Anabel's Children's Literature Blog

Big Book Babble

2012-01-25T18:47:00.001Z

Yesterday saw the launch by Red House and Scholastic of a new book show, Big Book Babble, hosted by children’s comedian James Campbell. The first episode featured Andy Stanton (of Mr Gum fame)and Liz Pichon (Tom Gates author and illustrator). It is aimed at children aged7-11 - and in case you missed it, is available to watch on-demandhere. The show will be streamedlive to schools regularly throughout term time and the next author to be featured (7th February) is Jacqueline Wilson. We have books by all of them in stock.

Celebrating Burns

2012-01-24T14:44:00.000Z

It's Burns Night tomorrow! We still have resources available for you to borrow and I've done a brief document with external links. Some good ones are from:

Education Scotland
Scholastic
TES

Liz Lochhead photo by Norman McBeath

Carry on the celebrations till Thursday 26th with Scottish Book Trust. The latest in their Authors Live series is Celebrate Burns with Liz Lochhead. Liz is the Scottish Makar (like a Poet Laureate) and will be celebrating Burns' poetry and reading some of her own work. Follow the link to find out how to listen live at 11am or to download or stream the broadcast next week. Children from P6-S4 (9-16 years), or any lover of Burns' poetry, should enjoy it. There are resources about both Burns and Lochhead on the same link.

Spread the joy of reading (and win prizes?)

2012-01-16T14:23:00.000Z

Spread the joy of reading in your school - and maybe win prizes! Michael Rosen has teamed up with the Siobhan Dowd Trust in a campaign to build a database of good ideas for buliding a book loving school. The 10 schools who make the best suggestions will win £1000 worth of books.

Michael Rosen needs no introduction; he is a former Children's Laureate and we have large numbers of his books in the Library. Siobhan Dowd is also an author, but she had much less time to write - she died of cancer in 2007 aged just 47. One of her last acts was to set up this trust with the simple aim of bringing the joy of reading to those who need it most: children and young people who are disadvantaged and deprived of access to books. For this reason, one of the things you are asked when entering the competition is the percentage of children in your school who are eligible for free school meals. (Fee-paying schools are not eligible for a prize, though good ideas for encouraging reading are still welcome. Schools in more prosperous areas are eligible for entryif their initiative is very strong, but the Trust exists to favour readers froma disadvantaged background.)

We have three of Siobhan's books and are about to add to stock A monster calls by Patrick Ness, written from an idea she left behind and did not have time to do anything with. This is a great initiative and even if you don't win you could get some good ideas from the other entries to use in your school.

Julia Donaldson to visit Jordanhill

2012-01-12T14:31:00.001Z

First of all, a Happy New Year and an apology for the lack of posts in 2012 so far. Those of you who have seen the state of the Library after the storms will understand the amount of time that has been spent running around with buckets chasing leaks!

I see from Twitter that Julia Donaldson is visiting the campus to talk to students next Wednesday. That's really exciting news, so I thought I'd put together a few links in advance. First of all, I have written about her several times before in these blogposts and, as you might expect, the Library has a large selection of her books, listed here. Julia has her own website, as does her most famous character, the Gruffalo. She's also the Children's Laureate for 2011-13 and is a keen supporter of libraries, having spoken out against the type of cuts which are happening in many (mostly English) local authorities. (Read her views on her Children's Laureate blog).

When Julia became Laureate, a vote was taken to see which of her books were readers' favourites, and the results were 1. The Gruffalo. 2. Room on the Broom and 3. Stick Man, shown below.

I'm sure the visit will be really successful.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-22T16:34:00.000Z

Jordanhill Library closes at 5pm on 23rd December. The University officially opens again on 5th January, but we have 3 open days in between: Thursday-Friday 29th and 30th December and Wednesday 4th January. See our opening hours page for full details.

I'm leaving you with these festive images courtesy of Bridgeman Education:

Many thanks to Bridgeman - very suitable for a children's literature blog. A Happy Christmas to one and all.

Behind the Bookshelf

2011-12-20T11:30:00.000Z

Behind the Bookshelf is a great new initiative from Books for Keeps which offers a way of bring an author into your classroom virtually. It's not free - it's £99 for a year if you join before 15/1/12, but for that you get unlimited access to over 150 inspirational video clips, with your own account, plus teachers notes, creative writing courses, and lots of hints and tips. However, Books for Keeps has a competition to win three free subscriptions.

Of course, for completely free author material, look no further than Scottish Book Trust, especially their Meet our Authors and Teaching Resources sections.

Bali Rai

2011-11-29T12:17:00.001Z

Bali Rai is an author of teenage novels, largely inspired by his working class Punjabi / Sikh background (in Leicester) but accessible to everyone. He recently finished a stint as Writer in Residence at MyVoice, a creative reading and writing programme for young people run by The Reading Agency, and is now Online Writer in Residence at Booktrust*. Read his last post for MyVoice and his first for Booktrust and you will find a passionate advocate for young people and the roles of reading and literacy (and libraries) in helping them develop their full potential. We have some of his books in stock here.

In The Crew, meet tough and street-smart Ellie, Jas, Della, Will and Billy. They're the Crew, and they live in what they call the Ghetto - the city centre estates where everyone is skint and it's important to stick together. One day they find a fortune in notes and life suddenly becomes very dangerous.

In Dream on Baljit is mad about football and dreams of playing for Liverpool, much to the disapproval of his parents, so when he is invited to trials at Leicester City, he has to lie about his whereabouts.

(Un)arranged marriage, set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, is a perceptive and up-to-date glimpse into a young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and an arranged marriage that he rejects.

*PS talking of Booktrust, it has a recently revamped website which is worth looking at, especially the children's books and books for teens sites.

Scorsese films Hugo

2011-11-29T10:26:00.001Z

There was a glitzy premiere this week for Martin Scorsese's new film, his first in 3D, Hugo - But did you know it was based on a book we have in the library? The invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznic (Scholastic, 2007) is a beautiful book for the 9+ age group - it might look dauntingly thick, but much of it is taken up with black and white illustrations, so its already quite filmic in quality. It tells the story of Hugo, an orphan and a thief, who lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station. He desperately believes a broken automation will make his dreams come true, but when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy.

The movie has its own website where you can watch the trailer, and you can borrow the book from us - find it at J 808.3 SEL.

Bookbug - a Julia Donaldson book for every P1 child

2011-11-23T12:32:00.000Z

Julia Donaldson and Dillon Ryan (5) from Lochsideprimary School in Angus, celebrate the gifting of Julia’s award-winning book, Whatthe Ladybird Heard, to every P1 child in Scotland, through Scottish BookTrust’s Bookbug programme. It was also announced at the event that Julia hasagreed to become patron of the Bookbug book gifting programme.

Scottish Book Trust has announced that it will gift a free book to everyP1 child in Scotland this November as part of its Bookbug programme, an early year’s initiative that aims to give every child in Scotlanda lifelong love of books. 60,000 copies of What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson,winner of the 2010 Scottish Children's Book Awards, have been distributed toclassrooms around the country.

Children entering P1 shouldalready have received three free packs of books from Bookbug at 6 weeks, 18months, and three years, and so should be familiar with the programme, formerlyknown as Bookstart. Primary One is the final intervention point.

Scottish Book Trust has also announced thatmulti-award winning author and Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson, has agreedto be patron of the Bookbug programme. Donaldson, who was born in London but now lives inGlasgow, is most famous for her best-selling picture book, The Gruffalo,which was made into an Oscar-nominated animated film last year. To date she haswritten 160 books.

More information:

BookbugSessions take place at local libraries or community groups. These are free,fun-filled story and rhyme sessions for 0-4-year-olds.

Teacher resources to support the gifting of Whatthe Ladybird Heard, including posters, games and fun ideas based on themesin the book, are available to download from Scottish Book Trust’s website.

A video of Julia reading What the Ladybird Heard isalso available.

Murderous Maths with Kjartan Poskitt

2011-11-23T11:56:00.001Z

Scottish Book Trust is having another of its "Authors Live" online events next Thursday (1st December, 11-1140am). This time it features Kjartan Poskitt, a mathematician like no other, who will entertain pupils with maths tricks, crack them up with jokes about mathematical formulae and engage them with complex algebra. The event is suitable for children aged 8-14 and if you register your class to watch before Thursday you could win a set of Kjartan's Murderous Maths books - but if you don't win them, check the list of his books that we have here in Jordanhill Library. If you miss the live event you can watch ordownload the video afterwards using the same link as above.

Kjartan is a freelance everything. Since getting his engineering degreehe has worked on Saturday morning TV (including BBC's Swap Shop!), presentedscience and maths programmes, warmed up thousands of studio audiences, touredhis one man show, played a lot of pub pianos very loudly and has been WidowTwankey. In recent months he has been touring the country demonstratingmathematical tricks and oddities from his books. These have been translated in up to 20 languages and include the Murderous Maths series, The Gobsmacking Galaxy, Isaac Newton and his Apple, the Warp Maze withcartoonist Stephen Appleby, four books in his notorious Killer Puzzlesseries, handbooks on practical jokes and secret codes, six support books for theBBC Schools series Megamaths and a GCSE maths guide. He has also written songs and scripts and worked as a games consultantfor a wide range of children's TV shows.

Thisnationwide event is part of the Meet our Authors programme, runby Scottish Book Trust and sponsored by Scottish Friendly Assurance. There is also a Meet our Authors Facebook page where you will find background information, interviews, video clips and weblinks all about theprogramme, plus a great competition for each of the events which youcan enter (Facebook account needed).

Christmas is coming....

2011-11-21T15:30:00.001Z

It is, I'm afraid - we are already stamping January as a due date in library books, and classes in school will already be learning about Christmas. There's a small display upstairs of children's books and media items - to find more, just search for Christmas in SUPrimo (probably best to use "Advanced Search" and "keywords anywhere").

Some other resources that I have come across that might help are:

Richard and Judy’s Children's Christmas Book Club 2011 (via Booktrust).

