Rivals warning after festivals break records - The Herald
Karen Mountney, the festival's children's programme director said: "It's been another bumper year for the children's programme with more children than ever before meeting some of today's greatest authors, from household names to rising talent."
The festival bookshop enjoyed sales of some £500,000 with Raven's Gate by Anthony Horwoitz the best-selling children's title.
BBC NEWS | Business | HMV makes move on Ottakar's chain
Last month, Ottakar's warned same-store sales dropped 6.7% in the 4 weeks to 16 July - blaming the Harry Potter phenomenon for the drop. The group said that customers had opted for reduced price copies of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince available at supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's. It also said the release had prompted many publishers to delay the launch of new titles as they feared harsh competition from the children's book.
Guardian Unlimited Books | Special Reports | Everyone does not have a novel inside them
Tim Clare takes issue with G. P. Taylor...
Taylor:
The publishing world, frankly, is a cartel," opined GP Taylor, children's author and erstwhile self-publisher, "you can only get in there if you're in the know ... I and JK Rowling were discovered by accident. Most people are in the club, and it's a mafia."
Clare:
The truth is a disproportionate number of publishers are wide-eyed idealists with a frightening propensity for chucking good money after bad... The British publishing industry is crying out for a high-profile hothead to disabuse thousands of needy, bumbling timewasters of the notion that nascent masterpieces stir within their loins."Highly recommended
Scotsman.com News - Features - A mother's tale
A Scotsman feature about Sandi Tolsvig, author of Hitler's Canary:
Scotland on Sunday - The Review - Inner voices that never shut up
[Sebastien] Faulks says he is tired of trawling archives and is now working on a children's book for pre-teens that involves evolution, time, a boy, a dog and a girl in another world. There is no sex and no research necessary. "I've got three children and I'm always bemoaning the fact that children's novels are so terrible - so if you think you're so clever, do one yourself."
from a Scotland On Sunday feature about Sebastian Faulks author of Birdsong, The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray. His latest adult book is Human Traces:
Scotsman.com News - News Archive - Blaming the brain is no teenage fiction
Nicola Morgan explains why teenagers need teenage fiction... It's a brain thang...
I believe the nature of the teenage brain helps explain their reading preferences: teenage brains react differently to risk, often needing more to satisfy its reward system, and teenage novels are often extra risky or frightening. Teenage brains can be emotionally dramatic, and their books often explore emotional extremes. Teenage brains are newly able to construct ethical judgments: their novels, therefore, may explore Big Questions, such as war, death, addiction, sex, racism, religion...
Nicola Morgan's book on the teenage brain, Blame My Brain, is published September 5th:
Books - reviews and literary news from The Times and The Sunday Times
Amanda Craig regrets the introduction of romance into ELizabeth Laird's nautical tale Secrets of the Fearless
Let us hope that in John and Kit’s next adventure there is a lot more discomfort and a lot less kissing. AMANDA CRAIG
Here is what Nick Tucker said about this book in an Independent review at the end of July:
Elizabeth Laird's Secrets of the Success (Macmillan, £12.99) takes a more rosy view of the past - unexpected in a writer whose previous novels have included unflinching pictures of today's political hot spots. Based on the life of her great-great-great grandfather, this story describes how 12-year old John Barr discovers that life as a powder-monkey aboard a battleship during the Napoleonic Wars has much to recommend it. Brutality, poor food and hideous wounds never really dent the mood of optimistic adventure, with John soon joined by Kit, who is - as so often in history novels - a girl in disguise. Setting out on a dangerous mission in France, they are aided by overheard conversations and unearthed documents as the story settles into the comfortable grooves of a pleasant old-school melodrama. NICK TUCKER
Scotsman.com News - Features - Chasing demons
David Robinson profiles Anthony Horowitz for The Scotsman:
With Raven's Gate, Horowitz is once more breaking new ground in children's literature. "Stephen King for kids" is his shorthand phrase for what he is attempting in the five-book series, the first of which sets up a tale of sinister supernatural adventures that nudges the supernatural horror genre further down the age range than it's probably ever been.In the novel, 14-year-old orphan, Matthew Freeman, is caught breaking into a warehouse and sent to Yorkshire to be fostered on a farm by the frightening Mrs Deverill. If she's not what she seems, neither are any of the residents of the nearby village. The scares get progressively bigger. One scene in particular - when dinosaur skeletons in the main hall of the Natural History Museum come to life by night and start attacking Freeman - is the kind of bedtime reading that can haunt the dreams of adults and children alike. Tautly told, the nightmare - which only seems preposterous in precis form - is graphic and unpredictable, growing coherently out of credibly mundane beginnings.
FT piece on the opening of Seven Stories...
