."

She didn't steal my story. That error came from a publisher who had put Margaret's name instead of mine on a picture book, An Elephant in the House. But Margaret insisted I adopt the road thief, and I still see her word magic and laughter in Road Robber.

Conference Speakers Announced

Celia Rees and Debi Gliori will deliver keynotes at the SCBWI British Isles' Children's Book Conference

The British Isles Chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, a professional organization of writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, booksellers and others involved with literature for young people has announced a star-studded line-up for their annual conference to be held on November 24th and 25th 2012 at the University of Winchester. Admission is £198 for SCBWI members and £228 for non-members. More information and a registration form can be found at their website:
http://scbwicon.jimdo.com/

from the opening chapter of this highly entertaining, thought provoking novel co-written by two authors from different cultural and religious backgrounds:

My nickname is no coincidence. I was rebranded as Mills after my parents caught me devouring a Mills & Boon novel instead of the intellectual material they thought I was reading for my A-Levels. I want what most girls want. I want to have my wedding cake and gobble it, too. I want the whole works - the dress, the confetti, the honeymoon and the outrageously attractive groom who's crazy about me. I want a gorgeous husband that I'm in love with. What's wrong with that? The problem is that I'm not in charge of the search for him. Find my own husband? Are you kidding? 'Love? No such thing! Love comes after marriage,' say all my elders. Yak yak yak, until my ears are practically bleeding. Marriage, they say, is a tradition. Almost all the parents I know have taken their son's or daughter's marriage into their own hands, because that's just what happened to them, and to their parents too. No one in our family has ever denied their parents' wishes. Mummy-ji and Daddy-ji had an arranged marriage when they were really young. I think that mum was only about seventeen and dad couldn't have been more than twenty, and of course it all worked out brilliantly, which is great news for them but more down to luck than judgment if you ask me. Not that you could ever convince them of that. I don't think I could take the emotional pressure if I don't 'see reason' and agree to their choice. My parents are fantastic. Not fanatics, dictators or control freaks, and all they want for me is my happiness. They see themselves as wholly responsible for this, and if I go against their wishes they'll be failures and bad parents in the eyes of our community....

By no means a heavy, issue-laden polemic, but rather a fast-paced romantic comedy with some highly cinematic set scenes - great holiday reading, in fact, so why not put it on your Kindle straight away?

Amazon And Death Of The Mall

Interesting piece in the Irish Times by Davin O'Dwyer exploring the effect Amazon's push to establish same-day delivery in the US will have on the landscape of commerce:

Amazon is now building warehouses in a number of populous states and agreeing to pay sales taxes. The key advantage this provides is the holy grail of online retail - same-day delivery. Order a book or a gadget in the morning and have it delivered to your door that evening - it's a game-changing leap in convenience. As Manjoo puts it: "If [Amazon] can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed." So will the Gruen Effect be replaced by a Bezos effect? The promise of same-day delivery is admittedly specific to the US at the moment, but just as malls and big-box outlets once seemed uniquely American before becoming global, this too shall become internationalised - the inexorable logic of convenience and capitalism will see to that.

Margaret Mahy to be remembered at a public service at Christchurch's Hagley Park on Wednesday

The life of New Zealand's most acclaimed and colourful children's author Margaret Mahy will be celebrated at a public service in Christchurch on Wednesday this week...

Observer Roundup - Teenage Books

Teenage fiction reviewed by Geraldene Brennan...

sees Handler back on form for older readers, including adults, with this chronicle of relationship discontent. A would-be film director, Min casts against type when she responds to the advances of the boisterous basketball co-captain, Ed. They spend a bitter and occasionally sweet five weeks together but it feels like five years, documented by Maira Kalman's artwork. The reader is seduced into buying into their coupledom and imagining pictures of their children, then equally swiftly convinced that it never could have worked.

Aidan Chambers is especially sure-footed when depicting boys' romantic trials. Dying to Know You (Bodley Head £12.99) sees plumber Karl jumping through hoops to keep his hard-to-get girl. Chambers offers an unusual narrative perspective in Karl's ally, an elderly widowed male writer struggling with grief and creative blocks. The young man reveals increasingly complex troubles, the older man shows more of his own vulnerability, and they transform one another's lives.

a harrowing romantic adventure set in occupied France in 1944, but Arianne and Luc feel like a contemporary couple. The lovers are at the mercy of the precarious politics of their village, where informers and Resistance activists live cheek by jowl. Farrant's vision takes in both sides of the conflict in equal emotional depth, visiting young German soldiers who have to live with the atrocities they are ordered
to commit.