Christmas resources for primary schools - activities linked to Christmas around the world, from webanywhere.

3 links for creating a festive classroom - also from webanywhere.

TES teaching resources.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

The Hunger Games Companion and film

2011-11-18T12:30:00.001Z

I've blogged before about Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, the first of which will be out on film soon. If you want to watch the trailer, there's a link here. I've also just added to stock The Hunger Games companion by Lois H Gresh, which I was lucky enough to win in a draw from the publishers, Macmillan Children's Books. Thanks very much to them. It contains an author profile and insights into the series' main themes, such as the nature of evil and the justification, or otherwise, of rebellion and war.

The novels are at J 808.3 COL and the Companion at J 808.309 GRE (although it'll be going out on the new books' display this weekend).

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

2011-11-11T15:27:00.001Z

Hot on the heels of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize comes the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, which yesterday went to Andy Mulligan for Return to Ribblestrop. According to this Guardian article, it's "a teacher's vision of life at the most inappropriate boarding school he could imagine – think tots of rum to keep the pupils warm, regular circus training and panthers giving birth." Another article explains why Mulligan thinks boarding schools are the perfect setting for a yarn.

We have all three of the Andy Mulligan books below in the library - they sound like rollicking reads.

Roald Dahl Funny Prize (and Catalyst and Galaxy awards!)

2011-11-08T14:11:00.000Z

The winners of the Roald Dahl Funny Prizes are announced today. I don't know what they are yet, but while I'm waiting I can tell you about two more recent awards:

The Catalyst Award is chosen by teenagers in North Lanarkshire and this year's winner is Alex Scarrow for his book, TimeRiders:

"Liam O'Connor should have died at sea in 1912. Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2029. Yet moments before death, someone mysteriously appeared and said, 'take my hand'. Liam, Maddy and Sal have been recruited by the TimeRiders, to stop time travel from destroying the world." 9+

The Galaxy National Book Awards were announced on November 4th and the Children's Book of the Year is A monster calls by Patrick Ness. It could also win the overall title of Book of the Year if you vote for it here. The book is a special one, because it was completed by Patrick from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself.

"The monster showed up just after midnight. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild." 12+

And while I was writing this, the Roald Dahl announcement has been made:

"A rhyming picture book about pirate cats has seized the bounty for the funniest book for children aged six and under in this year’s Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Cats ahoy! is written by Peter Bently (who was also shortlisted in 2009 for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize), and illustrated by Jim Field. It is joined on the podium by The brilliant world of Tom Gates, the winner of the seven to fourteen category, and the first in a series of books about Tom, an expert doodler and master of excuses, written and illustrated by Liz Pichon."

All the books sound great - and on Thursday we have the Guardian prize to look forward to as well!

November is Picture Book Month

2011-11-01T10:14:00.001Z

Celebrate picture books throughout November - check out the details on the Picture Book Month site. We have loads of good picture books upstairs in the children's section - shelved at J 808.33 - as well as giant picture books and a small selection of dual language picture books. To see the latest additons to stock use our LibraryThing page and look for those titles tagged Picture Book. Finally, did you know you could search SUPrimo, the library catalogue, for picture books by theme? We add a subject tag to all children's fiction so that you can use it to support projects in school. For example, here's a list of picture books on Christmas. If you aren't sure how to do this for other subjects, come and ask in the library - I'll be glad to help.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T10:01:00.004Z

It's probably a bit late if you haven't got your resources yet, but here's a list of some of the Halloween items in our catalogue and our display is still upstairs with some nice witchy badges to take away. Here's also a roundup of other recommendations that I've noticed on various blogs over the last few days:

Nosy Crow

Reading Groups for Everyone

Lynne Rickards (fabulous pictures of spooky food on this one!)

Library Mice

Fantastic Reads

Scholastic

TES

Teachmeet Strathclyde

2011-10-27T20:44:00.000+01:00


Jordanhill Library Stand

I was really pleased to be asked to have a Library stand at the recent Strathclyde Teachmeet, and what a great night it was, brilliantly organised by the officers of CPD Strathclyde, all B.Ed students. The thing that garnered most interest on the stand was Children's Literature Update (the orange A4 booklet you can see on the right hand table above.) This is an index to articles and web links about books and authors for children and teenagers which I produce four times a year. You can pick up a copy on the display table upstairs by the children's books, or give me your email address to receive it electronically. I also tweet it, which means you can access it via Hootsuite.

As well as staffing the stand, I attended the talks - a mixture of 2 minute and 7 minute presentations. I thoroughly enjoyed them all. It was great to see the sorts of activities that go on when students are on placement - Rea Chisholm's collaborative group work on environments was a highlight, especially the pictures of the giant model of a shark. A couple of talks were based around digital literacy - Ollie Bray on Wikipedia and Andrew James on rights-cleared resources on the web. This is obviously a topic that teachers and librarians have in common, and I felt I learnt something from each of them. There's also a thriving group of librarians on Twitter and we use it in much the same way as Morven Skinnider described for "tweachers", to communicate and share information. I think a lot of students signed up to Twitter after her talk and I'd be pleased to welcome any of them as followers of @JordanhillLib (you can see our Twitter feed down the right hand side of the blog to get an idea of what we tweet about). Those were just a few of the talks - I enjoyed all the rest too, but just wanted to give a brief flavour.

Of course, I can't finish without mentioning the awesome cup cake display. I didn't get to try one because I left before the question and answer session at the end, and we were strongly discouraged from spoiling the pattern before that! And guess what? Libraians like cake too, another thing we have in common.

Teachmeet cupcakes

Reading with kids - the verdict

2011-10-25T16:32:00.000+01:00

The supplements promised below by the Guardian and Observer have now been perused on your behalf. Although probably written more with parents in mind, there is still some good stuff in them for the classroom.

"Kindling a lifelong love of books" is the aim. Part 1 covers ages 0-7. None of it should be surprising to any self-respecting education student, but there are, amongst other things, useful book recommendations (most of which we have I'm pleased to say), an article by Julia Donaldson on how picture books can teach youngsters to understand themselves and a section on book games, including making your own wordsearches.

Part 2 covers children's books for 8+. The format is similar with brief book reviews (again, no surprises, I knew most of them) and articles - the most interesting consider books making the leap to films, apps, websites and electronic devices, all of which could play a role in encouraging reluctant readers.

In conclusion then, if you know a lot about children's books already you aren't going to learn much here, but if you want a good, basic introduction these supplements are worth a look. You can read the content online by following the link above, or if you prefer to look at the paper copies I have put them in our Cuttings File - ask at the Lending Services Desk for numbers 1227 for ages 0-7 and 1228 for 8+.

Reading with kids

2011-10-21T10:26:00.000+01:00

The Guardian and Observer are publishing a two part guide to reading with kids this weekend. It sounds useful, they say:

For more expert opinion, useful tips, and the very best in children's reading from picturebooks to pacy teenage fiction, discover our two-part guide to Reading with Kids, free in the Guardian and Observer 22-23 October 2011

I think I'll buy it myself (and I'm usually now a read-the-papers-online kinda gal) to see if I've missed any good titles we should have in the Library. Also, because the advertising video is great - some very cute kids telling us why they love books and reading, and that can only be a good thing. (Video is copyright of the Guardian and for your own personal use only.)

Commercial over!

Jacqueline Wilson Festival

2011-10-17T12:40:00.000+01:00

There's a Jacqueline Wilson Festival tomorrow (Tuesday 18th) and Wednesday 19th October 2011. It’s taking place in Preston, Lancashire, organised by Askews & Holts Library Services and the University of Central Lancashire, and runs from 4pm to 6.30pm. However, you can attend online. Log in on the day, type your name into the ‘guest’ box and select ‘enter room’ to join in.

There's also a Jacqueline Wilson exhibition on at Seven Stories in Newcastle right now. If you can't make it down to Newcastle, you can see some information about it on the Seven Stories site and read a couple of first-hand accounts of the opening from Bookwitch and Lynne Rickards. There's also more on Achockablog and the BBC.

The usual plug for our own services - you can borrow all Jacqueline's books, and books about her, from us: full list here. They're a good read.

Our competition winner

2011-10-06T12:18:00.001+01:00


Mhairi Bell and Anabel Marsh

Last month, we ran a competition to promote Scottish Book Trust's online event with David Almond. The prize was one of David's books, Clay, and the picture shows me presenting it to our winner, PGDE Primary student Mhairi Bell. Mhairi was delighted to win and, although she had not read any of David's books before, was looking forward to reading this one and using it with the children in her class when she goes on placement.

This was our first experiment with a competition like this, so now that it has been successful we might try it again - watch this space! We are indebted to Scottish Book Trust for providing the prize this time and, if you would like to catch up with the David Almond event, you can watch it on their website now.

I'm also indebted to my colleague, Lynne Marshall, for taking the photograph.

Class writes its own book!

2011-10-04T10:03:00.001+01:00

Picture book author Lynne Rickards had an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, and afterwards she signed a copy of her book I do not eat the colour green for the P2 class at Broughton Primary. When they got back to school, the class decided to write their own book called I only eat the colour green and then they sent it to Lynne who has scanned it and put it on her blog. It's an absolutely fabulous example of a class writing project which any student of primary teaching should certainly take a look at.

We have several of Lynne's books and storysacks in our catalogue - I do not eat the colour green is available as part of The green bag.

Scottish Book Trust Young Writer's Conference 2011

2011-09-28T15:01:00.000+01:00

Budding writers from across Scotland are being offereda rare opportunity to access the expertise and knowledge of published writersand experts from within the industry.

Scottish Book Trust’s second annual Young WritersConference will take place on 12^th November and is open toall young people based in Scotland, aged between 14 and 17. Attendees will receive advice from some of the most exciting names inwriting, including best-selling Skellig author David Almond, playwright Douglas Maxwell, teen author Gillian Philip, poet Elspeth Murray and literary agent Lindsey Fraser. If you know anyone who would like to take part, click on the link above for details and a booking form.

