Recently in ACHUKA Category

Barnes & Noble's digital media and educational products department have announced the availability of enhanced digital versions of popular Sesame Street favorites, now available as NOOK Books, including the classic "The Monster at the End of This Book" available as an eBook with audio, only on NOOK.
Barnes & Noble will launch with seven titles, with nineteen more to follow.

"We are excited to introduce a series of popular Sesame Street titles into our extensive picture book catalogue of NOOK Books," said Wendy Bronfin, Senior Director of Kids Digital Products for Barnes & Noble.

Blue Peter Best Book of the Decade Vote

Today's Blue Peter programme announced its search to find the best children's book of the last decade, with the launch of an online vote in which its young viewers will be able to choose from a shortlist of 10 iconic titles.

From a young James Bond to a reluctant teenage superspy, an infamous boy wizard and an underage First World War soldier, miniature action heroes abound in the list which features the bestselling children's fiction books published in the last 10 years, with only one book per author included.

The 10 books competing for the accolade (in title order) are:

· Alex Rider Mission 3: Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz (Walker Books, 2002)

· Candyfloss by Jacqueline Wilson, illustrated by Nick Sharratt (Random House Children's Books, 2006)

· Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Puffin, 2008)

· Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling (Bloomsbury, 2003)

· Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend by Francesca Simon, illustrated by Tony Ross (Orion Children's Books, 2006)

· Mr Stink by David Walliams, illustrated by Quentin Blake (HarperCollins Children's Books, 2009)

· Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo (HarperCollins Children's Books, 2003)

· The Series of Unfortunate Events: Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket (Egmont Books, 2002)

· Theodore Boone by John Grisham (Hodder & Stoughton, 2010)

· Young Bond: SilverFin ─ A James Bond Adventure by Charlie Higson (Puffin, 2005)

Five of the books included have inspired feature films (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, Horrid Henry, The Series of Unfortunate Events and due this year Private Peaceful); seven are part of a series (Alex Rider, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, Horrid Henry, The Series of Unfortunate Events, Theodore Boone and Young Bond); and two deal with social issues such as homelessness, debt and divorce with sensitivity and humour (Candyfloss and Mr Stink).

The list also boasts several high-profile authors with three former Children's Laureates (Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake who illustrates Mr Stink), bestselling adult US crime author John Grisham, comedian David Walliams, and Britain's richest author J K Rowling all up for the Award.

The shortlist for the vote is made up of the 10 bestselling (by volume) fiction books of the last 10 years for 5─11 year olds with a first publication date between January 2002 and December 2011. Only the top-selling book per individual, named author is included. (Source: Nielsen BookScan TCM Top 5000 Children's Fiction (Y2) from 200101 to 201152 filtered by CMBC Interest Level 5─11 years.)

The shortlist will be featured on Blue Peter's website bbc.co.uk/bluepeter for three weeks, during which time children under the age of 16 can log on with their BBC iD and vote for their favourite. The vote will close at 4pm on Thursday 23 February.

The winning book will be announced on Blue Peter on 1 March (5.45pm, CBBC), alongside the winner of the annual Blue Peter Book of the Year Award on a special show dedicated to books to tie-in with World Book Day. Blue Peter will invite the winning author to collect a 'Best Children's Book of the Last 10 Years' trophy on the show.

Five Children And It Makeover

Imogen Russell Williams, writing in The Guardian, is

...deeply torn by the news that Jacqueline Wilson has written an updated "echo" of Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It, to be published by Puffin Books in August. I admire Wilson's writing, and can imagine a writer who adores Nesbit as Wilson does - she wrote the Introduction to Puffin's 2010 reissue of The Railway Children, and has called Nesbit her "all-time favourite classic children's author" - relishing such a privileged engagement with a dearly-loved and venerated influence, not to mention the chance to bring shedloads of her own devoted readers along to the party.

On the other hand, there's the fact that Five Children and It is not a neglected old tome in need of a dusting-off - it's never been out of print since it was published in 1902. For most people who now remember reading it as children, it's not only unimprovable, but a sacred text.

Footballer Supports Reading Campaign

I'm... very proud that at just 22 I've become a published author, having written my own series of children's books about a young footballer called TJ (my nickname at school).

UK Ebook Sales Fivefold Increase

from one of many reports on Amazon's latest sales figures:

In the UK, Amazon said sales of Kindle e-books in the last three months had increased five-fold in comparison to the same period in 2010 and it received twice as many orders for Kindle e-readers in the run-up to Christmas than last year. While the Kindle was the best-selling product for the last quarter in 2011 for the UK, no e-books were in the top 10 bestselling products list--a departure from previous years where anywhere up to four have featured. The top 10 bestselling items list for the last quarter was dominated instead by DVDs, video games and music.

Knowing me, knowing you: Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt - Features - Health & Families - The Independent

Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt talk about their working friendship in a feature from The Independent...

Goodreads quits sourcing data from "restrictive" Amazon...

Potentially significant announcement for KIndle authors...

A Happy Ending for the Short Story

Publishers are excited at the perfect format for the new generation of e-readers, writes Claire Coughlan, in the Irish Independent...

