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 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.

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.

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.