Natalie and Lizzie of Diana Hendry's short, subtle, unsettling thriller The Seeing (Bodley Head £10.99) are in relatively safe 50s England. Lizzie is recruited to Natalie's campaign to rout out "evil" from their dull seaside village. Natalie's little brother, who has second sight, is their secret weapon...

Demi has become profoundly deaf at 15, and the difficulties of being understood and understanding are overwhelming enough to induce panic attacks. Her account of being excluded from films, parties and sleepovers - and of struggling to find a place in the deaf community with its many facets and challenges - underpins this absorbing story.

In Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid (Penguin £6.99), Rebecca also has an isolating, misunderstood disability: the genetic disorder Treacher-Collins syndrome has left her with facial deformities as well as partial deafness. Rebecca and her attractive non-identical twin sister, Hepzibah, have both been systematically abused by their parents Hepzibah seems better equipped to fight back and escape while Rebecca resorts to playing invisible. But when she is left alone with her parents, she finds strength and support on her doorstep. A harrowing tale, which leaves the reader questioning whether such difficulties in early life can be survived.

The Circle by Sara B Elfgren and Mats Strandberg (translated by Per Carlsson, Arrow £12.99) reads like The Demon Headmaster set in a Swedish Twin Peaks with a nod to Stieg Larsson. The six high-school girls who take on the forces of evil with their new-found witches' powers are sub-Buffy specimens. Once gathered together after a 100-page-plus intro, the Chosen Ones acquit themselves like a losing team on The Apprentice until a second suspicious student suicide makes them up their game. It beats Big Brother, and it also has strong language throughout.

Observer Roundup: Fiction

Observer Children's Books roundup:
Children's Fiction reviewed by Viv Groskop

Observer: Picture Books

Observer Children's Books roundup
Picture Books reviewed by Kate Kellaway

New Zealand Couple's Self-Publishing Success

Tell people you plan to make a living out of self publishing your own children's books, and you'll likely be met with shocked disbelief, nervous laughter or even patronising pity.

Throw in the deliberate abandonment of a successful business and a solid income and you may see them fearfully back away.

Mark and Rowan Sommerset did just that. Their design agency of three years - with a nice line in corporate branding - was going well.

"We were making money and we were growing but we felt we were standing in a barrel," says Rowan. "We knew we could keep doing what we were doing, and continue to be successful at it, but it wasn't really what we wanted to do. It could have been a trap."

They left their cosy, prosperous home office in Takapuna and moved north to the shores of the Kai Iwi lakes on the west coast, north of Dargaville.

Their plan: to write, illustrate, self-publish and sell children's books to the point where they could make a decent living out of it.

Visit the Dreamboat Books website

The couple's third book, Baa Baa Smart Sheep, won the coveted Children's Choice award at the NZ Post Children's Book Awards, and recently their book Two Little Bugs picked up the top prize at the PANZ Book Design Awards.

The Morning After

Frank Cottrell Boyce reflects on his part in the planning of the Olympics Opening Ceremony:

It's the morning after the opening ceremony. For two years I've felt constipated with secrets, but last night was a pyrotechnic act of confession, and I feel elated. At last I don't have to talk about "Betty" any more. Betty was the code name for Thomas Heatherwick's beautiful, delicate Olympic cauldron. She was named after the executive producer's dog. And so we were liable to get strange messages about "going to visit Betty" and "what to do if Betty malfunctions" and even "burning Betty". For the last two years I've been going round bragging about being the writer on Danny Boyle's opening ceremony. The usual response is: "Wow!" followed by: "Errrm, what do you mean?" Which is what I asked Danny when he first asked me. "I don't really know," he answered.

But he did know who he wanted. He put together a little team - including the designer Mark Tildesley, the costume designer Suttirat Larlarb, the visual effects wizard Adam Gascoyne. He'd worked with them all before and over the next two years they all worked on Frankenstein at the National Theatre and shot a film, Trance, together. They worked so closely they were practically a hive mind. My job was to join up the ideas in a way that the non-hive dweller could understand.

