showcase – ACHUKA Children's Books UK

PenguinRandomHouse 2018 Highlights

March 12, 2018 By achuka Leave a Comment

Travelling back from the PenguinRandomHouse 2018 Highlights presentation at the Soho Hotel, I can’t help remembering how excited I was after last year’s equivalent event when, amongst other things, the O’Hara sisters presented their debut picture book Hortense and the Shadow.

I didn’t get any such thrill this year. Nevertheless, there are lots of good things in store, from the old guard (Jacqueline Wilson, Allan Ahlberg, Michael Morpurgo) and from the new (notably a promising-sounding debut novel, Twelve Nights, by Andrew Zurcher, a leading academic.

The main presentation was delivered in the hotel’s mini theatre where, on arrival, despite the fact that it was an adult-only audience, we were treated to some children’s party entertainment from a grasshopper and centipede duo.

Francesca Dow presided over the occasion with her usual poise and grace. After she had welcomed everyone with a general look forward to the year ahead it was over to Tania Vian-Smith, the company’s excellent publicity director, to give us a taster of what was coming in the picture book world.

Nadia Shireen was the first guest author and gave a highly witty, relaxed pitch for her new book Billy and the Beast, which features her first human protagonist, “a better version of me”.

Michael Whaite, whose forthcoming title is 100 Dogs was next up and he gave everyone a short lesson in how to draw a happy dog’s face. I shall refrain from showing my own effort.

Allan Ahlberg is turning 80 this year, which is also the 40th anniversary of Each Peach Pear Plum. There will be a special anniversary edition of course, but there is a new book too, Baby On Board, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark. Although publishing in early May there were no early copies of this book available, a matter Ahlberg mentioned himself more than once. Looking no different now to how he looked twenty years ago, age does seem to have introduced a flurrying stammer to his speech, which he told us he is taking therapy to control (unless the whole thing was a contrivance, which I doubt). He used the matter to very humorous effect, from time to time deliberately slowing up the reading from his notes. Most charmingly he had brought several of the cuddly creatures that feature in his books with him. He had told them there’d be no children present, but they had insisted on accompanying him all the same.

He joked that the new book had two cover designs. The one on the jacket which the publisher had preferred, and the one on the book’s boards, which had been his preferred design. Looking forward to seeing his preferred design.

First author to come on stage in the Primary section was the aforementioned Andrew Zurcher, who was given a five minute interview with his editor. Did he model his book on the work of Philip Pullman or C. S. Lewis he was asked. No, Ursula Le Guin, whose work he admires for its ‘specificity’.

Next we heard from Jacqueline Wilson, much in the news over the weekend with the announcement that she is to publish a novel in which Tracy Beaker appears as an adult and a mother. Looking fitter than ever, and speaking with real enthusiasm for her new work, she spoke both about the Tracy beaker book and about Rose Rivers, a new addition to her sequence of historical novels.

Moving to YA, Savannah Brown appeared to read a poem and talk about her high-school thriller The Truth About Keeping Secrets. Strictly speaking that one’s a 2019 highlight as it isn’t out till February next year.

A little sooner than that (November this year) comes a book described as “a frank and fierce exploration of teen sexuality” Jack Of Hearts (And Other Parts) by American author L. C. Rosen.

Not so long to wait for Eve of Man, first title in a dystopian trilogy from husband and wife team Giovanna and Tom Fletcher. Tom is already well known in the children’s books world, while Giovanna, alongside blogging and presenting, has published four adult novels, Billy and Me (2013), You’re the One That I Want (2014) Dream a Little Dream (2015) and Always with Love (2016). Her most recent book is Happy Mum, Happy Baby: My Adventures in Motherhood (2017).

The premise of the trilogy – “Eve is the last girl on earth. Her fate is to save mankind from extinction” – sounds an ambitious one. We learnt that the couple composed the book by writing alternate chapters. Giovanna claimed that at one point Tom had objected to the direction one of her chapters had taken only to take the same tack later in one of his own. He quickly interjected that that particular section had been cut by their editor, so he had been right all along.

The big news was left till last. Michael Morpurgo is to novelise The Snowman, Raymond Briggs’ 40-year-old picture book. Not appearing in person but speaking on a video, Michael “I’m a story maker” Morpurgo said it had been an honour and a joy to re-imagine and tell the story anew. “I have loved doing it, as I hope to goodness you love reading it. It is different, but the same.”

