Book Week Scotland and other stories: posts of the week 3

The programme for Book Week Scotland (25/11/13 - 01/12/13) was announced this week. Some items particularly relevant to children are:

• Three free picture books will be given to every Primary 1 pupil in Scotland. The titles consist of the shortlist for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2013: Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb, What's the Time Mr Wolf by Debi Gliori and Jumblebum by Chae Strathie and Ben Cort.
• Scottish children’s illustrator and author Mairi Hedderwick will bring her most famous character, Katie Morag, to life for children across Scotland during a special live broadcast in partnership with the BBC on 28 November.
• Book Week Scotland's Author Ambassadors include children’s author and illustrator Nick Sharratt. Along with popular fiction author Shari Low and poet Ryan Van Winkle he will lead the push to spread the joy of reading throughout the country.

There's a new edition out of Books for Keeps, the online children's book magazine, featuring news, reviews and features on authors such as David Almond, Patrick Ness and Neil Gaiman.

New sites discovered this week include Outside In World - the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children's books in translation - and Picture Books in ELT which has just won the Best English Blog Award from Really Learn English.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Lynne Rickard's work as a Writer-in-Residence in Methil in Fife where she has been collaborating with a group of women to produce a picture-book on healthy eating. In the project's blog, The Methil Makars, this week there is an account of a workshop with Alison Murray, author of Apple Pie ABC. It's an interesting insight into how an illustrator gets from first sketches to finished book.

Last week, I mentioned an exhibition about children's books in New York. Slightly closer to home is the British Library's Picture This exhibition about ten of the most iconic illustrated children's books of the 20th century. The Telegraph lists all ten (my favourite has to be Paddington Bear) and the Guardian also has more information. It's on till 26th January if you happen to be in London before then.

Kirsty's Blog has a piece on drama and children's literature (not new, but I've just spotted it) - Kirsty is a B.Ed (Primary) student in Australia. Here, she writes about the work she did with her class based on Night of the gargoyles by Eve Bunting, and there's a lot more on drama elsewhere in the blog.

The BBC reports on a new survey by the National Literacy Trust which suggests that fewer children across the UK are reading in their own time and one in five is embarrassed to be caught with a book. This is sad for all sorts of reasons, not least the evidence that children who read do better at school and in life - most recently, again from a BBC report, the Institute of Education report found that reading improved performance not only in English but in Maths. Not to finish on a negative note, let's take this full circle and return to Book Week Scotland - a chance to get more children reading and try to increase the two in five in the survey who thought that reading was cool.

That's all for this week! Happy reading.

 

Behind the Bookshelf

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.

Why Patrick Ness is better than Tom Cruise and other miscellany

Well, the snow and the end of term have got in the way of blogging for quite some time, so here are some of the items I'd been meaning to write about all thrown together in an end of year pot pourri. No particular order, but I've put Patrick Ness first because I liked the headline!

Why Patrick Ness is better than Tom Cruise comes from those nice people at Scottish Book Trust who recently took Ness on tour around Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire. Alison, the librarian from Clydebank High School, posted on their blog to talk about the effect of Patrick Ness on her pupils. There's also a video from the tour.

Still with Scottish Book Trust, did you know about their Teachers' Online Bookgroups? There's one each for books for primary and secondary age children, and one for professional development. Each has downloadable material to go with the texts, e.g. for Choke Chain by Jason Donald (a book for secondary children) there are teachers' notes, an interview with the author and a podcast of him reading an extract from the book.

Picture books do still work for kids - an article in October in the New York Times suggested that picture books were no longer a staple as parents tried to push their children towards "chapter books". This has promted responses from both CBS News and Publisher's Weekly - don't write the obit for picture books yet, they say. Certainly not in this Library, where they remain very popular.

Enid Blyton falls out of children's favour is an article in the Telegraph which relates that Blyton has fallen out of the top ten list of children's authors for the first time in decades because youngsters cannot relate to her language. Hmm, we don't stock her anyway because we don't consider her good enough quality (though I read them all when I was growing up and I turned into a librarian, so they can't be that bad!)

If you want quality, Julia Donaldson is a safe bet. An article in the Guardian's Books Blog praises Stick Man as a potential Christmas classic.

Looking for fiction for 10-14s? Look no further than the Literacy Adviser (Bill Boyd, latterly of Learning and Teaching Scotland) - and happily, most of the recommended titles on his long list are in stock here. The rest of the site is worth a look too. I now subscribe to his blog, and after the New Year I hope to create a Blogroll of this and others that I consult regularly.

Another good blog to follow for children's and teenage fiction is Tall Tales & Short Stories. For example, here's an interview with Keith Charters and Graham Watson of Strident Publishing - a Scottish publisher based in East Kilbride, many of whose books we have in our catalogue.