Britain's only centre wholly dedicated to the celebration of children's books was opened yesterday by Jacqueline Wilson, the children's laureate, and her principal illustrator Nick Sharratt.The enthusiasm and support generated among writers, illustrators and publishers for the ?6.5m project is indicative of the rising status over the last decade of children's literature.
Victor Watson, chairman of Seven Stories trustees, says the shift in attitude towards a former Cinderella of the literary establishment is partly due to the increasing popularity with children and adults of "crossover" work by authors such as JK Rowling and Philip Pullman.
Mr Watson, editor of the Cambridge Guide to Children's Books, says few people, except children, were interested in children's books 20 years ago. "Now they have high status," he says.
Amazon.co.uk: Books: The Worst Witch Saves the Day
There is a poignant note from Jill Murphy accompanying proof copies of the new Worst Witch title, publishing in October
While I was working on the illustrations for the new book, my gorgeous Tyger (a clone of Tabby) went missing for three months. It was really sad drawing some of the pictures - especially page 105 and the last one of all, showing Mildrend and Tabby happily asleep - just like me with my own darling Tyger, if only he wasn't lost forever. Amazingly, while I was finishing this picture, I wnet out searching for him after a tip-off and found him lost and starving on a farm a mile away. What a reunion! I don't know who mad emore noise - him miaowing and purring or me crying. JILL MURPHY
Amazon.co.uk: Books: To the End of the World (Keepers & Seekers S.)
ACHUKA can't be at the Edinburgh Book Festival, but here's a self-published Scottish book that looks worthy of promotion*. Written by Colin Foreman to raise money for the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (to which organisation all profits from the book will go), it has had enthusiastic support from John Webb, children's book buyer at Waterstones, who also played a significant advisory role in the book's striking cover design by Wayne Reynolds.
To The End Of The World by Colin Foreman
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | UK children's books centre opens
Another feature on the centre in north-east England, being opened today by Nick Sharratt and Jacqueline Wilson.
CHILDREN'S LAUREATE JACQUELINE Wilson and her principal illustrator Nick Sharratt will open (19 August) the new visitor centre at Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books, housed in an old Victorian warehouse on the Ouseburn River. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, visitors will be allowed into the brand new seven-storey building, and into a whole world of children's literature. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime bringing together of work, an anthology of some of the most interesting writing of the last 70 years,” said Elizabeth Hammill, Seven Stories Collection Development Director. “This place answers the question ‘what happens when you read?’, and is like nothing you’ve ever seen before – it’s exceeded everyone’s expectations.”
Here's an ACHUKA Special Feature - a visit to the Anholts and their amazing bookshop by the sea...
North Devon Gazette - Author's first book is set in North Devon
A Barnstaple children's author is hoping to win the hearts and minds of young readers with his first published book - which he describes as "a cross between Roald Dahl and Little Britain."James Duncan, from Pilton, has written a story for seven-to-11-year-olds firmly in the Dahl tradition, entitled Sweets That Eat Children, but with plenty of humour and not nearly as gruesome as its title suggests!
Iran News - Kerman prepares for Iran children's book fair
The second Children and Young Adults? International Book Fair is to be held in the city of Kerman in late February 2006...
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Centre to explore and celebrate children's books
Article about the official opening (this coming Friday) of the new centre for children's books, Newcastle:
The former children's laureate Quentin Blake is wearing trainers and having 40 winks on colourful cushions in the book den at Seven Stories, the ?6.5m centre for children's books converted from a Victorian grain store on the bank of the Ouseburn, just down river from the Tyne bridge in Newcastle. The centre, which collects, explores and celebrates children's books, will be opened on Friday by the current children's laureate, Jacqueline Wilson, and illustrator Nick Sharratt...
Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Tickets going fast but authors offer extra
The children's author Shirley Hughes will not make her book festival session today due to the British Airways strike, staff said yesterday. But Julia Donaldson, creator of The Gruffalo, has agreed to step in, adding a third show on top of two other sold-out events.
Children's author Morris Gleitsman :: ABC Queensland
Morris Gleitzman feature.
Includes audiolink...
CBBC Newsround | Win | Win: 10-year-old boy's first novel
from cbbc newsround:
A 10-year-old boy is currently writing his third novel in a trilogy!
Michael Dowling - who writes under the false name of Tobias Druitt - has already had his first book published.
It's called Corydon and the Island of Monsters
Scotsman.com News - Opinion - JK's failed to work her magic on me
An author calls Rowling's adult readers 'cowardly escapists'
... ...surely this is worht a comment ;-)
Adult fiction recognises that the contemporary world is a complex, difficult place with demands on our reasoning that require careful consideration. I have nothing against Harry Potter or any of his genuinely juvenile followers - children should be bursting with juvenility - but his adult disciples are little more than cowardly escapists.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Harry Potter author hits back
Rowling dismisses media claims of her supposed annoyance at being labelled a children's writer, or having a meal with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. "I just hope they can remember it because I can't," she says, before knocking down another Aunt Sally - the lie that she vetoed Steven Spielberg as director of the Potter sagas....