Books mean prizes

2011-09-23T16:07:00.000+01:00

There are only a few days left to enter our own competition to win a book by David Almond (closing date Wednesday 28th). Here are some other competitons that your classes might be interested in:

Teen writing competition (S3-S4) on a theme of "freedom of expression".

Create a new cover for Lord of the Flies for 13-16 year olds, via The Guardian.

Anthologise: a national poetry anthology competition for secondary schools.

National Literacy Trust competition, The Comix Factor. This has sections for primary and secondary.

And did I mention our own competition? I did? Well, I'll mention it again anyway - win a book by David Almond, full details here.

Halloween!

2011-09-20T11:33:00.000+01:00

Apologies - I know it's not even the end of September yet, but if you are going to teach about Halloween you should be looking out your resources now. Here's a list of material from our catalogue - it includes both factual books about Halloween and children's stories and picture books with a suitable theme, plus a few Media items. We've also put up a small display on the corner of the gallery between the Children's and Media collection, so please check it out.

Competition! Win a book by David Almond

2011-09-15T15:08:00.000+01:00


David Almond

Staff at Scottish Book Trust have very kindly supplied us with a copy of Clay by David Almond as a prize in a competition we are running to promote their Meet our Authors event on 29th September. For more information, scroll to the bottom of this post, but first some information about David Almond and the event.

David Almond is the best-selling author of the award winning novel Skellig and many other titles (see the list in our catalogue). He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1951 and grew up in the small mining town of Felling. After graduating he worked as a teacher for 5 years before stopping to concentrate on his writing. Skellig was published to immediate acclaim in 1998 and won both the Carnegie Medal (1998) and the Whitbread Children's Book Award (1998). In 2007, it was shortlisted for the Carnegie of Carnegies. His subsequent novels have gone on to win numerous awards including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Silver Award) for Kit's Wilderness and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and Whitbread Children's Book Award for Fire-Eaters. He was the recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010.

On Thursday 29 September 2011 at 11am David will bring literature to life for children all across the country when he appears in a live internet broadcast. The event, and the Meet our Authors programme, is run by Scottish Book Trust and sponsored by Scottish Friendly Assurance. The programme is the first of its kind in the UK and anyone can watch here. (All the events in the series are also available to watch again later on the SBT website.) David will give tips on unlocking the potential of our imaginations on paper, including how his playful and messy approach to capturing great ideas has sustained his creative output during the writing of his 14 published books. He will talk about the writing process behind his latest books The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean and The Savage. These stories are suitable for young people aged 10+ and have a readership ranging from teens to adults, they capture powerful emotional themes and are accessible to a broad range of readers.

David Almond will be the 9th children’s author to take part in the Meet our Authors project which began in 2010. To date more than 380,000 children across the UK have taken part in the webcasts. The live events are funded by the National Lottery through the Creative Scotland Inspiring Communities Fund.

To enter our competition (Strathclyde University Library members only – Library staff not eligible) just answer the following simple question:

In 2010, David Almond published a prequel to Skellig which centred on the character of Mina. What was the book? (Hint: look up our catalogue.)

To make things a little trickier, your answer must be presented as a bibliographic reference in APA format. See our handout and webpage on APA rules. There are competition forms in the Library, drop them off in the box at the Lending Services Desk, or send your answer to jordanhill.library@strath.ac.uk, quoting your library barcode number.

The closing date is 28th September and the winner will be picked at random from the corrrect entries and notified on the 29th. Good luck everyone!

Happy Roald Dahl Day

2011-09-13T10:30:00.000+01:00

Today is Roald Dahl Day, celebrated every year on his birthday, so I've brought together a few sites for you to look at. The Guardian recently ran a poll to find the favourite Roald Dahl character, who turns out to be Charlie Bucket. Read the article and leave your own comments if you wish. The Roald Dahl Funny Prize shortlist has recently been announced and Glasgow Libraries have events going on until the 16th. The BBC also published an article on Roald Dahl yesterday - Roald Dahl and the darkness within. This seems to have caused a bit of controversy so you might want to add your comments to that too! Finally, and as always, if you want to read the books for yourself, come to the Library - there are loads of Dahls in our catalogue.

Guest review: White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

2011-09-09T16:29:00.000+01:00

This is a guest post by my colleague, Carol Cisman:

SEDGWICK, Marcus. (2010).White Crow. London: Orion Children's Books.

This is an eerie andchilling tale exploring themes of good against evil and trust withinrelationships whilst also asking the question : is there life after death? The story begins withthe main character, Rebecca, arriving in the sleepy village of Winterfoldfollowing a scandal in her father's career which has forced them to seektemporary refuge there. She soon befriends astrange girl, Ferelith, who is both mysterious and intriguing with much to hideand, although they form a friendship of sorts, Rebecca doesn't fully trust herdomineering nature and intentions. It isn't long before Rebecca finds herselfin a terrifying situation with everything to lose. There are flashbacks inthe story to the 18th Century with dialogue from the Rector of Winterfolddescribing terrible, dark deeds which took place there - the conclusion ofwhich is made apparent at the twisting climax of the present day tale involvingRebecca and Ferelith. Although this is ahorror story full of foreboding - I found it utterly thrilling and couldn't putit down! The author succeeds in creating atmosphere and drama which I believeolder teenagers will find totally captivating.

If you would like to read this, or other books by Marcus Sedgwick, you will find a selection of his work in our catalogue.

Scottish Children's Book Awards 2011

2011-09-07T12:15:00.000+01:00

The shortlist for these awards was announced yesterday by Scottish Book Trust (follow the link for more details - there are various activities connected with the awards that children can join in with). The short-listed books are listed below - we have them all except Zac and the dream pirates which I've now ordered, so get reading! The winner will be announced in February 2012.

Bookbug Readers (0-7 years)

- DEAR VAMPA by Ross Collins (Hodder)

- THE LOON ON THE MOON by Chae Strathie and EmilyGolden (Scholastic)

- APPLE PIE ABC by Alison Murray (Orchard)

Younger Readers (8-11 years)

- ZAC AND THE DREAM PIRATES by Ross MacKenzie(Chicken House)

- THERE’S A HAMSTER IN MY POCKET! by Franzeska GEwart (Frances Lincoln)

- THE CASE OF THE LONDON DRAGONFISH by Joan Lennon(Catnip)

Older Readers (12-16 years)

- WASTED by Nicola Morgan (Walker)

- THE BLACKHOPE ENIGMA by Teresa Flavin (Templar)

- THE PRISONER OF THE INQUISITION by TheresaBreslin (Corgi – RHCB)

Harry Potter and the 247 competition

2011-09-02T12:36:00.001+01:00

Last month, I wrote about the Guardian's 247 competition and back in June about the vote to find the favourite Harry Potter character. The results of both were announced this week. The 247 competition challenged young writers to produce a story called The Guardian in exactly 247 words. The judges included Neil Gaiman, and you can read the winning entry and runners-up here, as well as linking back to the original story with which Neil launched the competition. The favourite Harry Potter character, as announced by Bloomsbury Books here, turned out to be Severus Snape. Is that who you would have chosen? Bloomsbury lists the entire top 40 and Harry himself was only 4th. The results have also been picked up by ITN and the Guardian, which has an interesting discussion at the end of its article with young readers writing in to agree or disagree with the choice.

We have all the Harry Potter books and films in our catalogue and a good selection of work by Neil Gaiman. For similar stories, if you've exhausted those, see our booklist on Magical and Fantasy Series for new ideas.

Children's Literature in Jordanhill Library

2011-08-29T01:30:00.000+01:00

Welcome to our new PGDE students who start this week. I hope this blog will be useful to those of you studying Primary Education or Secondary English. We have a good collection of picture books, children's and teenage novels and poetry which you can find on the library gallery. You'll also find there a collection of leaflets and booklists (e.g. Books for Boys, Recent Children's Book Awards, Teenage Poetry) - these can be downloaded too from our Children's Literature Webpages. Other pages on the site include Poetry, Children's Literature in Scotland and Reluctant Readers.

Find out which new books have been added to stock by checking out LibraryThing and find their locations through our catalogue search service, SUPrimo - NB, to help you find fiction on particular topics we have added themes to the catalogue records, so that if you search for a subject such as "bullies" and use the limits on the left hand side to restrict your results to Children's books you will find suitable fiction and poetry as well as non-fiction.

Also on our webpages is a list of children's literature internet sites. These are many and varied, for example (a random selection):

Author Hotline Exclusive author, illustrator and poet profiles enabling young readers to connect with published professionals.

Scottish Book Trust Information on SBT's publications and over 300 Scotland-based writers and storytellers and details about help with writers' visits.

Smories Original stories for kids, read by kids. 50 added every month.

Four times a year we publish Children's Literature Update. This is an index to articles on children's literature available in Jordanhill Library or online. You can pick it up from the children's gallery or have it emailed to you - leave a comment on this post if you would like to be added to the mailing list.

Finally, news about the Library, including about children's books, appears regularly on our Twitter feed. Please follow us! We are @JordanhillLib. And don't forget - for more information about the above or any other library matter, just come and ask. We're here to help.

First Aid for Fairies and Horrid Henry

2011-08-17T12:33:00.003+01:00

As soon as I blogged about competitions the other day I found out about another one! It's for primary children to suggest aScottish location for Lari Don's new book, the fourth in her First aid for fairies series. The deadline is 23rd September, and you can find more information on the Kelpies website. See our catalogue records for Lari Don's books here.

Not quite a competition, but worth mentioning, is the poll to find the most popular Horrid Henry title. The 20th, Horrid Henry and the zombie vampire, will be published by Orion in September and the vote is on the official Horrid Henry website.

Book competitions for children

2011-08-15T10:29:00.002+01:00

The summer is almost over for Scottish children, who go back to school this week, but there's still time for some book related competitions. You'll need to hurry with the one in the Guardian - win a Kindle pre-loaded with Neil Gaiman's books by reading his short story of 247 words and taking up the challenge to write one of excatly the same length. The closing date is 22nd August.

