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I Am Not My Disability: Outstanding Books For and About Young People with Disabilities

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How will you be celebrating this Saturday February 14th?  Some see it as a chance to demonstrate the most romantic of gestures, showering their special ones with gifts of affection. Others only need to show an act of kindness to prove they care. Either way, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, International Book Giving Day or Library […]

We think it's so fun that one of our all-time favorite Christmas books is our best selling picture book from our affiliate store this month—we just love Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's Stick Man. As per usual, we've shared our hand selected titles of the most popular picture books from the nationwide best selling picture books, as listed by The New York Times.

• ISBN-13: 9780803726574
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Pages: 32
• Age range: 4 - 8 Years

With pretty much all clock-watching abandoned for the summer holidays we’ve been sneaking reading into unusual places. First we boosted breakfast feasting on books with our toast rack displays, and since then we’ve been squeezing in extra reading at the other end of the day – at bathtime. When the kids were little we were big fans of the plastic books you could immerse in water but now we tend to have a stack of comics and magazines (for all ages) on hand in a magazine rack.

It doesn’t matter so much if comics and magazines get wet – a short spell on the washing line or a radiator fixes that, and if they end up really too wrinkled and dog-eared for reading, they’re ripe for recycling as collage material.

Of course, another way to enjoy reading at bath time is simply to sit on the floor and read a favourite book to your kids whilst they can’t escape from the tub, and what better than a bath-time themed book for such an occasion (Scottish Book Trust has some great recommendations here)?

When news of a flying bathtub which saves animals in distress reached our ears we had to check it out…

In The Flying Bath by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by David Roberts there’s a hotline to a team of firefighting, thirst-quenching, mud-washing pals who use their bath to fly the world over, saving animals who have come unstuck thanks to a lack of water.

As you’d expect from Donaldson, the superhero antics are told in rhyme, with a refrain which kids will quickly sing-song along with. Roberts’ illustrations are detailed and have an older feel to them especially when compared to some of the other illustrators Donaldson is often paired with. I personally love his eye for pattern and texture. His architectural drawings are beautiful in their clarity and precision, and Roberts has had enormous fun with the choice of telephones used to dial 999.

Despite all this, I have to admit that this isn’t a book I’ve fallen madly in love with. I found Donaldson’s text requires a little practise to read out loud (a surprise, given that normally her poems-in-picture-book form trip off the tongue). This makes me too aware of the technicalities of the rhyme to simple enjoy the ride with the rescuing animals. And the text is more a series of flights of fancy rather than an extended narrative with a traditional story arc.

HOWEVER.

However, however, both my kids thought this book rather delightful and funny, and had a lot of fun spotting nods to other books Roberts has illustrated. Indeed my kids enjoyed this book so much they immediately came up with an idea for ‘playing by the book’ by creating a bathtime mosaic set, mirroring the tiled wings of the flying bath.

We grabbed a bunch of foam sheets (such as these) and cut them up into squares before letting them loose in the bath.

The kids loved having the tiles floating all around them – it was like “bathing in a rainbow” said J! Both kids enjoyed making different tiled patterns around the bath, exploring repetition – a visual rhythm, if you like!

Whilst it turns out this book was great for maths play, it’s also a book that could be used in science classes for kids in nursery and the first years of school, gently exploring drought, forest fires, and the need for water for life (both for animals and plants). You could team it up with some research about water charities, for example Waterbridge Outreach.

I’m a supporter of this particular charity because it aims “to give children in developing communities hope for the future through nourishing their minds and bodies with books and water.”

Yep, water and books. A good combo, no?

Waterbridge Outreach donates books in English and local languages and funds clean water and sanitation projects in communities and villages in the developing world. You can read about some of their projects here.

So it turns out that even if a book isn’t the best thing I’ve read all year, there’s still a lot to be said for it. It can inspire play, it can make children laugh, it can start conversations, it can even lead to a good deed or two!

If you want music to go along with reading The Flying Bath you could try these songs:

For more extension activities which work well with this book why not try:

Are you a bath or a shower person? Do you have a bathroom library?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of The Flying Bath from the publishers.

In Julia Donaldson‘s latest children’s book The Scarecrow’s Wedding, the villain is a scarecrow named Reginald Rake and he smokes cigars.

The book is aimed at toddlers and a number of parents have complained about this story line in Amazon reviews. “Why on earth would a children’s book contain even the idea of smoking! Disgusting!,” complained one reviewer.