Danny created a room where no one was afraid to speak, no one had to stick to their own specialism, no one was afraid of sounding stupid or talking out of turn. He restored us to the people we were before we made career choices - to when we were just wondering.

We shared the things we loved about Britain - the Industrial Revolution, the digital revolution, the NHS, pop music, children's literature, genius engineers. I bought Danny a copy of Humphrey Jennings's astonishing book Pandemonium for Christmas and soon everyone seemed to have it. The show's opening section ended up named "Pandemonium".

Narrative Hand Behind The Olympics Opening Ceremony

Frank Cottrell Boyce, one of ACHUKA's favourite authors, assisted Danny Boyle in "putting [the film director's ideas] in order to make an emotional sense."

And for me, Boyce was entirely successful in achieving this. The ceremony was fantastic - entertaining, humorous, spectacular, all-encompassing and also, yes, very very moving.

Well done Frank Boyce, well done Danny Boyle, well done the cast of thousands, and well done the set designers.

Margaret Mahy - Guardian Obituary

Julia Eccleshare's obituary for Margaret Mahy, published in The Guardian two days ago...

Extract

Asked about her childhood influences and their impact on her writing, Mahy said: "I found it difficult to write a specifically New Zealand story because I got all of my magical displacement from Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh and Swallows and Amazons." But, while the magical ingredients were English, the geography of New Zealand shaped her writing.

After school, Mahy studied at Auckland and Canterbury universities. She trained at the New Zealand Library School in Wellington and worked as a librarian, for some years at Canterbury. Many of her early stories were published in the New Zealand School Journal. In 1980, she became a full-time writer.

Mahy lived in a house by the sea with a great many cats and could be reclusive. She loved the countryside and went on long walks, talking to herself as she walked, to help sort out what she was trying to write. In her stories, Mahy could make the supernatural seem as real as anything natural. That was not a device for fiction - it was just what she believed. Although funny, robust, forthright, matter of fact and never the least bit fey, she always thought that there was something else, other forces or dimensions which played an important part in our lives. They were there, whether we believed in them or not.

A Guardian Slideshow Presentation

From a skeleton pirate to a speed-mad dinosaur and a magician who has lost his magic, Kate Kellaway rounds up the best of the summer's picture books

Ebook Pricing

from The Shatzkin Files

Mike Shatzkin considers the impact of a recent settlement:

Now that the DoJ's response to the public comments has made it overwhelmingly likely that the settlement it negotiated with Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster will be accepted by the Court, it is time to contemplate the changes we'll see in the ebook marketplace in the next couple of months.

The settlement requires the three affected publishers to inform retailers working under agency agreements that they can be released from them. Ten days is alloted from the time of the Court's acceptance for that to take place. Then the retailers have 30 days to terminate their agreement and then the publishers have 30 days from receiving that notice to actually end it.

So the process could be almost instantaneous, if the publishers served notice immediately, the retailers responded immediately, and the publishers reacted to the response immediately. Or it could take as long as 70 days from the Court judgment, if everybody used the entire time alloted by the judgment.

Assuming that Amazon acts with competence and alacrity in its own interests (and I'd expect nothing less), the entire process could take no more than 40-45 days with them. (Each retailer can be on its own clock.) That should liberate Amazon from most pricing constraints on the three settling defendants' books by the middle of September...

Seven Stories Press To Launch Children's Imprint

American publisher Seven Stories Press (not to be confused with the UK's Seven Stories gallery and archive) will launch a new children's books imprint called Triangle Square Editions. The imprint's inaugural list of four books will be released this autumn.

The Great British Bake Off and Light Lunch presenter Mel Giedroyc and journalist and author of The Reluctant Bride Lucy Mangan are two of the judges announced for the fifth year of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
Joining them on the panel tasked with seeking out the funniest children's books of 2012 are Liz Pichon, winner of the 2011 Prize for 7-14 years with The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, and Ed Vere, award-winning picture book
author of Chick and Mr Big.
Michael Rosen returns as chair.

Following on from last year, the Prize will see schools involved in the judging process. Around 400 pupils from across the UK have been selected to read the shortlisted titles, discuss with their classmates, and pick their favourite funny book in the relevant category for their age. Their votes will then be combined with the votes of the adult judging panel to find the two winners for 2012. Classes who participate will also win a chance to attend and perform at the award ceremony.