You have longer for The Children’s Story Competition and Young Illustrator’s Competition. 7 -18 year olds should write a short story or illustrate one of the titlesbelow:

The Enchanted Rainforest
The Accident
Finders Keepers
The Family Next Door
Mission to the Moon

There are cash prizes to be won, the entry fee is £5 per submission and the deadline is at midnight on Monday31 October 2011. More details from Chapter One Promotions.

"The sky is everywhere" by Jandy Nelson: guest post by Melissa (13)

2011-08-10T15:21:00.000+01:00

Melissa, of Clydebank High School, enjoyed this book and shared the following review:

The sky iseverywhere. The title doesn’t give much away but when you start toread this book I promise you, you will not be able to put it down. Lennie Walker,now sisterless, is our heroine. After the tragedy of her older sister Bailey’sdeath, Lennie is dreading going back to school but Gram (Lennie’s grandmother)tells her it will be good for her and to Lennie’s surprise it is, in one way.She gets to meet Joe, new boy and seriously gorgeous - is he the boy that canmake all better? Or, to Lennie’s horror, Bailey’s boyfriend, Toby?
I reallylove this book. When I first read it I was off school and I really couldn’t putit down. At the start of each chapter there is a picture of something thatLennie has written on, she ether writes a conversation she has had with Baileyor a poem and it just makes the book even more special. The way the book iswritten is so compelling and made me (nearly) cry and laugh out loud all thetime! I’ve read this book many times now and it only gets better every time Iread it. If you want a good holiday book this is it and I would recommend itanyone at any age.

If this inspires you to read the book, here's its catalogue record so you can borrow it from this library.This is the only title we have by Jandy Nelson, but the slideshow below shows others that are available. I'll need to look at buying some more!

Age related reading lists from NLT

2011-08-04T12:00:00.000+01:00

Students often ask for age-related reading lists. The National Literacy Trust has recently updated its lists for age-groups 0-4, 5-8, 9-12 and 13+. Check their website for these and many other useful resources:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/search/45?qr=general+booklists&tags

Apologies for the lack of a hyperlink. I haven't used this blog for a while because I've been away on holiday and have come back to a completely changed interface on Google Blogger. There seems to be something up with it today as the formatting toolbar is obscured. Let's hope it's fixed next time!

30 years of Shirley Hughes' Alfie

2011-07-07T10:51:00.001+01:00

I've just discovered the 30th Anniversary site for Shirley Hughes' Alfie books. It's lovely - full of information about the books, messages and illustrations from Shirley, resources to download, such as colouring sheets, and a set of teaching notes. There's also a complete bibliography of Shirley's work. If you want to borrow any of her books, here's what we have in the Library.

Many years ago we had a children's books' event at Jordanhill at which Shirley Hughes was one of the speakers, so I've been lucky enough to meet her. I bought a signed copy of Alfie gets in first for a friend's wee girl and was mortified when I read it to her and she cried! She couldn't bear the thought of Alfie being on the wrong side of the front door from his Mum. This was most unexpected so I hope the children you read it to enjoy it more. (NB that little girl is now grown up and shows no sign of lasting damage so I've stopped feeling guilty.)

Branford Boase Award

2011-07-07T10:26:00.000+01:00

Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace, edited by Charlie Sheppard and published by Andersen Press, has won the 2011 Branford Boase Award. The Branford Boase Award was set up to encourage new writers and is given each year to the most promising work of fiction for children by a debut novelist. The award also honours the editor of the winning title and highlights the importance of the editor in nurturing new talent. Out of Shadows also won the Costa Children’s Book Award and was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal.

The book is set in Zimbabwe in the 1980s - independence has been won and Robert Mugabe has come to power offering hope, land and freedom to black Africans. For Robert Jacklin it's all new: new continent, new country, new school, but very quickly he learns that for some of his classmates the sound of guns is still loud, and their battles still rage on. Find it in our catalogue here.

For more information, go to:

Books for Keeps announcement
Books for Keeps interview with Jason Wallace
Achockablog post with video
Bookwitch post with photos

A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter - guest post by Carol Cisman

2011-07-06T12:06:00.000+01:00

Mollie Hunter's books are perhaps not as popular as they used to be, but they are really good reads and have Scottish settings. Carol Cisman, one of my colleagues, is a big fan and has written this guest post on A stranger came ashore.

This classic children's tale is based on the folklore of the Shetland Isles and, although first published in 1975, its morals are as relevant today as they were then. I first read it as a youngster at school and enjoyed reading it again as an adult as much as I did then.

It tells the story of a stranger, Finn Learson, coming ashore during a storm to the village of Black Ness on Shetland, supposedly the only survivor of a shipwreck. He is taken in by the Henderson family: Robbie, the 12 year old hero of the story, his parents Peter and Janet, his older sister Elspeth, Tam the sheepdog and Old Da, Robbie's grandfather.

Old Da is full of tales of the Selkie Folk, seals who can take on human form to come ashore and charm unsuspecting villagers with captivating yarns of travel and treasure. Robbie has always been fascinated by these and it soon becomes clear that there is more to Finn Learson than meets the eye. He doesn't trust him and soon enough his fears are confirmed. Robbie realises that he is one of the few villagers not taken in by the charms of the stranger and he turns to his schoolmaster for help when he discovers that Elspeth is in grave danger.

Mollie Hunter uses traditional language which conveys a sense of history and the time in which the tale is set. A mysterious and gripping story of the forces of good and evil and of the magic of land and sea, it ends with a thrilling twist which will continue to capture the imaginations of older children and young adults alike.

If you are inspired by Carol's review to read this, or any other Mollie Hunter books, we have a good selection in the library. For other Scottish-set books, see our web page on Children's Literature in Scotland.

Jeff Bridges, The Giver and dystopian fiction

2011-06-29T12:17:00.000+01:00

Jeff Bridges hopes to bring to the big screen a classic young adult novel, Lois Lowry's The Giver. In a world without conflict, poverty and inequality, conformity and happiness are a way of life. But for Jonas, things are different. While his friends are selected to be doctors or teachers, Jonas is sent to the Giver where he discovers the secrets beneath the surface of his world. The Oscar-winning Bridges would take on the role of The Giver if the film comes to fruition.

We have the book in the library, and it's on our Survivor booklist. Mostly set in apocalyptic versions of the future, the books on this list share a common theme: the battle for survival. Their central characters, usually teenagers, have to overcome fire, floods, demons or some other horror as they struggle to build new lives or new societies. As well as being good stories, the books will also make their readers think about the way we treat our world today.

Dystopian fiction is a popular, current theme. Julie Bertagna also features on the list with Exodus and Zenith - she's recently published Aurora, the final part of the trilogy. Read her article in the Scotsman earlier this month on why teenagers are such avid readers of books on dystopias. Books for Keeps also recently published its list of 10 of the best dystopian novels.

Carnegie / Greenaway awards and Pottermore

2011-06-24T12:33:00.001+01:00

Thursday, 23rd June was a big day in the children's book world. It had long been set as the award date for the Carnegie and Greenaway medals, but a few days beforehand it began to look as if these would be upstaged when cryptic messages began to emanante from JK Rowling. What could they mean?

First, the Carnegie / Greenaway awards. These are presented annually by CILIP, the professional body for library and information workers. The Carnegie Medal is for the writer of an outstanding book for children and the Kate Greenaway Medal is for distinguished illustration in a book for children. This year's winners were Patrick Ness, for Monsters of men, and Grahame Baker-Smith for FArTHER (sic). Read more about them in CILIP's press release.

I've blogged about Patrick Ness several times before, including reviewing the Chaos walking books which I loved. I'm also happy to report that his acceptance speech included a fierce defence of libraries - read about it here in the Guardian. There is also an interview with him in today's Independent. You can borrow his books from us but, unfortunately, that's not yet true of Baker-Smith's book, which seems to have flown under my radar. However, I've ordered it now and, in the meantime, here is a slide-show of his work, again from the Guardian.

So what was Pottermore all about? "Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books" - but you still have to go back on 31st July to find out more. Here's JK Rowling announcing it on YouTube and here again is the dependable Guardian. Clever marketing or unnecessary hype? You decide.

Finally, there was another piece of news yesterday which probably got a bit swamped by everything else that was going on. Penguin announced the winners of their cover design awards - the children's entries were illustrating James and the giant peach - you can see the winning and short-listed designs here.

Visual Journeys: Children's Creative Responses to The Arrival by Shaun Tan

2011-06-21T14:21:00.000+01:00

I've just found out about the exhibition described below, which sounds really good. If you want to know more abot Shaun Tan's books, we have The Arrival and several other titles in our catalogue.

"This exhibition emerges from the Visual Journeys project (School of Education, University of Glasgow), led by Dr Evelyn Arizpe, with Dr Maureen Farrell and Ms Julie McAdam. The project explores how immigrant children construct meaning from the images in Shaun Tan’s award-winning wordless graphic novel. The display includes a range of creative strategies drawing on children’s own experiences of migration and journeys and on their literacy practices, allowing them to engage with and reflect more fully on their own and others’ experiences of migration and contributing their own words to the collective story. Exhibition runs 6 June to 29 July at Hillhead Library, Byres Road."

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Books for Fathers' Day

2011-06-14T14:49:00.000+01:00

Happy Fathers' Day on Sunday to all you Dads out there. You can use our catalogue to find lots of stories about fathers (good, bad and indifferent) and our Books for Boys pages highlight some of them in the Lads and Dads section. Publisher Nosy Crow has done a blog post on Dads in children's literature and you can follow further suggestions both through that blog's comments and via the Twitter tag #kidsbookdads.

Competitions for budding young writers

2011-06-10T12:46:00.000+01:00

Wow, lots more writing competitions to blog about. Lets start local with Scottish Book Trust's Young Writers Awards. They are looking for three enthusiastic writers between the ages of 14 and 17 who could have the chance to be mentored by an established teen writer over a period of six months as well as meeting industry professionals and visiting a top London publisher. In order to be eligible you must be living in Scotland - if interested, follow the link above and apply by 31st August.