“Even though it makes the point that smoking is a bad idea, it makes me really uncomfortable to see any depiction of it in a children’s book,” wrote another.

“It feels like Julia is trying to get across an anti-smoking message (really? Do two year olds need this?!) but it just comes off as inappropriate and out of place,” said another. “Now my three year old is asking for cigars and a ‘smoke puffer’.”

Donaldson defended the story, pointing out the context of the behavior. “Reginald Rake is a villain who smokes a cigar and it is made clear that smoking is bad for you,” she told The Guardian.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I commented recently on the Further Adventures of the The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Julia Donaldson and Charlotte Voake. Donaldson’s ineffable lyrical style does indeed take Edward Lear’s nonsense tale one step further and is a jolly expedition for the reader to navigate through. As you’d expect, it’s a very good picture book. Then I found an even better one.

With ute-fulls of respect to Donaldson and Voake, Jackie Hosking’s and Marjorie Crosby-Fairall’s debut creation of The Croc and The Platypus is a very, very good picture book.

Fans of Lear’s will relish the lilting musical quality of Hosking’s verse as she transports us as effortlessly as Julia Donaldson through the Australian outback with as an incongruous couple as the Owl and Pussycat; Croc and Platypus.

Hosking is spot on with this ingenious retelling of a childhood classic however, somehow makes it feel much more loose and flowing and bizarrely, even easier to read than the original. Her narrative sings with a down-to-earth gritty realism but is delivered with Lear’s same congenial, nonsensical joie de vive. Hub caps ring and didgeridoos blow as Platypus and Croc ‘play up a hullabaloo…baloo.’

I love Hosking’s incorporation of recognisable Aussie icons; Uluru, tea and damper and lamingtons to name a few as Croc and Platypus trundle across the plains eventually camping under the Southern Cross after cleverly procuring their tent. For those not so familiar with ‘click go the shears’ terminology, there’s even a neat little glossary.

Extra applause must go to Marjorie Crosby-Fairall for her truly epic acrylic and pencilled illustrations. The outback is vast and engulfing as are the illustrations of this picture book with gorgeously generous helpings of full colour, movement and sparkle on every single page.

Hosking’s appreciation of, commitment to and finesse with the rhyming word are self-evident. She works them all to perfection in this richly Aussie-flavoured celebration about embracing unlikely friendships and sharing stellar moments with those closest to you whilst enjoying a good old Aussie road trip.

The Croc and the Platypus has every reason to glow proudly alongside The Owl and the Pussycat, and dare I suggest outshine it.

Discover and rediscover all three books here. For those in Sydney around early July, make sure you don’t miss Jackie’s launch of The Croc and the Platypus.

Walker Books Australia June 2014

This month, I’ve taken part in NaPoWriMo14: National Poetry Writing Month 2014. I’ve faithfully written a piece of poetry every day, though I haven’t actually gone public with any of it. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to inflict any on you here either.)

Why did I want to do NaPoWriMo? I’m a far-too-busy prose writer, with deadlines to meet and children to look after (when I remember), so why take on another creative responsibility?

Because I thought challenging myself to try something new as a writer would be interesting, and possibly even useful.

I already knew I wasn’t a poet. I was put off poetry at school (yes, just like everyone else) so I don’t read poetry very often, and I never attempt to write it. I do write riddles, because my Fabled Beasts adventure series contains lots of magical creatures and characters who use riddles as clues, tools or weapons, but I think of riddles as verbal puzzles than poetry.

And NaPoWriMo14 has certainly confirmed that I’m not a poet.

I did enjoy writing the poems, I did manage at least one a day, and it was fascinating discovering that the subjects I wanted to consider in poetic form were very different from the subjects I’m drawn to examine in fiction. (Observation rather than question, emotion rather than thought, location rather than journey.)

However, the most important thing I discovered is that I don’t like rhyming.

This week I've been staying with my son and his family in Brussels, One of the very many nice things about doing this is that I get the opportunity to read lots of new books. It starts on the journey over there. I travel from Bristol to London by train or bus, and then usually on the Eurostar, so there's plenty of time to read, and my Kindle allows me to take a good supply of books along with me. This time I finished the second book of The Flaxfield Quartet by Toby Forward, which is a fantasy about wizards (but not at all like Harry Potter). It's very good, and I'll be reviewing it soon over on Abba Reviews. Then I began The Storm Bottle, an unusual adventure story set in Bermuda, by fellow SAS author Nick Green, who knows so much about dolphins that I suspect he may have been one in another life. I'll finish that later today on the journey back.