HarperCollins Taps SMS to Promote Children's Novels
HarperCollins has begun an aggressive text messaging program to promote upcoming children's novels by The Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot. The publisher will send a variety of content and promotions via SMS to Cabot fans who join the Meg Cabot Mobile Club via the author's Web site... ..
Sugar and spice and all things not very nice . . . - Home - Times Online
Another profile of the current Children's Laureate, Jacqueline Wilson, appeared in The Times at the weekend:
She is delighted if her books are a manual to children in stressful situations — from the “my best friend doesn’t like me any more” end of the spectrum to real, call-in-the-social-worker trauma, but it was never, she stresses, her intention: “Since I was tiny, I made up imaginary people in my head, and as soon as I could write I wrote them down. So the books express me and what I wanted to say. But if it does occasionally chime with children’s needs, that’s a huge bonus. I don’t set out to write in a didactic way, but because my books tend to be issue-led, people sometimes think I sit down and think, ‘Right, let’s write a book about how to help a child through divorce’, whereas it starts with the character. I simply try to see things from the child character’s point of view.”
A stage adaptation of Midnight runs at the Peacock Theatre, London from AUg 10 - 27
Independent Online Edition > Interviews : app5
James Urquhart interviews Elizabeth and asks about her movie into the children's market:
"In the very best young adult books there is as much going on as in adult literary fiction," Knox claims, adding with a modest laugh that "what gets classed as adult literary fiction is sometimes just polite noises."
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Michelle Paver: Paperback writer
Michelle Paver explains how she got into the mind of a wolf...
To me that's the point of research: to make the reader feel as if they're in the forest with Torak and Wolf, smelling the tang of a birchwood fire; hearing the wobbly yowl of a wolf cub. To experience the forest in the raw, I travelled to Finnish Lapland, where I slept on reindeer hides, tasted lingonberries scooped from the undergrowth, and learned how to carry fire in a roll of bark.
Spirit Walker, the sequel to Wolf Brother, is published next month:
I’ve got you, under your skin - Books - Times Online
Eleanor Updale, author of Montomorency And The Assassins, describes her visit to a museum of waxwork cadavers...
...essentially this is the place to which Montmorency comes in 1898 with Lord George Fox-Selwyn and his nephew Frank in Montmorency and the Assassins. They are on the trail of stolen exhibits from a collection in London. Like me on my first visit, they’re in for a wonderful surprise...
Independent Online Edition: The Facts About Teenage Fiction
ACHUKA & others have been saying it for years of course. Still, it's good to hear it loud & clear from on high :-))
Boyd Tonkin, writing in yesterday's Independent:
... ...it isn't the startling topics or no-holds-barred idioms that define the strongest achievements in children's fiction today. More remarkable than the upfront passions and terrors is its ability to win and keep readers with an amazingly wide range of forms and genres - from the grittiest kinds of "dirty realism" through every possible brand of fable and fantasy. Alongside its exploits and experiments, much of mainstream adult writing looks stuck in a drearily naturalistic backwater. So read Blackman, or Pullman, or Burgess, and be shocked: not by their ambitions, but by their adult counterparts' timidity...
Highly recommended
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Tale of suicide bomber tops teen book list
...despite its unsettling subject matter, Checkmate, the tale of a mixed-race teenage girl who is groomed to become a suicide bomber has also become a bestseller...Waterstone's said yesterday that the book, by the award-winning children's author Malorie Blackman, was number two in its teen fiction sale list and just outside the top 50 in its list of best-selling books across all genres.
Anant Pai, popularly 'Uncle Pai' to millions of children in India, is seen as the father of the Indian comic book. His creation, the Amar Chitra Katha – literally ‘Immortal Pictorial Tales’ – is today a venerated institution. Amar Chitra Katha was introduced in India at a time when the western heroes – Superman and Phantom – were making waves and thrilling the English educated Indian child.
Nandini Nayar interviews Anant Pai for ACHUKA...
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Books | Health: The dyslexic novelist
Polly Curtis interviews Sally Gardner, author of I Coriander, for The Guardian:
How do you write a novel when grammar, spelling and punctuation are a mystery to you? "I did it on a laptop. When I wrote before in exercise books, it was hopeless because I would forget I'd written something or lose the page. I bought one of those Apples that looks like a Barbie's loo seat. I rather loved it; it was blue...
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Pratchett anger at Rowling's rise
Author Terry Pratchett has complained that the status of Harry Potter author JK Rowling is being elevated "at the expense of other writers".