Canongate Young Writers' Competition is aimed at 16-19 year olds who are invited to enter either a short story or extract of no more than 3,000 words. You'll need to be quicker with this one as the closing date is 1st July.

247tales is an online writing competition open to UK residents between the ages of 10 and 16. The challenge is to write a short story using 247 words or fewer, and the prize for the winning story is £75 worth of Bloomsbury Children’s books plus a framed copy of your winning story which will also appear on the website. There's a new competition on a different theme every month - the closing date for June (theme: The Game) is Monday 27th.

The smash hit West End musical WICKED has announced the second year of its hugely successful WICKED Young Writers’ Award. The Award recognises excellence in writing, encourages creativity, and helps develop literacy and writing talent in young people between the ages of 5 and 25 years old. This one runs until 31st July.

So - if you know any budding young writers, tell them about these competitions. They could have a busy summer ahead of them!

Is teenage fiction "rife with depravity"?

2011-06-07T14:47:00.000+01:00

A lot of controversy has been stirred up by an article in the Wall Street Journal by Meghan Cox Gurdon, entitled Darkness too visible, in which she asks "contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" I'm not sure I would describe the teen books coming into this library in those terms, although as the books she cites are American I couldn't judge any of them apart from Suzanne Collins' Hunger games trilogy which I''ve blogged about (approvingly) here. I've now noticed quite a few rebuttals coming through, one of which is from another writer on her own paper, Christopher John Farley, whose blog post asking Should young adult books explore difficult issues? comes up with a "Yes", as does another blog post from Not just for kids. Today, the Guardian has joined in with an article on its Teen Books page and a plea Don't censor teen fiction on its Books Blog. The controversy has also spawned its own Twitter tag, #YAsaves.

If you want to explore teenage books and the issues involved through our pages, see the one on Teenage Literature and our Banned Books reading list which deals with titles for all ages which have caused controversy over the years.

New Children's Laureate announced

2011-06-07T12:12:00.001+01:00

The new Children's Laureate for 2011-13 was announced today at noon - it's Julia Donaldson! She is the 7th to take the title and is the author of over 120 books and plays for children and teenagers, including some of the UK’s best-selling picture books, most famously The Gruffalo. I think Julia is a great choice, though I'm slightly surprised they went for two picture book authors in a row - my guess was Philip Pullman, so what do I know?

Julia succeeds Anthony Browne, author of Gorilla, Willy the Wimp and many other popular titles. In one of his final acts as Laureate, Anthony wrote an open letter to his (then unknown) successor which was published in the Independent on Sunday with the sub-heading "Cuts are outrageous". In it, he warns that we will "pay the price in the long term" for closing public and school libraries and urges his successor to do everything to support them. The Guardian also has advice for the new Laureate with a page headed "What should the new Children's Laureate do?" and invites you to contribute:

"We want to create a "To Do list" for the new laureate, telling him or her what children want their Laureate to do. It might be as big as "save our libraries" or as small as "visit our school because we never have authors come to see us". It might be something to do with writing rather than reading, or making sure kids' voices are heard in the books world. Whatever your idea, email it to childrens.books@guardian.co.uk and we'll create a big list to present to the new Laureate. We'll also be checking up on him or her during their two year term to see how they are getting on."

Some ideas are already coming through via Twitter, e.g. @dewey027 says "New children's laureate should campaign for statutory school libraries and librarians and getting books to children." Julia is likely to warm to this theme too - she took part in the lobbying of the Scottish parliament on Save our Libraries day in February. That's good news for all library-lovers, and even better news for us as she's Scottish based.

Click on the links for the books we hold by Anthony Browne and Julia Donaldson.

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

2011-06-06T12:47:00.000+01:00

The longlist for this year's award was published on Saturday - read the Guardian's Julia Eccleshare's introduction to the eight titles here and reviews by the Bookbag here. So far, we have four of the books in stock:
My name is Mina by David Almond
Twilight robbery by Frances Hardinge
My sister lives on the mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
Mr Gum and the secret hideout by Andy Stanton

Beat the bullies

2011-06-03T15:24:00.000+01:00

The summer vacation is here, and with it a chance to update all our children's reading lists. The first one to get a major overhaul is Bullying - I've removed some older titles and added some new ones. The list falls into 3 parts, listed below with a taster of each.

Fiction for younger readers, e.g. Rosen, Michael. (2009). I’m number one. Walker.
There’s trouble in the toy box! Once their owner goes off to school, the other toys are bullied by the toy soldier – but eventually, they win him over with humour. 5+
Fiction 8-12 years, e.g. Dahl, Michael. (2010). Eye of the monster. Raintree.
Ren is tired of being bullied – but when his eyes turn golden and his skin turns scaly he thinks he can finally get revenge. What will he do when he sees what fear looks like? 9+
Fiction for older readers: 12+, e.g. Packham, Simon. (2010). Comin 2 gt U. Piccadilly.
Sam has been brutally murdered in an online game. What’s worse, it looks like his killers are out to get him in real life too. 12+

There are also hints on finding non-fiction and media material and some links to useful websites. This is just one of a range of booklists on our Children's Literature web pages - they can also be picked up in hard copy from the children's books display area upstairs in the Library.

Cathy Cassidy Design-a-Cover competition

2011-06-02T11:40:00.002+01:00

Do you know any Cathy Cassidy fans? If so, direct them to her website where there is a book design competition which is open till 30th June. Borrow the books from us first: we have several in our catalogue.

Astrosaurs competiton

2011-06-01T12:26:00.002+01:00

Here's another competition - this time for Steve Cole's Astrosaurs fans. This series combines two perennially popular topics, dinosaurs and space. To enter, children need to create their own Astrosaurs character and describe in 25 words what makes them an Astrosaurs superfan.

The 20 winning superfans will have Steve Cole visit their school this autumn to perform a madcap event and receive a complete signed set of Astrosaurs, Slime Squad and Cows in Action. There will also be an overall winner who will have their winning Astrosaurs character featured in the next Astrosaurs book and get £500 worth of children’s books for their school library.

We have three Astrosaurs titles in our catalogue, but there are many more.

Who's your favourite Harry Potter character?

2011-06-01T11:36:00.000+01:00

Head over to JK Rowling's Harry Potter website to vote for your favourite character. Forty names are provided, and if your choice isn't there you can add him or her through the "Other" box. The poll closes on Friday 26th August 2011 and the favourite character will be announced on Tuesday 30th August 2011. As always, don't forget that you can borrow the books and DVDs from us, as well as teaching materials and readers' guides - full list here.

Wimpy Kid 2

2011-05-27T12:07:00.000+01:00

The second Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie is out. Watch the trailer and read an interview with author Jeff Kinney - and borrow his books from us, here's what we have.

Bookbug's first anniversary

2011-05-19T20:33:00.001+01:00

Bookbug, Scottish Book Trust's Early Years Programme in which free picture books are distributed to every child in Scotland at certain points of their development, celebrated its first anniversary today with thousands of children taking part in hundreds of free events across the country on the theme of The Great Outdoors. As part of the celebrations, it was announced that one of the books to be distributed was created by a Home-Start Family group in Renfrewshire in collaboration with Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years Writer in Residence, Apple Pie ABC author Alison Murray.The picture book, entitled Little Mouse, is the beautifully illustrated story of a little girl who loves sharing books with her mother. The picture below shows Alison (centre) with parents from the group.

PS update - some later coverage of this event.

Football, spies and Tom Palmer

2011-05-10T14:33:00.001+01:00

Author Tom Palmer likes football and has a secret ambition to be a spy. He's combining these two ideas in his new thriller series, The Squad, about a youth football team in which half the members are spies. The first title won't be published until 2012, but while he's writing it he's also producing a weekly blog for teachers, hosted on the National Literacy Trust website, tracking its progress. The blog will be written in a way that the children (upper primary level) will be able to relate to their own school work and will include an optional writing exercise based on what Tom has been blogging about. He will answer questions such as: How do authors write their books? Where do the ideas come from? How do they develop characters?

Tom Palmer has also contributed to NLT's Reading the Game pages Another thing I like on this page is the football shaped book review form which I think would be great to use in the classroom.

We have a couple of Tom's books in stock at Jordanhill and also have a football section on our Books for Boys page - although football books needn't, of course, only be read by boys and the team in The Squad includes both boys and girls.

GIRLS ♥ BOOKS

2011-05-10T11:45:00.000+01:00

A group of writers, including Cathy Cassidy, Fiona Dunbar and Joan Lennon, have got together to contribute to a joint blog called GIRLS ♥ BOOKS. There are sections to appeal to girls of 8+, 9-12 and teens. The authors say:

"It’s a place where we can tell you our latest news, whisper the secret stories behind our books, and share our favourite things. We’ll have a new blog post every day for you – plus giveaways, book reviews, event announcements and more. So if you’ve ever wondered what your favourite writer’s desk looks like, which book is lighting up her bedside table right this minute, or whether when she was 13 she had a really unfortunate haircut and was afraid of swans, GIRLS ♥ BOOKS is just for you."

At the same time as I discovered this site I also found Chicklish, subtitled "Reader, I snogged him", which is specifically aimed at teens and worth a look too.

One of our most popular pages on the Jordanhill website is Books for Boys .We're working on a similar page for girls. Watch this space!

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Catch the Patrick Ness blog tour

2011-05-05T12:35:00.002+01:00

Patrick's latest book A monster calls is published today and will be in the library very soon. This book is different, as the review from our supplier, Holt Jackson, shows:

"Conor is dealing with his Mum's cancer and finding it very difficult to come to terms with it. Each night he struggles with nightmares and one night a monster calls at his window much to his surprise and fear. What happens next is a gripping and sometimes challenging tale of having to deal with fear, loneliness and loss. This is a book like no other - originally imagined by Siobhan Dowd who sadly died of cancer before writing it, Patrick Ness took up the mantle and wrote the book in her honour. He should be proud of his achievement as this is one of the best teenage books I have read. Both gripping and moving in equal parts, this is a book to look out for and a great testament to both Patrick and Siobhan."

