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Henrietta Branford Writing Competition Now Open

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The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition, the annual competition for young people which runs in conjunction with the Branford Boase Award, is now open.

The Branford Boase Award recognises a debut children’s author and their editor and was set up in memory of the outstanding children’s writer Henrietta Branford and the gifted editor, Wendy Boase, Editorial Director of Walker Books. They both died of cancer in 1999. 

The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition aims to find and encourage writers of the future, something Henrietta Branford was always keen to do.

 The 2018 competition is open now and anyone under the age of 19 can enter. Entrants are invited to complete this story begun by last year’s winner, author of Beetle Boy, M. G. Leonard:

 ‘The map had led us to an old wall covered with ivy. I reached through the leaves till I was touching the bricks and felt my way sideways. The wall continued three paces then changed from the rough touch of fired sand to the smooth damp texture of rotting wood. We pulled the evergreen curtain aside. Beneath it was a hidden door. I grabbed the heavy iron ring handle that was riveted to the ancient wood and twisted it with both hands, hoping the door would open.’

The story should be no longer than 1000 words, must follow on from the starter paragraph, and have a title. All entrants must live in the UK and be under 19 years of age. Entries will be judged by Prue Goodwin, consultant and lecturer in children’s literature. She says: ‘We are looking for stories that keep the reader wanting to know what is going to happen from beginning to end, are imaginative and unpredictable, and are written with a genuine reader in mind’.

Six winners will be invited to attend the Branford Boase Award celebration party in London in July. There they will meet M. G. Leonard and the authors shortlisted for the 2018 award as well as editors, publishers, agents, and other professionals in this field. They will receive a copy of each of the books shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award and be able to have their books signed.

The closing date for the competition is Saturday 21 April 2018.

Full details are available on the website:

http://www.branfordboaseaward.org.uk/HBWC/HBWC_current/henriettabranfo1.html

Tweeted: Picture Book Prize

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The Prize is open to UK-based debut writers and illustrators over 16, and the winning book will be published in 2019 by Salariya imprint, Scribblers. The winner will receive a £5000 advance against royalties and career advice from a leading children’s book agent. The final date for entries is 5th March 2018 with the winner announced in April 2018.

https://www.salariya.com/article/stratford-salariya-childrens-picture-book-prize-2018

WBD launches children’s illustration competition

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World Book Day (WBD) is teaming up with National Book Tokens to launch a children’s illustration competition.

To enter the Oodles of Doodles competition, which launches Monday 9th January, children and teenagers are being asked to design a new National Book Token to mark this year being the 20th anniversary of WBD.

A winner from each of the three age categories – 8-years-old and under, 9-12 and 13-16 years – will win £200 worth of National Book Tokens for themselves, as well as £200 for their teacher and £500 for their school, and one overall winner will have their design turned into a book token. 

 

The competition deadline is midonight 14th April.
Entries should be sent to World Book Day Design a Book Token Competition, Book Tokens Ltd, 6 Bell Yard, London WC2A 2JR. =
via WBD launches children’s illustration competition | The Bookseller.

Read80: School Library Association Photography Competition Announced

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SLATo mark the School Library Association’s birthday in 2017 a photographic competition ‘Read80’ has just been announced to celebrate reading for pleasure and the impact school libraries have.

Competitors are encouraged to take photographs that show people of any age celebrating the joy of reading anywhere and to submit them to our competition.

Submission is by upload to Instagram or Twitter with the tag #SLARead80 – all images so tagged will be automatically entered into the competition.

The competition is for entries from 1 September 2016 to Friday 23 December 2016. A selection of entries may be included as part of a celebratory publication during 2017.

There will be 2 prizes of the Reading Cloud (one for Primary and one for Secondary Schools)
“The Reading Cloud is a fantastic new online reading community designed to engage students, parents, teachers and librarians in reading for pleasure. The Reading Cloud uses the very latest technologies to really capture the imagination of students, linking real and virtual reading experiences to drive up literacy standards and develop core reading skills.”
NB Please note that the winning schools will require an existing Junior Librarian.net or an Eclipse.net hosted licence.

For individual junior and senior competitors the prize will be £80 worth of National Book Tokens to tie in with the SLA’s 80th birthday.

Full details and small print about the competition are available here – http://www.sla.org.uk/slaread80.php

Children’s Bookshow 2015 – Dates and Venues

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Full list of dates and venues for this year’s Children’s Bookshow now on the website… [see link below]

The national tour brings some of the best children’s authors from the UK and abroad to local theatre venues and gives teachers and school children the opportunity to hear world-class artists talk about their work.
This year Bernardo Atxaga, Patrick Benson, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Benji Davies, Daniel Morden, Marie-Aude Murail, Catherine Rayner, Rachel Rooney, Michael Rosen, Jessica Souhami and Kit Wright are taking to the stage, everywhere from London to Leicester and Stafford to Snape Maltings. Events take place from September through to November.