I have a special interest in the prize this year, as children from my school will be amongst the 400 young judges.

The Roald Dahl Funny Prize is unique in its quest to honour those books that make young people, and all of us, roar with laughter. Concerned that the really side-splittingly funny books were being overlooked by other book awards, the Prize was created by Michael Rosen in 2008 as part of his work as Children's Laureate. The Prize aims to reward those authors and artists who write and illustrate their books using humour in their stories, poetry and fiction.

Margaret Mahy

New York Times obit.

Congratulations to Rachel Rooney on winning the CLPE Poetry Award 2012 with The Language of Cat, published by Janetta Otter-Barry Books at Frances Lincoln Children's Books.

Rachel Rooney joins a group of highly regarded previous winners including Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Roger McGough, John Agard and Philip Gross.

Nosy Crow Freebie Experiment

NOSY CROW LAUNCHES FREE APP PRICE EXPERIMENT WITH BIZZY BEAR BUILDS A HOUSE

Independent publisher Nosy Crow is experimenting with a free price model for one of its apps for the first time. Bizzy Bear Builds a House is free TODAY for one day only. This interactive picture book app, recommended for children ages 2 to 4, is the second in a series of apps based on Nosy Crow's popular Bizzy Bear board book series illustrated by Benji Davies.

The app will return to its full price of $3.99/ £2.49 tomorrow, Thursday July 26.

The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan

Sarah Crossan

Bloomsbury

978-1408823002

January 2012

240 pp

Whole book read

Read On? n/a

I come to a verse novel with a hope that it will live up to some of the best writing that has been done in this genre. One of the most powerful Young Adult novels ever written, and an enduring favourite of mine, is Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff. Love That Dog and Heartbeat both by Sharon Creech are two other verse novels that I would recommend without reservation. I read The Weight of Water on my Kindle, while sittting on the beach in bright sunshine. As with the verse novels just mentioned, I was immediately driven along by the pulse of the short lines. I had downloaded it several months previously and it had been sitting there in my 'Items' list for just this moment. It is a short book and a quick read, but manages to cover a number of 'issues' without ever becoming the issue novel it might have been had it been written in a conventionally padded prose. The Sunday Times/Nicolette Jones picked it as its Children's Book of the Week. "Succinct, with a gentle lyricism, the poems are telling about immigration, prejudice, self-delusion, families and first love, on the way to a life-changing conclusion." The main character is Polish. Although not Polish herself (she is Irish) Crossan captures Kasienka's misery well, as she is picked on and made to feel isolated at school, and at home comes into conflict with her mother. Kasienka's courage and developing self-reliance in the face of the bullying for one so young (she is in Year 8) is counterbalanced by an awkwardness and naivety when it comes to having her first kiss. I would rather have allowed the final verse section, 'Butterfly', to provide closure to the story by itself without the heavy-handedness of putting it into an Epilogue. And I do very much regret the need to include two paragraphs of Acknowledgements, mentioning amongst others "the Edward Albee Foundation (its founders and fellows) which gave me the space and time to complete this novel." This had the effect on me of somewhat undermining the authenticity of the novel, and rapidly dissipating the satisfaction that you get on finishing a really good read. Perhaps if I had read the book in print format I might simply have closed it after the final verse section and not bothered to read these bothersome Acknowledgements. Tweet

A Summer of E-Reading

A summer of e-reading - John Sutherland takes a trip to the digital beach with the Kindle, iPad and the next generation of e-books

Margaret Mahy Obituary

New Zealand Herald...
Contains a video link to the Made in New Zealand documentary on the life of Margaret Mahy.

Margaret Mahy's Intimate Legacy

An appreciation by Bronwyn Sell in the New Zealand Herald.

Margaret Mahy

Guardian death notice by Alison Flood...

ACHUKA is delighted to be the latest stopping place for Andy Briggs in his Tarzan The Jungle Warrior Blog Tour....

WRITING... AND THE END OF THE WORLD

I'm lucky enough to visit schools right across the country to talk about how I have re-booted Tarzan for a whole new generation of readers. Through an interactive presentation I launch the audience into the jungle - but before I do, I tell them about my job, and try to convince them that I have one of the coolest jobs around. I'm a writer - that's what I do. I get to play Tarzan every day. Curiously, during my entire show, I never mention the word reading at.