In the meantime, you can read a different extract every day on the Monster calls blog tour - see Patrick's website for details of this and other publicity, including a Radio Scotland interview. The Guardian has a podcast of him reading an extract and answering questions and A monster calls is also book of the week on the Ultimate Bookguide.

Click on the links here to see our catalogue holdings on Siobhan Dowd and Patrick Ness (whose Chaos walking trilogy now has its own discussion forum if you are interested). And finally, click on the Patrick Ness label at the end of this post to see my own reviews of these books.

A book blog for kids: Lynne Rickards

2011-04-26T19:21:00.000+01:00

Lynne Rickards' new blog differs from most of the others I've mentioned before in that it's aimed at children rather than at the adults who buy books for them. I think they would really enjoy it. Each post has a theme plus a photo or other illustration and (usually but not always) a forgiveable plug for one of Lynne's books. For example, today's post is about snails and relates back to Jacob O’Reilly Wants a Pet - but it also has some practical information about building a snail hotel. Not my cup of tea but it might well appeal to small children who are less easily revolted!

Lynne has also created book bags around some of her stories and we have them in the library in the storysack collection. The Pink Bag celebrates diversity with the story of Patrick, the pink penguin. As well as a copy of Pink! it includes, amongst other things, a Circle Time lesson guide, a pink toy, a quiz and a letter from Patrick. The Pets Bag is based on the aforementioned Jacob O’Reilly Wants a Pet and includes the book and a cuddly snail in its contents. Finally, the Green Bag explores good nutrition in an appealing way along with recipes and classroom activities. The book in this one is I do not eat the colour green. See Lynne's website for more details.

Storysacks have grown immensely in popularity since we started stocking them a few years ago. For our full range, see this list from SUPrimo.

Happy Easter

2011-04-21T16:43:00.000+01:00

Happy Easter to those of you going on holiday. The Library is open throughout the weekend (see our opening hours information) so it's not too late to borrow books about Easter from us. Here's also a great post on Easter books from Nosy Crow, some Easter resources and activities from Scholastic and TES and a random selection from Amazon below to make it all look pretty!

Film news

2011-04-12T11:29:00.001+01:00

Last week, Booktrust published a list of ten favourite children's books made into films. You can see what they were from the slide show below - and all are available to borrow from Jordanhill Library. Do you agree with the choices? Are there other books which were made into better films - or do you just prefer to read the book and imagine the characters yourself?

More films are in the pipeline - Working Title Films and PeaPie Films have acquired the rights to Andy Mulligan's Trash and casting is well under way for the film version of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. This has not been without controversy, as the comments to the article show but, as suggested above, many people have their own images of the characters and won't be happy with an actor who doesn't fit that. I have to admit, the chosen actors look a bit too perfect and shiny for me

Children's book competitions

2011-04-11T12:31:00.000+01:00

1. A short story competition for children 6-12 via the Guardian's great new children's book site. Can you finish a story begun by Horrid Henry author, Francesca Simon? The prize is a £50 book token and publication on the site - closing date April 26th, so hurry!

2. Also from the Guardian, and also for April 26th, win a library of 50 Puffin books as listed on the site. This is a random draw, if you are between 5 and 17 you just need to email your details as directed and the winner will be chosen at random.

3. A cover design competiton for 7-12 year olds. Vintage Classics, the Times and Random House are looking for a new design for The Wizard of Oz. The winner's cover will be published on a new edition of the book in November and he or she will also win £100 worth of books. The closing date for this competition is 29th July.

Dancing Sausages and other poetry ideas

2011-04-09T10:18:00.000+01:00

April is National Poetry Month - it might be a USA event, but that doesn't mean there aren't loads of good ideas on their website for writng and promoting poetry.

Since 2003 NaPoWriMo has also been challenging people to write a poem a day - another great idea to use. Each day has a prompt: for example yesterday's was to write a nursery rhyme.

Another idea is "30 poets, 30 days" - here's a blog, GottaBook, as an example where the blogger is featuring a poem by a different poet everyday.

The Literacy Advisor (Bill Boyd) has blogged about a project to write a Global Poem for Change.

The Five Books site (every day an expert chooses 5 books on a specific subject) has been featuring poetry this week too - from a children's literature point of view, the most interesting was Roger McGough: The poet, broadcaster and "patron saint of poetry" says all children are poets and reveals why daydreaming is good for you. Here he chooses anthologies for all ages, which have "a fresh look and a fresh listen."

Don't forget about our own poetry page with booklists and links to other sites, and finally......

......the Sausage Whistler, a lovely animation of an Allan Ahlberg poem from Walker Books' Picture Book Picnic blog. Love those dancing sausages!

Diana Wynne Jones - more obituaries

2011-04-04T12:41:00.000+01:00

For information on Diana Wynne Jones' death, see this previous post. Since then, I've found some more obituaries:

New York Times
Telegraph

Carnegie / Greenaway shortlists announced

2011-04-01T14:29:00.000+01:00

The shortlists for the CILIP* Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals, widely acknowledged to be the UK’s most prestigious children’s book awards, have just come out. The Carnegie is for outstanding writing and the Greenaway is for outstanding illustration. To my shame, we only have two of the Greenaway books in the Library (Anthony Browne's Me and you and Bob Graham's April Underhill, tooth fairy) so I'll have to do something about that. We either have, or have ordered, all the Carnegie books. I've already blogged about one - see my post on Monsters of men by Patrick Ness, the culmination of a trilogy which I loved. Books for Keeps also has a piece on the shortlists if you want to read more.

You might remember in a recent post I mentioned Michael Gove's idea that all children should read 50 books a year. He's been talking again about school children (in England) not being encouraged to read because they don't read 19th century classics. Annie Mauger, CEO of CILIP, has decided to present him with some modern classics-in-the-making and is pictured here, with Patrick Ness, on her way to present the shortlisted books to Mr Gove's department. I hope he finds them a good read.

*Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

Digital storytelling

2011-03-30T16:51:00.001+01:00

Today I saw an advert for the READIT Project Teacher survey exploring the use of ICT and digital storytelling to engage pupils in reading and writing. I thought I would give it a plug and include a few references to digital storytelling that I'd picked up recently. As described in the CMIS blogposts below, digital storytelling can enhance literacy and promote reading while at the same time developing IT skills and engaging with today's digital natives. There are a variety of multimedia tools available including graphics, audio and video animation which can be used to create podcasts, videos or multimedia ebooks. Here's what I've found to start you off:

A how-to-guide, Digital storytelling tools for educators, by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano which is available for free download.

Educational uses of digital storytelling page from University of Houston.

Blog posts on digital storytelling parts one and two from CMIS Evaluation Primary Focus. These also reference the above two sites. CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus has D is for digital storytelling.

Web 2.0 / 21st century tools - an excellent site which lists tools on many topics, including a large section on digital storytelling.

Shaun Tan wins Astrid Lindgren prize

2011-03-30T12:21:00.000+01:00

The Australian author-illustrator Shaun Tan is the winner of this year's Astrid Lindgren prize – the richest children's literature prize in the world, with a purse of 5m kroner (£490,000). Tan has illustrated more than 20 books including The rabbits, The arrival, Eric and Tales from Outer Suburbia. At this year's Academy Awards, he won the Oscar for best animated short film for The Lost Thing, based on his book of the same title, so it's been an amazing year for him so far. This Guardian article tells you more about the award and has links to an interview with Tan and a picture gallery of his book Eric. We have several books by Tan in our catalogue. He describes them as "illustrated modern fables". For example, the wordless graphic novel The arrival is set in a mysterious city peopled by weird creatures but could be used to open discussion on all sorts of subjects such as loneliness or refugees.

Crossing Over - titles with crossover appeal for both adults and young people

2011-03-30T11:56:00.000+01:00

The previous post on Philip Pullman's nomination for the international Man Booker prize mentioned the crossover appeal of some of his titles. He is one of the authors on a new booklist we've produced, Crossing Over. With popular children’s titles such as the Harry Potter series and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time being published in alternative adult covers, the lines between publishing for teens and adults have become blurred. We’ve collected together some of the best titles with crossover appeal. Adults can enjoy the brevity and focus on storytelling of fiction originally conceived as being for children or teenagers, while older children or teens may find some of the classic titles a good way to expand into adult literature. You can access the list by clicking on the link above, or there are copies in the Library to collect.

Philip Pullman on Man Booker International Prize shortlist

2011-03-30T11:38:00.000+01:00

Thirteen writers have made it on to the judges' list of finalists under serious consideration for the fourth Man Booker International Prize, the £60,000 award which recognises one writer for his or her achievement in fiction. I think this is quite unusual for a children's author, though Pullman's His dark materials trilogy has crossed over to adults as well. Other names to note are Scottish author James Kelman and John le Carre. The latter apparently didn't want to be included as he prefers not to compete for prizes (to let less-well known writers have a chance).The full list is:

Wang Anyi (China)
Juan Goytisolo (Spain)
James Kelman (UK)
John le Carré (UK)
Amin Maalouf (Lebanon)
David Malouf (Australia)
Dacia Maraini (Italy)
Rohinton Mistry (India/Canada)
Philip Pullman (UK)
Marilynne Robinson (USA)
Philip Roth (USA)
Su Tong (China)
Anne Tyler (USA)

The Man Booker International Prize winner will be announced at the Sydney Writers' Festival on 18 May and the winner will be celebrated at an awards ceremony in London on 28 June 2011. Read more via the official site or the BBC.

What did I miss?

2011-03-29T10:24:00.000+01:00

I was on holiday last week, when quite a lot seemed to happen in the world of children's literature. This is a catch up post to try to cover some of it. Perhaps the saddest news was the death of Diana Wynne Jones who was writing fantasy series long before Harry Potter was ever thought of. Here are the books of hers we stock - my absolute favourite is Fire and hemlock, though Howl's moving castle might be the most famous because it has been made into a film. An obituary has appeared in the Guardian.