Booking is now open and you can find full details at The Children’s Bookshow website:http://www.thechildrensbookshow.com/arts-award.html

One of this year’s participants in the The Children’s Bookshow is Rachel Rooney,shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award. In conjunction with The Children’s Bookshow Rachel is running a poetry competition for children in two age brackets (9 and under, and 9-11).

http://www.thechildrensbookshow.com/dates.html

Malorie Blackman launches Project Remix

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Project Remix, backed by Booktrust with partners Movellas and Penguin Random House, is asking young people aged 13-19 to create a piece of creative writing, comic strip, book cover, book trailer or music composition based on one of 24 works of literature chosen by Blackman, including works such as Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Sophie McKenzie launches the new Times/Chicken House competition

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chickenhouse
thetimes

The Times and the independent publisher Chicken House are launching this year’s children’s fiction award. The winner will receive a £10,000 advance and a deal to get their book published. Like JK Rowling, you too could be successful enough to hand £1 million to the No campaign (Better Together) in Scotland.

via Sophie McKenzie launches the new Times/Chicken House competition | The Times.

John Burningham’s animals – in pictures

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Guardian slideshow of John Burningham’s animal illustrations from his picture books.
Leading off with a scene from his new book, The Way to The Zoo, the original drawing for which is a prize in a giveaway competition. Entry details in the link…

John Burningham has created some of the sweetest characters in children’s books over the past 50 years – here we celebrate some of his most beautiful animals, from Courtney the dog to Malcolm in It’s a Secret to the many fabulous animals in his new book The Way to the Zoo.

via John Burningham’s animals – in pictures | Children’s books | theguardian.com.

The Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition 2014 | The Winner

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Alex O’Connell announced the outcome of the Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition in Saturday Review. congratulations to Kerr Thomson, a geography teacher, who will now see his book published.

chickenhouse

After much debate, we gave the award to Kerr Thomson, a geography teacher at Glasgow High School and father of two, for The Sound of Whales. Thomson’s thrilling adventure story about an unusual boy, a child psychologist and people-trafficking on a remote Scottish island thrilled us with its sense of place and an ideas-packed plot. It felt like an old-fashioned story, in the very best sense, and reminded us, in parts, of the wonderful Eva Ibbotson.
Thomson, who has never attended a writing course but has shared his work with a local writing group, was inspired by a stretch of the west coast of Scotland. He says he is fascinated with outsiders and insiders within close communities.
Soon he will become an insider in the community of published authors. Chicken House will endeavour to put his book on shelves within a year.
The terrific runners up are: The Birthday Surprise by Lisa Drakeford,a gritty young adult story which featured a teenage girl giving birth in the bath at her friend’s birthday party; Dearly Wild by Victoria Woolfe, about a motherless boy who finds a friend in a wounded deer; The Territory by Sarah Govett, a dystopian tale with a lot to say about our education system and The Runner by James Lofthouse, a knuckle-in-the-mouth thriller. Thank you to everyone who submitted manuscripts. We’re already getting excited about next year, so watch out for details of the 2015 competition.

via The Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition 2014 | The Times.

Young Language Learner Award 2014

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The b small Young Language Learner of the Year Award

Next week, on March 11th, independent children’s publisher b small publishing and educational magazine Primary Teacher Update, along with specialist language resource retailer Little Linguist, will be launching The b small Young Language Learner of the Year Award 2014. The award has been designed to encourage teachers, parents and carers to introduce their children to foreign languages in a creative way and to help them develop a passion for language learning – especially significant this year with the introduction of mandatory modern foreign language learning for Key Stage 2 children from September.

The award was first stablished in 2013 with an enthusiastic reaction from teachers, parents and children themselves. Many teachers used the award as a classroom resource to provide an on-going engaging and creative activity for all levels in their foreign language teaching. The quality of entries reflected the ambition and imagination of the young language learners.

“I really enjoyed having the privilege of being a judge and reading the wonderful stories. The stories were clever and appealing, and the illustrations were just right.  Each entrant deserves congratulations for the high quality of work, and the overall winners show such talent that I can’t wait to read the stories they will go on to write in the future.”- Catherine Cheater, Award judge, author and foreign language educational consultant

Due to its success and the positive reaction, the award will become an annual competition with a new name to reflect this.  2014 will also see the introduction of Mandarin, with new judge Liming Guo Barrett, Head of Mandarin Chinese at Hampton School, alongside existing languages French, Spanish, German and Italian.

Children will be provided with a story template and invited to complete their own foreign language book, in the modern language of their choice, with their own words and pictures to accompany their story. The award not only develops language skills but also encourages fun through storytelling.

The Award winners will become published authors with b small publishing making the winning story entry available for free on their website as a PDF e-book. They will also win £100 worth of b small language learning books.

The full public launch will be on March 11th. Closing date for entries is 1st June, with the winner annopunced 1st July.

 

http://www.bsmall.co.uk/competition_results