And of course there are plenty of other titles, not the least being The Bandit Queen, a lead autumn title and second picture book from Natalia and Lauren O’Hara, with the splendid Hortense and the Shadow coming to paperback in the summer.

Penguin Random House Showcase

March 21, 2016 By achuka Leave a Comment

Alice Broderick, PR director for Penguin Random House children’s division, welcomed an assorted group of media guests to a showcase of forthcoming titles, and after a few short introductory words from the ever-elegant MD Francesca Dow, Lucy Mann kicked off with details of some picture books we can look forward to.

The publishing powerhouse puts on a slick presentation, which is just as you would expect from such a full, talented and experienced team, and in such a grand setting, on the 10th floor of their offices in the Strand.

I travelled up in the lift with a bearded and behatted guy (not sure where from) enthusiastically singing the praises of The Beano, to which his young son subscribes. “You should see him, when it arrives. He scurries off with it to his bedroom like a hamster tucking up in its nest.”

Just the reaction PenguinRH will be hoping to get from the new titles they are so excited about.

One of the picture books highlighted by Lucy Mann was Goodnight Spaceman by Michelle Robinson with a foreword by Tim Peake, publishing next month.

The first of the author-illustrators present at the event themselves was Nadia Shareen, creator of picture book The Bumblebear, publishing in May She gave us all a quick workshop in Bumblebear drawing. My effort:

Also coming in May is Alison Hubble by Allan Ahlberg. This one sounds really good. “Alison Hubble went to bed single, woke up double.” It’s a rhyming text, illustrated (first time for Puffin) by Bruce Ingman.

The following month comes Max and the Bird, a new book about Max the kitten by Ed Vere. This third Max title is a witty riff on friendship.

Also third in the Pom Pom Panda sequence is Pom Pom Is Super by Sophy Henn, a funny story about finding your talents – coming in August.

Much will be made of Beatrix Potter’s 150th anniversary and an important celebratory event will be the September publication of The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, already the subject of much media attention.

John Burningham is 80 this year and there’s a brand new Burningham picture book coming in September, Motor Miles.

Odd Bods, publishing mid-summer, by Steven Butler (Diary of Dennis the Menace renown) and illustrated by Jarvis, is described as a “raucous and charmingly-disgusting rhyming romp through the quirks and oddities of the strangest children you will ever come across”.

Penguin RandomH have chosen to call junior or middle-grade fiction ‘Primary’. I can understand the objections to both ‘junior’ and especially ‘middle-grade’, but ‘Primary’ carries too many connotations of school for my taste. Now that YA fiction is more and more being appreciated as a genre in its own right, I would prefer to describe the books for this age range (6-12) as children’s books, pure and simple.

So, one of the major excitements in books that aren’t picture books and aren’t YA titles will come next month, designated Wimpy Kid month, with lots of build-up surrounding Wimpy Kid #11 due to publish in November.

As well as a continuing programme of rejacketed paperback reissues, Jacqueline Wilson has not just one but two hardbacks out this year, including Rent A Bridesmaid in May, and the publisher will be helping to promote the newly launched Jacqueline Wilson creative writing prize.

It’s a Roald Dahl centenary year and everyone is very excited by the prospect of Spielberg’s movie adaptation of The BFG coming in the summer. We were shown the trailer. And there will of course be a movie tie-in edition.

Rick Riordan continues his Magnus Chase series with Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor, publishing in hardback in August.

The big Christmas title this year is set to be The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher, publishing in October. The promotional video – first shown at the publisher’s February sales conference and since viewed upwards of a million times online online, was very well-received by the showcase audience. Not surprising really. It’s witty, has a catchy ukulele song and great pace and movement. If only all books could have such a launching. The book-trailers most authors have to settle for consist of a generic slideshow, in-your-face crass-typography captions, a faux-cinematic voice-over, and very little imagination in terms of production.

Coming before that is Clare Balding’s children’s books debut, The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop. Most authors have a reflex response of resenting the incursion of celebrities into the publishing world. You can see their point. But this title has an interesting hook. Balding thinks “the world is waiting for a heroine with big thighs”. In a short but polished summary of what we can expect in the book she hinted that a lot of the background arises from her own experience. I’m looking forward to it. Sadly I was too slow off the mark and all the advance copies were gone when I went to get one. Everyone involved with publishing, promoting and selling the book will hope it flies off the shelves and display tables just as quickly come the autumn. It publishes at the end of September.

Out this week comes another title in the Murder Most Unladylike Mystery series. Jolly Foul Play concerns some not-so-jolly fall-outs between the girls at Deepdean. Robin Stevens drew on her own memories of intense adolescent school friendships when writing the title.