Then I have a treat in store - Mary Hoffman's David, which is about the model for Michelangelo's famous statue. Mary Hoffman is another SAS person, and I first heard about this book when she talked about it at an SAS conference, just before it was published a few years ago. I've been meaning to read it ever since, and now the right moment has arrived: yesterday, I went to an exhibition in Brussels about Leonardo da Vinci, with my son and eldest grandson, Oskar. There were models of many of Leonardo's inventions - here's Oskar trying one out - and a film about his life and about the re-creation of some of his designs: notably an early parachute which an English adventurer with a gleam in his eye decided to try out - and survived to tell the tale! Anyway, there were hints of a not-very-friendly rivalry between Leonardo and the much younger Michelangelo, so I'm hoping Mary might have something to say about that. Even if she doesn't, I just want a pass into the world of fifteenth century Italy, and I know her book will give me that. 

Richard and Joanna are great readers, so there are usually lots unfamiliar books for me to read here - though nowadays Richard mostly uses his Kindle: apart from the convenience, it's much cheaper to buy English books in Belgium that way. Still, I was able to read Ian Rankin's latest, Standing In Another Man's Grave, in which crotchety detective Rebus makes a welcome return from retirement, and also a book called Train Dreams, by an American writer called Denis Johnson. I'd never come across this author before. The book, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, is very short (only 116 small pages), but it packs quite a punch without wasting a word. It's about an ordinary man, Robert Grainier, living in rural America in the first half of the 20th century, and it reveals how the extraordinary can be found inside the apparently ordinary: Robert is an unassuming, kindly man who endures some terrible things, and just keeps on. Despite being so short, it somehow manages to have an epic sweep.

Joanna is Polish, and she lent me a book of poetry by a poet called Wislawa Szymborska, called Tutaj/Here. The poet was 85 when this book was published, but her quiet, ironic, amused voice is ageless. I particularly liked a poem called Thoughts That Visit Me on a Busy Street, which ponders the possibility that Nature recycles faces: 

These passersby might be Archimedes in jeans
Catherine the Great draped in resale,
some pharoah with briefcase and glasses.

Then there are the books I read with my grandchildren. Oskar has been 'doing' Julia Donaldson at school, so we read several of hers, and also a book I'd taken over for him - Vivian French's Hedgehogs Don't Eat Hamburgers, which is a rhythmic, funny delight. Casper is only sixteen months old, but he already has his favourites: Rod Campbell's flap book, Dear Zoo, an Usborne nursery rhyme book which plays the tunes, and two French board books which he knows will play sounds if he presses a finger in the right spot. I took him a book by Jack Tickle called The Very Silly Sheep, which has brilliantly engineered pop-up animals. Casper loves it, as you can see, but I'm not sure how long it will survive intact!

This is my last post for the time being; I decided it was time to stand aside for a while. You'll see some exciting new blogsters joining us over the next month, namely Damian Harvey, Lari Don, Saviour Pirotta and Anna Wilson. I'll continue to review over on ABBA Reviews, and to post on The History Girls. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you over there!

www.suepurkiss.com

If you were invited to design a school library launch, how would you go about it? What events would you want to facilitate? Who would you want to involve?

These questions have been very much on my mind since the start of the year, for designing and delivering a school library launch is exactly what I have been asked to do by a local infant school. Can you imagine how excited I feel?

It’s an honour to be asked and trusted by the school to design a whole day of activities and I’ve loved every minute of it so far. Library Launch day is February 12th and now we’re counting down the days…

With apologies to NASA, whose original image I’ve modified.

Having got to the stage where I’ve everything prepped and in place, I wanted to share my plans and resources with you as many of them are easily replicable in families, in classrooms, in clubs, anywhere would you might like to help young children and their families get excited about books. And with World Book Day coming up next month, you could take any of these ideas and use them to celebrate perhaps my favourite day of the year

Today I’ll share the activities the 3-5 year olds will be getting up to, and next week I’ll share the session plans for Year 1 (5-6 year olds) and Year 2 (6-7 year olds), although I believe many of the activities could be adapted to work with children of any age.

