Scottish Children's Books Awards

The shortlist for the 2009 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books was announced this week:

Early years (0-7): Manfred the Baddie by John Fardell, Pink! by Lynne Rickards and Margaret Chamberlain and Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Younger readers (8-11): Dino Egg by Charlie James, The Eleventh Orphan by Joan Lingard and First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts by Lari Don.

Older readers: (12-16): Crash by J A Henderson, Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray and The Reckoning by James Jauncey.

The awards are chosen by children, either as individuals or through groups organised by teachers and librarians. There are also competitons for reviews and Gaelic and Scots creative writing. For full details, follow the links above. All the books can be borrowed from this Library, apart from the James and the Jauncey which are currently on order.

Children's literature updates

Some bits and pieces of news from the last week or so:

• The Carnegie / Greenaway shortlists are out. See the CILIP press release and The Bookseller.
• The sixth Children's Laureate is due to be announced on 9th June. The Independent reviews the progress of the five Laureates so far and speculates about who might be next.
• Still with the Laureates, there's been some discussion about their choices of the top 35 children's books of all time. See Move over, Harry Potter - Just William is the best (Guardian), Forget Hogwarts, vintage is the best children's read say Laureates (Independent) and No Harry Potter or Narnia in all-time top 35 (Herald).
• Barrington Stoke, the Scottish publisher of "accessible, enjoyable and unpatronising short books for children who are dyslexic, struggling to read, or simply reluctant to sit down with a book", has been nominated for Independent Publisher of the Year in the 2009 British Book Industry Awards.
• The National Literacy Trust has published a study on reading role models for children and young people. This is based on a survey of 2176 seven to fifteen year-olds.
• The new edition of Teen Titles features interviews with Keith Gray and John Fardell.

Nicola Morgan and aspiring writers

I've noticed that An awfully big blog adventure, as well as having links to individual authors, has a page marked For aspiring writers. This is a blog by Nicola Morgan which she introduces by saying: " I hope you are here because of a burning need to be published, a passion for reading and a desire and ability to connect with readers. I am here because, if you are a wonderful writer, I want you to be published, as avid readers grow from brilliant books and we all want avid readers."

Nicola writes fine books for teenagers herslf - check out our holdings - for example, Fleshmarket (Hodder, 2003). Set in 1820s Edinburgh, home of the notorious body-snatchers, Burke and Hare, the story opens with a woman undergoing surgery before any sense of pain control or hygiene had been introduced. The woman’s son cannot forget what happened and seeks his revenge. Morgan writes about the past again in The highwayman’s footsteps (Walker, 2006), but also writes about the future, e.g. Sleepwalking (Hodder, 2004) is set in a future world where every emotion is regulated and there is no pain, no suffering and no evil.

Children's literature in Scotland

The Library has a new page on Children's Literature in Scotland. From it, you can access lists of books set in Scotland and of authors with Scottish connections. There are also two annotated booklists: Scottish Poems for Children and Teenage Titles from Scotland - the latter is completely new, though the other has been on our poetry page for a while. Finally, there is a collection of internet sites with further information about Scottish children's literature.

eBooks - an awfully big adventure?

I've written before about An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (sub-titled The ramblings of a few scattered authors, which more or less describes it). In one of the most recent posts, ePositive, Elen Caldecott (author of How Kirsty Jenkins stole the elephant) writes about an event she went to where some writers expressed concern about the impact of the digital revolution on the book world. Elen sees this as a positive though, and gives some interesting examples of writers using new technologies to expand the world of their stories. For instance, Rose, one of the charcters in Hilary McKay's Casson family books, has her own blog. Caldecott likens websites like these to the extras on a DVD - it's an interesting idea.

Aidan Chambers

Aidan Chambers has just been elected to the list of Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature. This is a huge honour as it is recognition and honour from Aidan's peers. The Society was founded in 1820 by George IV 'to excite literary talent and reward literary merit' and is currently housed in Somerset House on the Strand. The Society is independent of government and of any other institution such as the universities. Check our holdings of Aidan's work here.

GiggleIT with Gigglecritter

The GiggleIT Project is a global collaborative publishing project hosted by the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL), working in partnership with the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL).
Designed to help children around the world improve their English language literacy skills, the GiggleIT Project encourages students ages 10-14 to contribute their writings to an online book (eBook) celebrating stories and humour from their culture. Written by children for children, the eBook will contain children's stories, jokes and poetry. The project will inspire children to be creative and make cross-cultural connections with other children from around the world as they learn about humour from other countries, while improving their literacy skills.