I know a lot of amazing authors can talk about the joys of reading and convert the most reluctant child into a bookworm, but my approach is somewhat different. I talk about what writers do. It might sound obvious, but, surprisingly, it isn't.

Let's start with comics. I love comics. Comics are the things that got me into reading. From The Beano, Whizzer and Chips, The Dandy through to Spiderman, Daredevil, The X-Men. Because they were a short-sharp thrill, over too quickly after 26 pages, I craved more - so started to read anything I could get my hands on. The more stories I read, the more I wanted to change the endings as, sometimes, I wasn't entirely satisfied. (I blame Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson for creating the Fighting Fantasy series which I was addicted to. They implanted the idea that endings can be different.) I started writing stories using other people's characters and my own endings. Thus I started to write.

Now, a year group of school kids gets to know that writers write books. That's obvious. But they sometimes look surprised when they discover that we write comics too. I can't draw, but I explain how my scripts paint the pictures of each panel so that a talented artist can come along and draw it.

Now put your hand up if you watch television... now there's a surprise. Oddly, a school full of children often overlook the fact that every TV show starts with a writer. From the writing team creating The Simpsons, through to EastEnders; and the advert breaks between shows; sports writers writing the introductions to live football matches; the unsung writing teams on Top Gear, I'm a Celebrity... and a host of other reality, sorry, scripted reality, shows.

And films. Horror, action, romance, comedies... we writers create them all. By this point, most of the audience gets the idea - of course writers do this. But then they're surprised when I point out that every song they listen to was written by a writer, often more than one. And every computer game they play has writers - yes, even Angry Birds has a document that explains the relationships between the birds and the pigs just so the artists and programmers get the tone right. The dreaded Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo and every other computer game you can think of involves, and often starts, with us writers.

When put into this context - that everything the children enjoy is written by writers - their interest is piqued. Could they be the next Robbie Williams, J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg or create the next blockbuster game? The answer is not only "yes", but they must. Without portraying writing as something that fuels our entertainment then the future might look bleak. Just imagine --

Every child who leaves school decides they don't want to write anything. Pretty soon computer games will cease to be. The internet will close down as nobody is blogging and adding new information; television will die as endless repeats will stop being watched. Cinemas will become Tescos because nobody is writing the next great movie. Bookshops will close down, and every radio station will be nothing but raw static because they have no new songs to broadcast. In a single generation, all that entertainment we currently enjoy will cease to be. The world will be a boring place.

That's why we need to convince the current generation that writing is a great thing to do. Now, I have not mentioned reading, because I feel writing will stealthily encourage people to read more: the more we create, the more we consume. And, after all, if you want to write a book, the best practise you can get is by reading them...

TARZAN: THE JUNGLE WARRIOR is out now, published by Faber.

Catch up with Andy's final tour stop on the Booktrust Blog.

Margaret Mahy

Another death notice report...

R.I.P. Margaret Mahy 21 March 1936 - 23 July 2012

Beattie's Book Blog: Graham Beattie pays tribute to Margaret Mahy, who died today...

Margaret Mahy Dies Aged 76

New Zealand Herald is reporting:

Children's book author Margaret Mahy, one of New Zealand's most acclaimed literary figures, died today.

Mahy, 76, died in Christchurch this afternoon after a brief illness, according to reports from book blooger Graham Beattie and the Whitcoulls website.

"...One of New Zealand's greatest-ever writers - I put her up there with Katherine Mansfield," wrote book blogger Graham Beattie in an online tribute to her.

Reliance on PCs and laptops in decline

Lots of interesting statistics and observations in this piece, by John Naughton, from yesterday's Observer. It's certainly helped me firm up my resolve to make ACHUKA more iphone/smartphone friendly, which I know is currently emphatically not the case.

It's hard to exaggerate the significance of the smartphone tsunami, especially when we see Ofcom's discovery that more than four in 10 smartphone users say their phone is more important for accessing the internet than any other device. Smartphones are increasingly central to consumers' lives - for online shopping (57%), social networking (30%), tweeting (23%) and even watching TV/film content (22%). I've seen this time and again among family, colleagues, friends and acquaintances: the moment people acquire smartphones, their reliance on PCs or laptops declines, sometimes dramatically. But up to now those observations had a purely anecdotal status. The Ofcom report changes that.