We were keen to get as many children into the new library during the day as possible so each class of 3-5 year olds will spend one session going on a treasure hunt for book characters in the library. The basis of this session with be Katie Cleminson’s Otto the Book Bear, in which a bear in a book steps off the pages and into real life. Having read the book, kids (in pairs) will be given a treasure card to identify which books and book characters they need to find in the library.

Some of the sheets of cards kids will be given so they know which characters to hunt for in the library

No doubt 30 kids hunting 30 soft toys is going to be quite chaotic! Once all the characters are found, the session will finish with a reading of one of the books found by the kids during the session.

A couple of trips to charity shops resulted in a good number of soft toys that either were actual book characters (for example I found Paddington Bear, Pooh, and Poppy Cat without even really looking), then I raided my kids’ soft toys and chose ones which matched (near enough) great books. So, for example, I am borrowing a soft toy squirrel and teaming it up with A First Book of Nature, by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Mark Hearld.

I supplemented these with a few extra official character soft toys (who wouldn’t love the excuse to get a Mog cat or Tiger who came tea toy?). Castlemere Books, based in the US, is the most comprehensive site I found for official book character soft toys, though I didn’t end up using them because of shipping costs to the UK.

Some of the characters kids will be searching for in the library!

On returning to their classrooms the kids will paint/colour their own bookshelves and Otto the bear. You can download the shelves here and the bear here.

The second session will be based around Lulu loves Stories by Anna McQuinn and Rosalind Beardshaw (follow the link to read it for free online). This is a gentle story about a child who is taken to the library every Saturday by her father. Each book they read together inspires different sorts of play, from being on a farm (having read about Old Macdonald) to making a pretend aeroplane (having read a story about going on an adventure).

Each table in the classroom will be set up with a different activity taken from Lulu Loves Stories: there will be one with princess dressing up, one with farm animals and one with construction toys. A fourth table will be set up for each child to create their own library to take home, by selecting and gluing lots of images of children’s book covers onto these shelves.

I’ve spent a fair few evenings cutting up old publishers’ catalogues to create enough “library stock”, but other than time in preparation, this activity has been very cheap to prepare with many publishers willing to send catalogues upon request. (If you were working with older kids you could simply give them the catalogues and ask them to do some fantasy shopping – seeing what books they themselves would chose for their library would no doubt be very informative.)

On a fifth table children will be able to cut out Lulu bookplates. These are available as part of an activity guide on the US publisher’s website. Don’t be confused by the name change – Lulu (in the UK) becomes known as Lola (in the US), but this doesn’t affect the bookplates.

This session will be rounded off by reading Lulu reads to Zeki also by Anna McQuinn and Rosalind Beardshaw, which is a simply delightful (and funny) window into a later stage in Lulu’s life;she now has a younger brother, and is passing on the love of books her father instilled in her to little Zeki, reading to him whenever possible.

The third session for the 3-5 year olds will open with a reading of I Love My Little Story Book by Anita Jeram, which is all about the delights you can find inside different books, and the various places they can transport you to.

Each child will have the opportunity to make their own bunny which comes with a hidden story book of its own. It’s a simple collage activity to make the bunny out of an envelope, a pompom, some dried spaghetti, googly eyes and cardboard ears, all stuck on to an envelope, inside which each child will find a blank mini book (blue to match the one in the story). Kids will be encouraged to make the story book their own with whatever mark-making they like.

The mini books are each made from a sheet of A4 paper, using this technique, my favourite way of making small paper books as it requires no sticking or stapling.

As well as there being tables set up with fairy tale activities (castles and knights to play with, dressing up, plastic animals in a forest play scene) kids will also be able to colour in and cut out several book plates designed by Anita Jeram.

These are all available to freely download (as long as you’re not using them for commercial purposes) from this brilliant website, http://www.myhomelibrary.org/, created by former Children’s Laureate, Anne Fine.

If time allows a reading of I like books by Anthony Browne will finish off this session. This is a very simple introduction to different types of books with just one sentence on each page. It’s a great reminder that there are all different sorts of books you can enjoy reading, not just story books.

The fourth session of the day will be based around an all time classic, Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Once the story has been shared, each child will be given their own cardboard treasure chest to embellish with sticky jewels. I sourced some great treasure chests (from http://www.littlecraftybugs.co.uk/) so large that kids will be able to store favourite books inside them.