Notable on the reissues front is The Originals – really stylish rejacketing for fifteen outstanding 20th centuryYA novels. I particularly like the look of the cover for S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.

On the Teen/YA front Sally Green’s Half Bad trilogy reaches its conclusion at the end of this month with Half Lost. And then, in April, we get an intriguing new title from Malorie Blackman, who declared that she wears her “geek colours with a great deal of pride” so is unapologetic for the new direction. Describing it herself as Shakespeare in Space, Blackman has attempted a reimagining of Othello in a ski-fi setting.

Looking forward to Zoe Sugg’s summer title Girl Online: On Tour, Tania Vian-Smith was forthright in saying “It’s our business to stay on the pulse of what teenagers are interested in and talking about.” Quite right too.

The YA title I’m probably most looking forward to reading myself is Laurence Anhalt’s teen fiction debut, The Hypnotist. It’s an intriguing scenario: The lives of a professor of neurology and a 13 year-old Afro-American farmhand become linked during the racial tension of the 1960s in the American South.

Anholt wasn’t there himself to tell us more about his book, but DJ Simon Mayo was.

Mayo has written a futuristic YA thriller about a time when people are arrested and imprisoned for crimes their parents have committed. Mayo apparently based his descriptions of the new type of prison on the Victorian workhouse. It’s out in July.

Apart from a few too many references to “the next Hunger Games”, “the YA Girl On The Train” and the like – publishers and authors alike would do well to keep quiet about any successes they are hoping to emulate – it’s an impressive mixed publishing programme and ACHUKA will look forward to reviewing and reporting on the various titles in due course.

Penguin RandomHouse Media Showcase

March 25, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

There was a welcome focus on authors at the first joint media presentation by the new children’s books conglomerate, Penguin/RandomHouse, held yesterday in Foyles’ special events place on the 6th floor.
The slick presentation, intercut with video clips, was presented by various members of the team from ‘pre-school’, through ‘primary’ to ‘teen’, with a range of invited authors coming forward to deliver short, well-judged presentations on their forthcoming titles.
The theme, introduced by the always-impressive Francesca Dow*, was heroes. “Our heroes never die,” she said, speaking of the characters we grow up with from our reading of books, and suggesting that the core business of children’s publishing is the creation of new heroes for today’s children to grow up with.
The handle for the pre-school presentation was “Little Heroes With Big Stories To Tell”. There was a momentary atmosphere of embarrassment in the room when someone from the floor pointed out that Ed Vere’s picture book character Max is a kitten and not (as had been incorrectly described) a mouse, but it was B. J. Novak who was the star of this section of the event, telling us about the inspiration behind his pictureless picture book.
The star author-presence of the ‘primary’ age group was Jacqueline Wilson who talked about her forthcoming novel, Katy, a reworking of Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did. The book is due in August. As soon as ACHUKA receives a review copy we will undertake a joint reading of both the American novel (which we haven’t previously read) and Jacqueline Wilson’s new book which sounds as if it will be a strong, moving and authentic read.
Amanda Punter, telling us about the ‘teen’ publishing programme introduced two American authors, Jennifer Niven, who has written adult and non-fiction titles previously but whose debut YA novel All The Bright Places is out now – she is also a prolific and recommended tumblr blogger – and David Levithan (subject of an ACHUKA Q&A feature some long time ago), who both came on stage for a short three-way chat with editor Ben Horslen. Both authors seemed relaxed and easy in the public eye. Jennifer Niven told us she has three cats and that she arranges her writing desk according to whether she is joined by all three, or just two or even one – which led to banter about habit a three-cat writing day, or a two-cat writing day etc. David Levithan made the whole room laugh when he told us that when he had been a young adult he was reading Anne Tyler and Alice Hoffman so had, in effect, been a middle-aged married woman, rather than a teenager, and that it is only now, in mid-life that he is reading so-called teenage fiction. Leviathan’s new book is Hold Me Closer, a sequel to Will Grayson, Will Grayson co-written with John Green.

The group is obviously highly excited to be publishing Sophie Kinsella’s first YA title Finding Audrey, due in the summer, and the author was there to round off the media event.

Francesca Dow’s TOP 5 Tips on How To Get Into Publishing

Penguin Children’s Showcase

January 21, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

I attended a lunchtime Penguin Showcase yesterday. There are many good things coming, and several anniversaries to celebrate. The presentation made me wonder about certain things, so here’s a quick summary. Words only I’m afraid. Something about the event made me uneasy about getting out the camera.