David Almond is a popular, and award-winning, author whose My Dad's a Birdman is now a play - Observer review here. Skellig, of course, was made into a film and we have both book and DVD in stock.

If you like Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Darkness series you might want to listen to her reading from the 6th and final title, Ghost hunter, in a Guardian podcast.

Books for Keeps has started a film-review section. Guess what the first review is? Harry Potter of course!

And finally - the "Books of the year" lists have started coming out. Here are 32 gathered together (not all children's) by SCC English blog and an international collection (all children's) from Chicken Spaghetti.

Season's greetings to everyone. See you in 2011!

Books for Keeps

We've held Books for Keeps in the Library for years. Now you can access it online from http://www.booksforkeeps.co.uk/ - see the whole of the current issue and archived material from previous editions. Books for Keeps was launched in 1980 and has over 12,500 reviews on the website and more than 2,000 articles including interviews with the top children’s authors and illustrators. July 2010's edition includes articles on: nursery rhymes; Beverly Naidoo (whose Journey to Jo'burg is now 25 years old); animator / illustrator Leigh Hodgkinson; Rick Riordan (author of the recently filmed  Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief); and Tom Sawyer (Classics in Short). Plus all the usual news and reviews.

New journal articles

The latest editions of Books for Keeps and Youth Library Review have arrived. They're both jam-packed with interesting articles - find them on the gallery upstairs. Here's an index:

DISABLED CHILDREN
PUTTING disabled children in the picture. (2010). Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 10-11.
Giving disabled children role models in literature.

ELECTRONIC BOOKS
Whitney, N. (2010). Winds of change and the emergence to the m-generation: moving from books, via the web, to apps. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 6-9.

HOOPER, Mary
Eccleshare, J. (2010). Authorgrapgh no 182: Mary Hooper. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 12-13.

ILLUSTRATION
Wyatt, B. (2010). Illustrators and public lending right. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 18-19.

INTERNET RESOURCES
Mynott, D. (2010). Stories from the web. Youth Library Review, 40, pp.16-17.
A reader development site for children and young people: http://www.storiesfromtheweb.org/

MEYER, Stephanie
Tucker, N. (2010). Once bitten: the fang bang fiction of Stephanie Meyer. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 4-5.

POETRY
Styles, M. (2010). Ten of the best poetry books for children. Books for Keeps, 182, pp. 6-7.

PICTURE BOOKS
Browne, A. (2010). Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne on appreciating picture books. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 8.
Evans, J. (2010). Picturebooks are for everyone: children’s thoughts about reading picturebooks. Youth Library Review, 40, pp. 1-5.

TEENAGE NOVELS
Barnes, C. (2010). The catcher in the rye. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 11.
How did J D Salinger’s pioneering creation influence later teen fiction?

WHITE, T H
Alderson, B. (2010). Classics in short no 81: The sword in the stone. Books for Keeps, 182, p. 32.

Books for Keeps

The latest Books for Keeps has just arrived in the library. As well as the usual news and reviews you will find:

Rosemary Stones on the children's books of the decade.
A retrospective on Brian Wildsmith.
Martin Salisbury's top 10 art titles.
An Authorgraph article on Elizabeth Laird.
A Classics in Short feature on Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth.

Well worth checking out.

Books for Keeps

BfK 180 highlighted authors include Anthony Browne, Cressida Cowell (whose How to train your dragon is soon to be a film from the makers of Toy Story and Shrek) and Sharon Creech. Other articles consider the art of paper engineering, multilingual storytelling and AA Milne's classic When we were very young. BfK is in the library now, or check out their recently expanded online presence. Reviews in BfK range from books for the very young to young adults and can be searched by age group. With a full archive of past issues back to 1980, this is a website well worth bookmarking. It’s in beta format and doesn’t appear to have a search function yet, but is very browsable.

Books for Keeps / Classroom

Lots of useful articles in these two publications which have just arrived in the library:

BROWNE, Anthony

Knight, G. (2009). Anthony Browne interviewed. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 18-20.

DAHL, ROALD

Foster, A. (2009). It’s got to be funny: about the Roald Dahl museum. Classroom, no. 9, pp.50-51.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Gibson, M. (2009). The war of the worlds? : classics, comics and ways of thinking about adaptations. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 11-13.

INGPEN, Robert

Hammill, E. (2009). Authorgraph no. 179: Robert Ingpen. Books for Keeps,179, pp. 10-11.

LEAR, Edward

Alderson, B. (2009). Classics in short no. 78: Single-poet collections? How about single genius? Books for Keeps, 179, p. 28.

PICTURE BOOKS

Evans, J. (2009). You can never be too old for picture books: children’s thoughts about reading picture books. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 44-46.

