Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2011

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

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

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?

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

"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

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

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.