Francesca Dow made passing reference to her new role at the helm of an amalgamated Penguin/Random House children’s book publishing conglomerate but moved on quickly, saying there would be another occasion to say more about that. In setting the scene, she emphasised the ongoing role that ‘stories’ have in generating the new world of apps and franchises.

A number of authors and illustrators had been invited to choose the book that had made ‘all the difference’ to them when they were growing up. Julia Donaldson kicked off (on screen, not in person) with The Book of a Thousand Poems, given to her, if I remember correctly, by her dad.

Peppa Pig is 10 years old and has sold 22 million pounds worth of titles. The Hungry Caterpillar is 45 years old. We were shown a video clip of Eric Carle explaining that the caterpillar began life as a worm, and his first draft of the picture book was titled A Week With Willi Worm. He still has the original drawings.

Jacqueline Wilson had selected Ballet Shoes as the book that made all the difference for her.

The big anniversary and celebration this year is the 50th anniversary of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Everything is scheduled to kick off officially on 1st February, the date on which Willy Wonka opened the factory gates. But before that, on Jan 30th, various Dahl audiobooks will become available as an iTunes app. [I will try and get more information about this, as it was only touched on yesterday.] And then in September journalist Lucy Mangan publishes a book aimed at adults on The Making of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for which she has been given access to the Dahl archive.

Eoin Colfer is launching a major new series in April called WARP, described as ‘Oliver Twist meets The Matrix’, which sounds enticing. [Book Two follows on closely in June.]

There are big things happening merchandise-wise with Topsy & Tim. The creator Jean Adamson surprised Puffin with her choice of book that made the difference. She selected Aesop’s fables, explaining that their smug moral endings prompted her to “rewrite them with immoral endings”, and thus began her career as a writer.

The new Peter Rabbit merchandise looked horrible to me so let’s pass over that without further comment.

An iOS game based on Charlie Higson’s The Enemy will be released in March, developed by Daredevil http://www.daredevil-development.com/games.php

We have to wait till September for the second novel in Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave series.

In the same month there will be a new book from Lauren Child, who was there to tell us all about it. Called A New Small Person it is about sibling rivalry (notably resentment at the arrival of a new brother or sister). It was interesting, and a surprise to me, that all her picture books start out as a storyline written in plain text. She held up the first draft manuscript of this new book.

The star entertainer of the Showcase was Irish comedian, David O’Doherty, a truly very funny man who, with illustrator and silent double-act stooge, Chris Judge, has written a joke manual, Danger Is Everywhwere: The Notebooks of Docter [sic] Noel Zone, Dangerologist, which is published in August.

O’Doherty’s book that ‘made all the difference’ was the Panini Football Sticker Album 1984.

There are other good things to look forward to. Arguably the biggest YA debut of 2014 in March, when Half Bad by Sally Green is finally out. Read my ACHUKAreview.

Before that, in February, comes book two in Michelle Paver’s Gods and Warriors sequence, (and then Book Three in August). The same month, February, sees the release of The Chocolate Box Girls by Cathy Cassidy, Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead and a World Book Day title from Jill Murphy, Fun With The Worst Witch.

Kicking A Ball is a new rhyming picture book by Allan Ahlberg. It’s out in May, as is the new novel from Phil Earle, The Bubble Wrap Boy and a movie tie-in edition of The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

Cathy Cassidy fans will be happy in both February and June, when new installments of The Chocolate Box Girls are published.

Where Bear by Sophy Henn is a picture book I’ll look out for in August.

In drawing the showcase to a close, Francesca Dow promised that Penguin/Puffin would “never lose sight of our consumers”. It was a carefully-chosen phrase, and very apt for the presentation, which emphasised throughout the popular appeal and entertainment value of Penguin’s book and merchandising programme.

In the scheme of things there seem to be fewer middlingly popular authors alongside the mega-sellers than there were in the past. I wonder how, for example, an author such as Kevin Brooks, whose The Bunker Diary has just won the Southern Schools Book Award, fits into the scheme of things. His books feel to me to be under-promoted. Even Foyles only had two separate titles by him on their YA shelves when I visited later that afternoon.

Also, for a publisher who is so justifiably proud of its Dahl legacy, (with the exception of Jeremy Strong – although no doubt someone will be able to give me other examples to counter this point) Puffin seems to publish remarkably little home-grown comic fiction for the 7-10 audience of the kind written by Philip Ardagh, for example.

Discuss 🙂