Scottish Children's Book Awards 2011

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 Emily Golden (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 G Ewart (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 Theresa Breslin (Corgi – RHCB)

 

Harry Potter and the 247 competition

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

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

As soon as I blogged about competitions the other day I found out about another one! It's for primary children to suggest a Scottish 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

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 titles below:

• 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 Monday 31 October 2011.  More details from Chapter One Promotions.

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

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

The sky is everywhere. The title doesn’t give much away but when you start to read 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’s death, 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 can make all better? Or, to Lennie’s horror, Bailey’s boyfriend, Toby?

I really love this book. When I first read it I was off school and I really couldn’t put it down. At the start of each chapter there is a picture of something that Lennie has written on, she ether writes a conversation she has had with Bailey or a poem and it just makes the book even more special. The way the book is written is so compelling and made me (nearly) cry and laugh out loud all the time! I’ve read this book many times now and it only gets better every time I read it. If you want a good holiday book this is it and I would recommend it anyone 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

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!