The key thing about smartphones is that they are essentially handheld networked computers which also happen to be able to make voice calls. This is what Steve Jobs realised before most industry figures, and it explains why Apple has driven the mobile revolution. The Ofcom report is a testament to Jobs's perceptiveness, not just because of what it reveals about the centrality of smartphones in their users' lives, but also because it shows that the use of mobile phones for voice calls has peaked. The volume of calls made from mobile phones fell for the first time: down 1.1% on 2010 figures. Mobile voice revenues fell by 0.9% to £10.5bn while mobile messaging and handset data revenues increased 5.5% to £4.6bn.

Dinah Hall's Telegraph Roundup

Another batch of summer recomendations from the Telegraph, this time by Dinah Hall, covering the whole age range in one sweep...

Summer Roundup - Picture Books

Telgraph's Picture Book recommendations...

Summer Roundup - Teenagers

Telegraph summer recommendations for teenage readers....

Summer Roundup 8-10

Telgraph recommendations for 8-10 yr olds

Summer Children's Books 6-8

Summer roundup from the Telegraph - recommendations for 6-8 yr olds

Guardian Review

Big Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans, reviewed by Marcus Sedgwick

Big Change takes up from where the first title left off, but can be read easily enough without knowledge of that book. Stuart is keen to take ownership of the stage props left by his great-uncle, but can only do so if he can find the will hidden by his magical predecessor. With the help of April and others he undergoes a series of trials: puzzles in which cryptic verbal and visual clues need to be solved to reach the ultimate prize.

The clue-solving episodes provide the book's most exciting passages, but solving all seven of them does take some time, and also many pages: at 350 pages, Big Change might be a bit off-putting for the more reluctant reader. Nevertheless, short chapters keep the pace whipping along, as Stuart inches ever closer to his prize, as well as the greater goals of winning some friends and managing to tell the triplets apart. A smart book for a smart young reader.

Bookstats Survey

E-books continued their surge in 2011, surpassing hardcover books and paperbacks to become the dominant format for adult fiction last year, according to a new survey of publishers released Wednesday.

For several years, consumers have been rapidly switching from print to digital for reading novels, a sign of the growing strength of the e-book for narrative, straightforward storytelling.

Over all, digital books kept up their explosive growth in 2011, the survey confirmed. Publishers' net revenue from sales of e-books more than doubled last year, reaching $2.07 billion, up from $869 million in 2010. E-books accounted for 15.5 percent of publishers' revenues.

But as digital revenue grew, print sales suffered, dropping to $11.1 billion in 2011 from $12.1 billion in 2010.

The annual survey, known as BookStats, includes data from nearly 2,000 publishers of all sizes. It was conducted by two trade groups, the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers.

The survey also revealed that revenues in the overall trade book business were relatively flat. Publishers' net revenues in 2011 were $13.97 billion, up from $13.9 billion in 2010, an increase of 0.5 percent.

Children's books, a category that includes young-adult fiction like the hugely popular "Hunger Games" trilogy, grew 12 percent in 2011, to $2.78 billion from $2.48 billion in 2010.

London for Children by Matteo Pericoli is a highly likeable book!

For a start, it's two books in one, bound end to end, so that one side is the North Bank, and the other side the South Bank.

Inspired by the architectural drawings Matteo Pericoli began to make in 2009, and published last year as London Unfurled, Macmillan have put together a fabulous children's guide to the buildings on each river bank, with fascinating snippets of historical detail along the way.

Children will be drawn in by the numbers Pericoli reports at the front of the North Bank volume: He drew 3262 waves, 1343 buildings, 27180 windows, 41 bridges and 58 cranes.

Older children who pick up this book may well be tempted to find out more about the drawing project itself.

London Unfurled is available in both paper and ipad formats.

There are youtube videos that give a taste of its expanse:

Unbalanced Focus having Negative Impact

says Elizabeth Dobler, Professor of Reading and Language Arts, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, as she and colleagues survey digital publishing for children...

We all know that the increasing number of new publishing platforms are challenging the traditional models of publishing. There is a growing interest and enthusiasm for the capacity of anyone to publish and create, but is there equal interest on the impact of quality or value of these texts to the reader? Currently, publishing in digital spaces emphasizes producers, rather than consumers. This unbalanced focus has the potential to impact children's reading experiences in negative, as well as positive ways, and is already having a significant impact on the world of children's literature.