POETRY

Alderson, B. (2009). A conversation about poetry. Books for Keeps,179, pp 8-9.

Blake, J. (2009). “The road less travelled”: migrations songs by Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, George Szirtes, Fleur Adcock, James Berry, Fred D’Aguiar and Michael Schmidt. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 33-35.
Quick guides to six poems about migration by poets living and working in Britain who were born elsewhere.

Kelly, A. & Collins, F. (2009). A poem a day: student teachers and poetry. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 28-29.

STORYTELLING

Lewis, P. (2009). Books aloud. Classroom, no. 9, pp. 55-57.
On the benefits of reading whole books aloud to the class.

TEACHERS

Collins, F. et al. (2009). Developing teachers knowledge of children’s literature: teachers as readers, phase ii. Books For Keeps, 179, pp. 6-7.

Goodwin, P. (2009). Literate classrooms: teachers, readers and books: a consideration of the importance of children’s books in the teaching of reading. Classroom, no.9, pp. 8-10.

Books for Keeps

In Books for Keeps 177 (July 2009), Michael Rosen writes his last "Laureate Log" before handing over as Children's Laureate to Anthony Browne. Michael features in the "Classics in short" slot too, for his book Mind your own business. There's an interesting piece by the English Education team at Roehampton University about their work with student teachers on children's literature, based on their belief that teachers who demonstrate a love of reading have a large impact on their pupils' reading habits. You'll also find articles about board books; prize-winning picture book author Emily Gravett; author of the Chronicles of Darkness series, Michelle Paver, and writer for young adults, Kevin Brooks. Normally, as well as links to their websites, I would give you URLs to find these authors' books in our catalogue but we're changing to an exciting new interface on Monday so they wouldn't work for very long! More on that later.

BfK has, of course, all its usual news and reviews. It's in the library now.

Books for Keeps

The May edition of Books for Keeps is now in the library. It has all the usual reviews and features, including Authorgraph (this month about Kaye Umansky, author of the Pongwiffy books) and Classics in Short (about The very hungry caterpillar, currently celebrating its 40th anniversary - there's an article by Joanna Carey about Eric Carle elsewhere in the magazine). Other highlights include Melvin Burgess on how Dickens provided a source of inspiration for his latest novel, Nicholas Dane, and Caroline Horn on digital developments in children's publishing. I though this was going to be about eBooks, and it does talk about them, but it's more about how authors and publishers are using the digital world to build audiences for new books, engage young readers and communicate directly with them online. (See also my previous post, eBooks- an awfully big adventure?)

Some of the examples in Horn's article I knew about - for instance, readingzone.com and spinebreakers.co.uk are already on our internet links page - but I hadn't heard of www.trappedbymonsters.com/, set up by a group of authors who write, funnily enough, about monsters. The premise is that they planned a get-together where they would write the ultimate book of monster pain and slaughter - but the monsters got to them first! Now they are trapped in a dark, damp cave and forced to blog about brilliant books, post exclusive poems and stories, reveal secret writing tips and more. It looks a lot of fun.

Some new journal articles

Two interesting journals have just come in.

February 2009's EnglishDramaMedia is a special issue on teaching poetry. Articles include Drafting, sharing, hearing, seeing in which Sue Dymoke writes about teaching poetry with ICT, and Poetry Online in which Jean Sprackland and Julie Blake introduce the rich resources of the Poetry Archive. (And don't forget our own poetry page).

Books for Keeps (March 09) has an article by David Wood who has adapted Philippa Pearce's Tom's midnight garden as a stage play. It's regular Authorgraph looks at Terry Deary, and it's Classics in short feature considers Edward Ardizzone's Johnny the clockmaker.

Find them both upstairs on the Serials Gallery.

Books for Keeps January 2009

The new edition has arrived. As usual, it's about 50% reviews, plus regular features such as Windows into Illustration (this month, Helen Oxenbury), Authorgraph (Mal Peet) and Classics in Short (Elizabeth Goudge's Little White Horse). Additional articles of interest are:

Alderson, B. (2009). Print on demand. Books for Keeps, 174, pp. 3-4.
What are the implications for children’s books of this new technology?

Morris, J. (2009). Picture books for everyone. Books for Keeps, 174, pp. 8-9.
Picture books are not just for infants – many are suitable for older children.

Sutcliffe, M. (2009). Forum: helping the teachers of reading. Books for Keeps, 174, p. 13.
Are trainee teachers being helped to find a way to get their pupils to enjoy books? How it is done at Westminster Institute of Education.