The piece contains links to several websites that publish short stories...

Shame On Today

Article, from Publishers Weekly, berating the morning TV shows in America for failing to interview the Newbery and Caldecott winners:

What's wrong with morning-show producers? Were they not read to as children? Were they bullied by school librarians? Were they traumatized by the end of Charlotte's Web? What could have possibly happened to the current crop of morning-show producers that they would disregard entirely the winners of the highest children's book awards in the land?

 
Last year, our own Claire Kirch broke the news that the Today Show, which had always invited the Newbery and Caldecott Medal winners for an interview the morning after the prizes were announced, was abandoning its 11-year-old tradition, seemingly to make room for a buzzed-about new author named Snooki. Though they're still denying that one (Snooki's appearance) had anything to do with the other (snubbing the Youth Media award-winners), it's hard to take their justification seriously: that because Snooki had been booked weeks in advance, her scheduling had nothing to do with preempting the winners of the Newbery and Caldecott. The reasoning seems to be that Today didn't know when the awards would be announced, I guess because the ALA keeps the date of their midwinter meeting so top-secret.
 
This year, Today again failed to invite the medalists--Chris Raschka and Jack Gantos, who learned about the honors on Monday--and not one of the other morning shows--Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Fox and Friends, Morning Joe--bothered to pick up the slack.

Waterstones Picadilly To Have Russian Department

From PublishingPerspectives:

Slova, as the department will be called -- it's the Russian for "words" -- will be situated on the mezzanine level at the rear of the ground-floor of Waterstones flagship store in London's Piccadilly. And the truth is that in all likelihood it will be a tasteful addition to the existing store. After all, the Russians have a strong bookselling tradition, and if bookstore traffic in Moscow offers any precedent, it will be a busy place.

Slova will stock nearly 5,000 Russian language titles as well as Russian books in translation, covering areas such as History, Art, Poetry, Fiction, Biography and Children's, and the company is currently looking for Russian-speaking booksellers to work in the department.  MD James Daaunt said: "For Russophiles, and the large, vibrant Russian community in London, we aim to make Slova an irresistible literary and cultural destination. One won't be surprised at the source of the idea, given Waterstones' ownership, but it is a good one and perfect for this magnificent shop."

The Russian language titles stocked by Slova have been sourced direct from Russia with the assistance of Boris Kupriyanov, owner of Moscow's Falanster and Tciolkovskiy bookshops. Slova will also be working closely with Academia Rossica, the Russian Culture and Arts Foundation based in London, in planning author events, book launches and other activity throughout the year.

Lee & Low Acquires Children's Book Press

Children's Book Press, founded in 1975 by Harriet Rohmer for the specific purpose of creating a line of bilingual and multicultural books, ceased operations at the end of September and has sold its backlist inventory of 90 titles to Lee & Low Books in New York. 

Guest Blog Slot On Nosy Crow

Kate Wilson invited me to write a guest blog piece for her, after I'd tweeted about the different emotional intensity of being a publisher as opposed to being a reviewer.

Follow achuka on Twitter... @achuka

The benefits of Independence

Wish she'd managed to be a little more enthusiastic about ACHUKAbooks' first title, but here's an Interesting blog entry and observation from the first reviewer of The Field....

I had never realised just how heavily edited books from the big publishing houses are and just how formulaic they are. What is brilliant when reading an independent book is that the author is writing their story to satisfy them; not to satisfy the editors at publishing houses.

Guardian Review

In Darkness by Nick Lake, reviewed by Patrick Ness

Couldn't agree more with the intro to this review...

There are occasionally voices in the children's book world who argue that the kind of serious children's novels that win prizes and get newspaper reviews are, in fact, books that are only loved by prize judges and middle-aged reviewers, not by kids themselves. But this, I think, works from an incorrect premise: that there is only one sort of child reader. There isn't, of course. Young readers are as varied as adult readers, and as eclectic in their individual tastes. Just because you read the latest Booker winner doesn't mean you don't also read the latest Scandinavian corpse-fiest, and vice versa. It's actually a bit of an insult to young readers to assume that a challenging, literary book must automatically be off-putting, and it's not at all my experience of the young readers I meet. It's certainly not how I read when I was young. I read both bestsellers and more obscure fare - anything that might give the remotest clue to the world outside my suburb.

Ness then goes on to say...

In Darkness is both violent and subtle, unexpectedly reminding me of The Wire. Characters, settings, and the half-believed Haitian vodou religion are handled with patience and complexity, even in a terrifying, poverty-stricken setting. Also, as in The Wire, Lake doesn't shy away from Shorty's immersion in gang culture, nor the profanity that permeates it and Shorty's own participation in its brutality and murder. Sometimes Lake might go a bit too far with the roughness, but I don't doubt his seriousness. Nor, I think, will the kind of young reader who'll embrace this book.

In Darkness is a serious, nuanced, challenging novel. Trust me, there are plenty of young readers who hunger for exactly that. PATRICK NESS

An Author Reviews Different Jacket Designs for the Same Title

a blog rentry from An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (ABBA)...