The fate of UK's public libraries... ....

Very interesting piece about the impications of ebook lending for publishers and public libraries.

Orion Children's Books have acquired Mariella Mystery Investigates: a new series for young readers from author and illustrator Kate Pankhurst.

The deal for world rights was made by Orion Children's Books Commissioning Editor Jenny Glencross, in her first acquisition in her new role, with Mark Mills at Plum Pudding Illustration for Kate Pankhurst.

The first two books in Mariella Mystery Investigates (The Ghostly Guinea Pig and A Cupcake Conundrum) will be published in April 2013.

Mariella Mystery is a girl detective, aged 9 and a bit, able to solve the most mysterious mysteries and perplexing problems, even before breakfast.

In Mariella's first 'case file', she and her fellow Mystery Girls must get to the bottom of The Case of the Ghostly Guinea Pig.

Wonderlands: A Festival of International Writing for Children

Get set for an exciting three days of stories, words, drawings, conversations and explorations as some of the planet's most brilliant writers for children and young people appear at the British Library.

Joining guests from the four corners of the world will be some of the best-loved British authors, including past and present Children's Laureates!

Writers appearing include

Shaun Tan
Michael Rosen
Charlie Dark
David Almond
Bart Moeyaert
Julia Donaldson
Michael Morpurgo
Anthony Browne
Emily Gravett
Peter Sís
Valerie Bloom
John Lyons

My Cat Pip

Hodder Children's Books has announce the acquisition of book rights for top design brand and greetings sensation My Cat Pip. Emma Layfield, Picture Book Publisher for Hodder Children's Books brokered the deal with Kirsty Guthrie at licensing agent KJG Ltd that will see the publication of a range of books for children aged 3+. Hodder Children's Books have acquired worldwide publishing rights with four books initially being published in March 2013. The books will include activity formats such as dress-up sticker books, lift-the-flap books and 'Where's Pip?' books.

Launched in 2008, My Cat Pip first appeared in a range of greetings cards which have sold over 1 million copies so far. My Cat Pip won the prestigious Henries Award in the Best Cute category and has sold over 1.5 million items overall.

My Cat Pip appears in Sparkle World and Easy Peasy, and in other merchandise formats including mugs, stationery and apparel. In the UK, the merchandise is stocked by John Lewis, Amazon, Harrods, Asda Direct, T K Maxx, Co-op, Fenwicks and Moon Pig, amongst others.

Caribbean Poetry Conference, 20-22 September

A conference on Caribbean Poetry will take place in Cambridge from 20-22 September 2012.

Speakers and performers include John Agard, Beverley Bryan, Christian Campbell, Kei Miller, Mervyn Morris, Grace Nichols, Velma Pollard, Olive Senior, Dorothea Smartt and special guest Linton Kwesi Johnson.

My Life In Travel: Jacqueline Wilson

Independent feature:

Best holiday?

Prague. I went with my daughter Emma - just after the Velvet Revolution in 1990 - and it was astonishing how completely unspoilt it was. It was such a delight to walk around a city with so many lovely buildings - and yet it hardly cost a penny. I'm almost scared to go back because I think it's changed enormously.

Favourite place in the British Isles?

North Norfolk. I've just come back from there and it's the most beautiful place. Because it's so flat, the sky seems endless and, at the moment, there are poppies and wild roses everywhere. The saltmarshes are very strange and wonderful but, best of all, are the vast unspoilt beaches. Holkham beach is my absolute favourite. Norfolk still has lots of second-hand bookshops too, and enormous platefuls of fantastic home-grown food - so it ticks every box.

What have you learnt from your travels?

I've met children from all over the world - yet they all laugh in exactly the same places when I give a talk and worry about the same things. There's something immensely touching about that.

Publishers Weekly Autumn Listings

Summer may be in full swing, but here at PW our thoughts have already turned to fall and our comprehensive listings of the coming season's offerings. With this issue we shift our parameters a bit; our fall announcements now encompass July 1, 2012, through January 31, 2013....

subscriber content

Children's Summer Reading

As part of the Summer Reading Challenge to read six books over the holidays, top children's writers and children who did the challenge last year recommend their favourites....

Inky People

Lotte Klaver has been making tiny little drawings in India ink in pendants and along with miniature framed prints of her distinctive ink figure sketches they are for sale in her brand new webshop called Inky People.