Michael Gove, Education Secretary in the UK parliament, caused a bit of a stir by suggesting that children should read 50 books per year. This is certainly controversial given that many councils, particularly in England, are contemplating closing some of their libraries and school libraries are also under threat. So where do children get the books if they can't afford to buy them? As part of the debate, the Independent has also jumped in with its list of what those 50 books should be - a surefire way to put any child off reading in my opinion. See what you think.

Updating a beloved clasic is another way to cause controversy, and there are two developments here. Frank Cottrell Boyce is producing a sequel to Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - read about it via the Guardian and the BBC - and Jacqueline Wilson is to update Five children and it by E Nesbit. Again, the Guardian has the details. The Nosy Crow blog puts the arguments for and against updates. If you want to read, or re-read, the originals we have both titles in stock.

The Eagle - the new film based on Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth is out now and was reviewed favourably in Sunday's Observer and the Guardian even has an editorial about it, In praise of Rosemary Sutcliff. Again, you can borrow the book from us.

Finally, Booktrust has announced the winners of it's Best New Illustrators award. They are:

Joe Berger
Claudia Boldt
Katie Cleminson
Chris Haughton
Alice Melvin
Sara Ogilvie
Levi Pinfold
Salvatore Rubbino
Viviane Schwarz
Kevin Waldron

You can watch an audio-slideshow of their work being discussed by Anthony Browne, one of the judges and the current Children's Laureate. We don't have work by all the above - I've added a link to the catalogue for books illustrated by the ones we do.

Meet our Authors: forthcoming programme from Scottish Book Trust

2011-03-18T15:05:00.000Z

Scottish Book Trust has announced its latest Meet our Authors programme as follows:

12/05/11: James Mayhew This session will focus on visual literacy. See our books by James here and, if you are interested in visual literacy, you might also be interested in our Teaching with Visual Images page.

16/06/11: Andy Stanton This session will focus on reluctant readers. Again, we have several books by Andy, best known for the Mr Gum series, and we also have a page on reluctant readers.

29/09/11: David Almond This session will focus on creative writing. We have lots of books by this prize winning author. His latest, My name is Mina is a prequel to Skellig, perhaps his most famous.

01/12/11: Kjartan Poskitt This session will focus on maths. Make maths fun with the author of Murderous maths and other titles.

Not sure if these are for you? Try Meet our Authors out by watching the hilarious event with Eoin Colfer on the SBT site. Watch this blog for more information nearer the time of each session and I also advise signing up with the SBT newsletter which highlights different parts of their work each month. In March, as well as talking about this programme, the newsletter had fun book stuff, World Book Night reviews and new song and rhyme videos.

Eoin Colfer celebrates 10 years of Artemis Fowl

2011-03-15T15:35:00.000Z

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Artemis Fowl series with the hysterically funny and utterly brilliant number one bestselling author Eoin Colfer in this interactive live webcast. You may even get to meet Artemis Fowl himself! Organisations or individuals can register.
The webcast will take place live at: 11.30am - 12.10pm on Wednesday 6th April 2011 and will be available as an on-demand replay shortly after.

Viewers can submit questions live for Eoin Colfer to answer during the webcast

To register go to: http://www.eoincolfervirtuallylive.co.uk/

"Angel" by L. A. Weatherly: guest post by Ellen (12)

2011-03-14T12:07:00.001Z

Before Christmas, Usborne sent us some sample chapters of Angel which inspired Ellen, of Knightswood Secondary School, to read the whole book and send me this review:

"The only good angel is a dead angel"

Angel is a wonderful, enchanting story about a girl called Willow and a boy called Alex. Willow’s life is turned upside down when she is accused of being against the angels. Then she meets Alex, an angel killer, and they run away around the USA to stop the angels.
I didn’t want to go to school it was so exciting. I just wanted to curl up and carry on reading. Luckily though, near the end of term, I got some spare time to read.
It is officially one of my favourite books and I’d suggest it to anyone who loves adventure.
So what are you waiting for? Find and grab your own copy and join Willow and Alex on an adventure to destroy the angels...

Because I heard Ellen was enjoying it so much, I also read it myself and, I have to say, I agree with her assessment, I couldn't put it down either. There is apparently going to be a trilogy - according to Amazon, Angel fire is out in October, so I think Ellen and I wil both be looking forward to that. Here's the catalogue record for Angel if you want to borrow it from us.

Many thanks to Ellen for her review.

Seven Stories' Enid Blyton collection online

2011-03-11T15:20:00.001Z

Seven Stories, the fabulous centre for children's books in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, announced on Twitter this afternoon (@7stories) that the catalogue of its Enid Blyton collection is now available to view online. Go to this link and type EB into the box marked Reference - many of the entries have thumbnails of the manuscripts to look at. Follow progress on their Enid Blyton blog.

Julia Donaldson exhibition

2011-03-11T10:16:00.000Z

An exhibition of contemporary children's book illustration curated by Julia Donaldson opens at the Park Gallery in Falkirk on 12th March. The Illustrators is an exhibition of work by artists who have illustrated Julia's books, such as Axel Scheffler. There is also a programme of events. Get ready for a visit by borrowing some of Julia's books from us.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library comes to Scotland

2011-03-07T16:31:00.001Z

Dolly Parton might seem an unlikely subject for this blog, but she has a strong interest in literacy and, in the past, has said her desire to promote childhood reading arose out of seeing how illiteracy disadvantaged her own family. Her Imagination Library originated in her hometown, Sevier County, Tennessee, in 1995 and has since spread around the world, resulting in around 30 million books being mailed to children. It arrived in the UK in Rotherham in 2007 and spread to Wigtown the following year. Now, a new partnership between Parton’s Dollywood Foundation, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Book Trust will result in over 3000 looked after children benefiting from a free book every month until their fifth birthday, and parents and carers will be encouraged to read with them.

Read the Scottish government's press release, information from Scottish Book Trust and reports from the BBC and the Herald for more information.

Storywriting competition for 5-11s

2011-03-03T19:26:00.000Z

Another World Book Day launch, this time from National Literacy Trust which has teamed up with Katherine Holabird, author of the Angelina Ballerina books, and Build-a-Bear Workshop to announce a storywriting competition. Katherine has written the beginning of a story and children aged between 5 and 11 are being challenged to write the rest of it.

Guardian's new site launched on World Book Day

2011-03-03T18:58:00.001Z

On Saturday, the Guardian published an article about its new online children's book club which launched today, World Book Day. The site has been designed and curated with the help of a dedicated editorial panel of 100 children and teens from around the world, and that's how it will continue to work: by children, for children. The front page is bright and welcoming, with links to news, quizzes, audio and video. Also, running across it is a colourful row of numbers from 1-16 - clicking on one takes you into the section for that age group. Featured today are interviews with several authors, including Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, and you can also watch a video in which some of the young people who have helped to design and curate the site explain why they love reading and what the site offers young readers. Definitely worth checking out.

Shaun Tan's "The lost thing" wins Oscar

2011-02-28T09:53:00.001Z

Oscar congratulations to Shaun Tan : The Lost Thing, based on his book, won Best Short Film. Read a review of the book from Books for Keeps and Trevor Cairney's blogpost about Tan, watch the film online and borrow the book from us - we have several Shaun Tan books on our catalogue.

Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books

2011-02-23T12:55:00.009Z

The award ceremony was yesterday and the winners were:

Bookbug Readers 0-7 Category
What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Lydia Monks

Younger Readers 8-11 Category
Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles by Barry Hutchison

Older Readers 12-16 Category
Grass by Cathy MacPhail

I'm delighted to say we have all the titles in the Library (check SUPrimo for details.) For more information, including photos of the award ceremony hosted by Janice Forsyth, see the Scottish Book Trust site. There are also write-ups in the Edinburgh Reporter, the Bookseller and Booktrade.info and you can read illustrator Lydia Monks' blog about her day at the awards here.

PS Coverage also in the Glaswegian 3/3/11

Children's authors dominate list of favourite UK library books

2011-02-18T10:02:00.001Z

For more than 20 years the Public Lending Right organisation, which organises the small royalty payments to living authors for books borrowed from public libraries, has compiled an annual list of the most borrowed books. The list is dominated by children's books - for example, Jacqueline Wilson books have been borrowed at least a million times every year between 2000 and 2010. Authors whose books we stock are listed below with their position on the list and a link to their books on our catalogue. Read the full story in the Guardian.

4. Jacqueline Wilson - best known for almost everything she writes! Maybe the Tracy Beaker books which were televised. A former Children's Laureate.

5. Francesca Simon - best known for the Horrid Henry series.

6. Mick Inkpen - best known for picture books about Kipper the dog.

7. Julia Donaldson - best known for the Gruffalo. Enough said!

9. Lauren Child - best known for Charlie and Lola, picture book characters who have also made it onto TV.

10. Terry Deary - best known as author of the Horrid Histories series, but also writes fiction.

The Next Chapter - new blog from Barrington Stoke

2011-02-16T12:09:00.000Z

Barrington Stoke, the Edinburgh-based publisher of books for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers, has a new blog, The Next Chapter, with inclusive literacy ideas for teaching with their books. First up is a write-along competition based on Ninja: First Mission by author Chris Bradford. Check out the blog to see how your class could win.

Jordanhill Library has a good selection of Barrington Stoke books. See our Reluctant Readers page for more information.

Brian Jacques 1939-2011

2011-02-11T12:57:00.002Z

Children's author Brain Jacques has died on the 5th of February, aged 71, after a heart attack. He is perhaps best known for the Redwall series. There is more information in the Guardian in Julia Eccleshare's obituary and on their Books Blog.

For more obituaries see Books for Keeps, the Herald, the Scotsman and the Telegraph.

Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2011

2011-02-10T14:24:00.001Z

The winner of this year's Waterstone's Children's Book Prize is Artichoke Hearts by Sita Brahmachari. On the prize website it is described as "an insightful, honest novel exploring the delicate balance, and often injustice, of life and death - but at its heart is a celebration of friendship, culture - and life." Artichoke Hearts is Sita's first novel for children. For more information, read the Books for Keeps review - and look out for it arriving in the library very soon.

Bookbug funding to continue

2011-02-10T14:15:00.000Z

The Scottish Booktrust is to receive £1.05 million from the Scottish Government to enable it to continue its Bookbug reading programme for young children in 2011-12.

Read the news release and check out the Bookbug scheme for more details.

Judy Moody at the movies

2011-02-09T12:10:00.001Z

Walker Books (@walkerbooksuk) have just tweeted:

Exciting news! The Judy Moody movie, Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, will be released in the US on June 10, 2011...

No date yet for the UK.

See also http://www.judymoodythemovie.com/ and check our catalogue for Judy Moody books (by Megan McDonald).

PS 3/3/2011, article from USA Today

Who helped Save Libraries Day?

2011-02-07T16:43:00.000Z

When you are a teacher, how will you promote a love of reading in your students, rather then just teaching them the mechanics of literacy? One way would be encouraguing them to use a library - when I was a public librarian, we used to have class visits and I would visit the local primary schools for storytelling sessions in Children's Book Week for example.You might have noticed, though, that public libraries are increasingly under threat, at the moment predominantly, but not exclusively, south of the border. Other people have made the case for libraries far better than I could (see the post two below this one for a link to Philip Pullman's speech), but there are still people arguing against libraries on the grounds that books are cheap on Amazon or in charity shops, and we all have the internet now. Well, maybe you were lucky enough, like me, to grow up in a household full of books, both borrowed and purchased (although I'm afraid it was long before the days of the internet), but many children don't because their parents aren't interested in books or can't afford them. A PC and broadband is also beyond the means of many families, but anyone can afford the library (it's free!) and research shows that childen who use one are almost twice as likely to be above average readers.

Saturday, 5th February was Save Libraries Day and many favourite children's authors took part. Here are some examples:

Read in the Herald about the only event in Scotland, at the Scottish Parliament, where Julia Donaldson and Theresa Breslin handed in a statement of protest
Watch Philip Pullman being interviewed in Oxford and see stills of the event on Flickr.
Read the Guardian's blog of the day as it happened.
Read Michael Rosen in the Sun.
If you're on Twitter, or even if you're not, you can follow the #savelibraries hashtag to keep up with events.

Books from Scotland Author of the Month: Lari Don

2011-02-04T12:26:00.000Z

"Children's fantasy author Lari Don was born in Chile, and travelled widely in South and Central America as a child, before her family settled in North East Scotland. Although she had been writing for a while, her first success came in 2001 when she won the Canongate Prize for her short stories, which were written for adults. Her first children's book, First Aid For Fairies, was published in 2008 and won a Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children's Books a year later." - Read more on the Books from Scotland site.
We have 5 books by Lari Don in our catalogue.

Philip Pullman's not so dark materials

2011-02-03T20:42:00.000Z

Philip Pullman was in the news a couple of weeks ago for his impassioned speech in support of public libraries. If the only other thing you know about him is that he is the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, why not check out the excellent Seven Stories site? Seven Stories is the centre for children's books based in Newcastle, so you might not be able to visit, but more and more of its archives are available online, including a lot of material on Philip Pullman. His page has information about him and 37 scanned pages of handwritten notes he made while writing his books, including a list of all the symbols on Lyra's alethiometer. Other authors to get similar treatment include David Almond and Judith Kerr. Her archives are even more fascinating and include remnants from her childhood such as the book she made for her grandmother's 60th birthday and pages from an album of drawings she made as a teenager. Before long, Enid Blyton material will be up there too. An amazing site!

Jacqueline Wilson video and trailer

2011-02-02T14:43:00.000Z

Watch the Scottish Book Trust Authors Live session with Jacqueline Wilson here and a trailer for her new book, Lily Alone, here. If they inspire you, we have 85 items in our catalogue under Jacqueline Wilson! A few are illustrated below.

Richard and Judy's Children's Bookclub

2011-01-28T15:30:00.001Z

Richard and Judy have launched their children's book club. The club is made up of three categories - Reading together, Reading by yourself and Fluent reader - with six book titles in each.

Choices include Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder by Jo Nesbo, Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend by Francesca Simon and The Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford.

Read more via the BBC or the Booktrust - the latter link contains a full list of featured titles. Many of the titles are in stock here.

Appy Talk

2011-01-21T12:36:00.000Z

I've been contemplating a post about children's book apps for a while, and then up popped Kate Wilson's article in the latest Books for Keeps. Kate is Managing Director of Nosy Crow, a new children's publishing company which will include apps for children aged 2 to 7 in its output, as well as books for ages 0 to 14. Her article explains why they have decided to do this and the approach they are taking to apps - Kate doesn't believe they should be squashing existing books into a new format but creating original reading experiences for touch screen devices using their capacity for sound, animation and interactivity to tell stories in a new and engaging way. Kate makes the case much better than I can, so please read the article.

Someone else who has written about apps recently is Trevor Cairney in his blog Literacy, families and learning. He's covered them in three recent posts:
"Alice", the iPad and new ways to read picture books
Literacy and the iPad: a review of some popular apps
Literacy and the iPad: a second review of children's literature apps

Finally, apps are not just for fiction - they can help with all areas of the curriculum. Even the Scottish Government has noticed - see Help with school: there's an app for that from the Engage for Education site.

What's new? Crime blog for teens, Richard & Judy and other delights

2011-01-07T14:41:00.000Z

Here's a round up of items that have caught my eye in the last few days:

Crime Central is a new blog for teens, set up by authors Keren David, Anne Cassidy, Gillian Philip and Linda Strachan. It's stated aims are "to celebrate crime fiction for teen readers. Find out about new books, leave your comments and reviews, read interviews with authors." There's not much there at the moment, it's one to watch, but there is a competition to win a signed copy of one of Anne Cassidy's books.

The Bookseller tells us that Richard and Judy will launch a new children's book club with W H Smith on the 27th January. The Children's Book Club will involve real families, with the books selected by a variety of children, and will have three categories: Reading Together (from pre-school to year 1), Developing Reader (7–9 years) and Fluent (any age from 8 years on).

Jill R Bennett has started a new review site, Red Reading Hub. Jill is an Early Years specialist and says "In these pages, I hope to be able to highlight books, both those recently published as well as ones that have been well and truly tried and tested, that ‘work’ with children either at home, playgroups, nurseries or schools. In some instances, there will be ideas for working with the books."

The latest winner of the Costa Children's Book prize is Jason Wallace for Out of the Shadows, a story set in Zimbabwe just after independence. Oops, I seem to have missed that one so I've ordered it for the Library now. You can read an interview with Jason Wallace on the Books for Keeps site and Booktrust has a reading guide to download.

Finally, it's time to elect a new Children's Laureate. Anthony Browne's tenure is coming to an end and suggestions for the next one are invited - previous Laureates have been Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen so there are some hard acts to follow. There's also a competition for children to win tickets to the award ceremony in June. The closing date is 28th February.

Anabel's Children's Literature Blog

Big Book Babble

Celebrating Burns

Spread the joy of reading (and win prizes?)

Julia Donaldson to visit Jordanhill

Happy Christmas

Behind the Bookshelf

Bali Rai

Scorsese films Hugo

Bookbug - a Julia Donaldson book for every P1 child

Murderous Maths with Kjartan Poskitt

Christmas is coming....

The Hunger Games Companion and film

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

Roald Dahl Funny Prize (and Catalyst and Galaxy awards!)

November is Picture Book Month

Happy Halloween!

Teachmeet Strathclyde

Reading with kids - the verdict

Reading with kids

Jacqueline Wilson Festival

Our competition winner

Class writes its own book!

Scottish Book Trust Young Writer's Conference 2011

Books mean prizes

Halloween!

Competition! Win a book by David Almond

Happy Roald Dahl Day

Guest review: White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

Scottish Children's Book Awards 2011

Harry Potter and the 247 competition

Children's Literature in Jordanhill Library

First Aid for Fairies and Horrid Henry

Book competitions for children

"The sky is everywhere" by Jandy Nelson: guest post by Melissa (13)

Age related reading lists from NLT

30 years of Shirley Hughes' Alfie

Branford Boase Award

A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter - guest post by Carol Cisman

More summer activities for young readers and writers

Jeff Bridges, The Giver and dystopian fiction

Carnegie / Greenaway awards and Pottermore

Visual Journeys: Children's Creative Responses to The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Books for Fathers' Day

Competitions for budding young writers

Is teenage fiction "rife with depravity"?

New Children's Laureate announced

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

Beat the bullies

Cathy Cassidy Design-a-Cover competition

Astrosaurs competiton

Who's your favourite Harry Potter character?

Wimpy Kid 2

Bookbug's first anniversary

Football, spies and Tom Palmer

GIRLS ♥ BOOKS

Catch the Patrick Ness blog tour

A book blog for kids: Lynne Rickards

Happy Easter

Film news

Children's book competitions

Dancing Sausages and other poetry ideas

Diana Wynne Jones - more obituaries

Carnegie / Greenaway shortlists announced

Digital storytelling

Shaun Tan wins Astrid Lindgren prize

Crossing Over - titles with crossover appeal for both adults and young people

Philip Pullman on Man Booker International Prize shortlist

What did I miss?

Meet our Authors: forthcoming programme from Scottish Book Trust

Eoin Colfer celebrates 10 years of Artemis Fowl

"Angel" by L. A. Weatherly: guest post by Ellen (12)

Seven Stories' Enid Blyton collection online

Julia Donaldson exhibition

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library comes to Scotland

Storywriting competition for 5-11s

Guardian's new site launched on World Book Day

Shaun Tan's "The lost thing" wins Oscar

Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books

Children's authors dominate list of favourite UK library books