Books for Keeps

Issue 173 of Books for Keeps (November 2008) is now out and jammed full of interesting articles and reviews. It starts with a piece by Jill Bennett on "noisy" picture books - not, as I first thought, books with sound effects, but stories with lots of repetition, rhyming and sounds for the children to make. This is intended to provide fun and enjoyment while also paying attention to phonics - all the books she refers to are either in Jordanhill Library already, or soon will be.

Philippa Pearce, author of one of my favourite childrens' books, Tom's midnight garden, died in December 2006, and a series of memorial lectures has been organised. The first was by writer and academic Victor Watson, and a shortened version is published here. He concentrates on Pearce's "word perfect" skills - "every word, every nuance, every detonation and connotation, the sound, shape and melody of every phrase and sentence were considered, tried out and sounded out, and finally approved by a profoundly self-critical and discriminating wordsmith."

In some of the regular features, the "Authorgraph" is about Ralph Steadman, Michael Rosen writes about the death of his father in his Laureate's Log and the "classic in short" is Judith Kerr's Mog, the forgetful cat. This is another favourite - as a cat-lover myself I appreciate the accuracy of Mog's generally loveable gormlessness, and admit to shedding a tear when she finally used up her nine lives in Goodbye Mog. The usual comprehensive, age-defined review pages are complemented this month by a section on ten of the best Christmas books.

Follow the links for Jordanhill Library holdings of books by Philippa Pearce and Judith Kerr.

3 new journals.

The following are now in the library:

Nursery Education PLUS, October 2008. Ideas for working with nursery age children - literature based ones include how to get the most from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's new book Stick Man, and an article on October's National Year of Reading theme, Word of Mouth. There's also a review section of books on the weather.

Child Education PLUS, October 2008. Similar, but for ages 4-7. Literature-related features are on Lauren Child's Spells and Mick Inkpen's Penguin Small. The book reviews feature Christmas.

Books for Keeps, September 2008. Mick Inkpen features again, as do Anne Cassidy and Peter Dickinson. Julia Jarman writes on translating story into film and Harriet Dombey explains the thinking behind Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain. (Harper, 2007). (At Jordanhill, this is shelved at D612.82 WOL). As always, there are several pages of reviews for all ages from pre-school to young adult. And don't forget, Books for Keeps has its own website.

Books for Keeps

The July 2008 edition of Books for Keeps is now available. Contents include:

• James Mayhew on his "Katie" picture books which aim to introduce children to art through stories.
• A contribution by Caroline Horn to the debate on publishing age guidance on books.
• An article by Joanna Carey on the Booktrust's campaign, The Big Picture, to promote picture books. As part of this, it has named the top 10 rising talents in illustration - these include Oliver Jeffers, Polly Dunbar and Emily Gravett.
• A discussion of children's literature in the Second World War.
• An interview with Jerry Spinelli, author of the Stargirl books.
• "Classics in short" - Just William.

There are also lots of shorter articles and reviews of the latest titles for children.

Books for Keeps / Teen Titles

Books for Keeps (issue 170) and Teen Titles (issue 41) are now available. Highlights of Books for Keeps include an article by Beverley Naidoo on the KidsLibs Trust Kenya, a look by Julia Eccleshare at the Branford Boase Award for first novels, and an interview with Frank Cottrell Boyce. The series on reading in the middle years (9-11) concludes by considering inclusion. Teen Titles has interviews with several authors including Keith Charters and David Clement-Davies, all conducted by teenagers themselves. Find these journals on the Serials Gallery of Jordanhill Library.

Books for Keeps

The January 2008 edition of Books for Keeps has hit the library bookshelves. We subscribe to this bi-monthly journal, but you can also read a lot of the content online. It's full of reviews, interesting articles and regular features such as the "Authorgraph", an interview with a leading children's author or illustrator. Here are the highlights from this edition:

GRINDLEY, SALLY

Barnes, C. (2008). Authorgraph no 168 : Sally Grindlay. Books for Keeps, 168, pp. 12-13.

NON-FICTION

Maile, S. (2008). Reading in the middle years (9-11) : texts and choices : reading non-fiction in the middle years. Books for Keeps, 168, pp. 6-7.

PUBLISHING

Horn, C. (2008). Ethical book production. Books for Keeps, 168, pp. 3-5.
Are children’s publishers green?

STORY TELLING

Philip, N. (2008). Why do we really tell stories? Books for Keeps, 168, pp. 10-11.
Is plot really the essence of storytelling?

TEACHERS

Cremin, T., Bearne, E., Goodwin, P., & Mottram, M. (2008). Teachers as readers. Books for Keeps, 168, pp. 8-9.
How much do teachers know about children’s literature? A survey by UKLA Children’s Literature Special Interest Group.

UTTLEY, ALISON

Alderson, B. (2008). Classics in short no 67 : “That brave company of shadows” surrounding A traveller in time. Books for Keeps, 168, p. 28.