Seeismic Shift

from a business report in The Indpendent:

E-book sales are up 70 per cent on a year ago at the Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury, helping to offset a 2 per cent slide in print book revenues and keep profits on track.

Nigel Newton, chief executive, described the e-book growth as a "seismic shift", pointing to how digital sales across the US outstripped hardback sales in the first quarter.

Art In Nature by Tove Jansson

a review from The Independent

The latest fiction of Jansson's to be translated and published in Britain is Art in Nature, a sublime little collection of stories that is full of boats and beach houses, painting and plays. In the title tale, a gallery warden discovers a couple by a lake arguing over the meaning of a picture. He provides them with a new and wonderfully inconclusive solution to the debate. "It's the mystery that's important, somehow very important," realises the caretaker. In Jansson's world, not knowing is a wonderful thing. In "White Lady", three middle-aged ladies, one of them a novelist, enjoy a night out with youngsters at a seaside restaurant. "I write books for young people and they don't know who I am," ponders the writer. "And I know nothing about them, either. Funny, isn't it." It's a bittersweet scene for Jansson to have composed; she entertained a generation of children but had none herself.

GP Taylor Thinks Children's Books Should Come With Age Certification

and was quickly put in his place by Patrick Ness and Charlie Higson amongst others...

We've been here before, as we have with the notion that today's children's fiction is 'too dark'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/06/abominables-eva-ibbotson-review

The Abominables by Eva Ibbotson, reviewed by Mal Peet

[Eva Ibbotson] died in 2010; her talent and salty irreverence are greatly missed by all who knew her. Among her papers was the typescript of The Abominables, presumably the last romp she wrote before Alan's death. Its existence was previously unknown to Toby Ibbotson, her son and sometime collaborator, and to Marion Lloyd, her publisher. Together, they have edited it, giving us not only posthumous but vintage Ibbotson. MAL PEET

Book Recommendations For Boys

The Guardian asked:

What books could teachers use to get the reluctant readers in their class hooked on reading? We went straight to the Guardian's children's books editor Julia Eccleshare to get her recommendations....

The 2012 shortlist (in alphabetical order) is:
• Nicking Time by Tracy Traynor
• Pick 'n' Mix Mums by Debbie Richardson
• Shadow Eyes by Rebecca Smith

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Writers Retreat in the Edinburgh International Book Festival enclosure on Friday 17 August 2012. The winning author will receive a £2,000 cash prize and have their book published in the Kelpies imprint.

This year, the prize will be presented by Carnegie award-winning author Theresa Breslin.

The three shortlisted books couldn't be more different.
Tracy Traynor's Nicking Time follows a group of friends planning a perfect summer in Glasgow, but one of the gang isn't what he seems.
Debbie Richardson lets her character run riot with his library card, but it isn't books he's swaping in Pick 'n' Mix Mums.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Smith explores the Highlands in Shadow Eyes, where a mysterious wild creature is attacking helpless animals...

Branford Boase Winner

Annabel Pitcher wins the Branford Boase Award with 'My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece'

Sorry I could not be there this year.

George Bellows by Robert Burleigh

from A NYT review:

Most children's books about celebrated artists don't open with anything like fight night at Sharkey's. (Not many grown-up books do either.) But a scene in which two boxers "bob and weave, jabbing and pummeling each other with muscular arms" is a fitting way to introduce the American painter George Bellows, who is also the subject of a large retrospective exhibition currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Waterstones Invites Submissions

Along with releasing the next 12 titles in its Book Club, Waterstones is also inviting publishers to submit entries for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2013. Now in its ninth year, the WCBP features three category winners, Picture Books, Children's Fiction (5-12), Teen, which each receive £2,000, with the overall winner taking a further £3,000.
The shortlisted titles and winner also benefit from major promotion throughout Waterstones stores. Publishers may submit no more than two titles for each of the three categories with submissions received by 25th July. For more information, contact Natalie Dewey at Waterstones on natalie.dewey@waterstones.com.

What do you think of this Vlog Promo For a new teen series?

Mike Lancaster, author of 01.4 and 1.4, will be on twitter tomorrow, 4th July between 3-3.30pm to answer questions.
Send your questions(before 3pm) using the hashtag #1pnt4

Children's Bookshops Doing OK, Apparently

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