Elsewhere in the classroom during this session kids will have the opportunity to dig for buried treasure in a sandpit, make aliens out of green playdough, and play with plastic dragons, as well as the chance to colour in this Charlie Cook sheet which you can download from the official Gruffalo website, or to draw their favourite book on this Charlie Cook activity sheet from the US Scholastic website.

This session will be wrapped up with a reading of We are in a book by Mo Willems – a perfect book for this age range where the oldest kids may well be able to join in with reading this funny story about what characters in a book think about their readers.

And as well as all of this, all classes will have a session with the award winning author who is coming to join the school for the day… but more about this in a later post!

I’m still gathering my thoughts from the wonderful experience that was the IBBY Congress in London Thursday to Sunday 23-26 August.  Four days of inspirational speakers and meeting kindred spirits from all over the world.  I’ve now added a selection of photographs to our Flickr – you can see them here.  I haven’t quite finished tagging and describing yet, but I’m getting there… and here is a smaller selection for you to enjoy on the blog – again, I’ve numbered them so that I can come back and label them!

A London children’s theatre company Theatre Peckham helped the Opening Ceremony go with a swing with their delightful performance of an extract from the theatre adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Then fuelled with a piece of Wally’s delicious 25th birthday cake (but where was he?  Answer: everywhere, in the guise of the very game Imperial College staff!), we headed back to the auditorium for our first plenary session – and what a line up!  Three UK Children’s Laureates – the current reigning Julia Donaldson and two of her predeceesors, Michael Morpurgo and Anthony Browne.

Each spoke about what particular passions they had brought to their role as laureate: Michael  described how he and poet Ted Hughes had first come up with the idea, and how Hughes had been instrumental in making it all happen; Anthony played the ‘shape game’ and showed how it appears everywhere in his work and outside it; and Julia talked of the three areas close to her heart: enhancing children’s experience of reading through drama; keeping libraries open (a big issue in the UK); and promoting stories for and about deaf children.

Julia and her husband Malcolm, on guitar, then showcased some examples of what theatre can do to enhance literacy, from the chorus of a very fast Italian pasta song written while on holiday in Siena, Italy, to a virtuoso performance of The Gruffalo in French, German and (its most recent language) Scots.  In between, we were treated to the song that inspired Julia’s book A Squash and a Squeeze with audience participation… and I say treated, well, it was a real treat for me as I got to be the hen!  Thanks to Australian author Susanne Gervay (yes, that was one of my top thrills of IBBY, meeting Susanne in person…), you will shortly be able to see it on Flickr too – don’t laugh too much!!

Well, that was just the first few hours of the Congress – I will certainly be writing more about it over the coming weeks.  In the meantime, hello to all those PaperTigers friends I got to meet for the first time in real life – Shirin Adl, Candy Gourlay, Dashdondog Jamba; and to old friends and new.  I’ll now be dreaming of IBBY Mexico 2014…  In the meantime, head on over to Flickr and enjoy my photos – and much better ones on the official IBBY Congress 2012′s photostream.

Julia Donaldson is one of the UK’s most popular children’s authors. As I learned in the new exhibition at at Seven Stories in Newcastle, UK , she started her career writing songs for children’s television – which I must have heard as a child watching Play School. In 1993, one of those songs was made into a book, A Squash and A Squeeze, and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, so beginning a partnership that has become renowned the world over, thanks especially to their book The Gruffalo.  Other illustrators who have worked with Julia include Karen George, Emily Gravett, Lydia Monks, David Roberts and Nick Sharratt.  Indeed, since 1993, Julia has written over one hundred books and plays for children and teenagers.

Last year, Julia became the UK’s Children’s Laureate. This year, there is the exhibition about her, her work and some of her illustrators and I not only had the good fortune to be there for yesterday’s opening, but also the privilege of a quick interview (you can read my post about the whole day here).  I had time for just three questions…

First of all I asked about the background to her book The Magic Paintbrush, which I wrote a post about  going on five (gulp) years ago… Rereading that post, yes, it’s still a favorite, which is why it wasn’t the book I took with me to ask Julia to sign: I didn’t have time to go through all the various piles of books in my boys’ rooms to find it!   The Magic Paintbrush is the retelling in verse of a Chinese legend in which the heroine Shen helps her fellow villagers with food and essentials thanks to a magic paintbrush given to her by a mysterious gentleman: but things get dangerous for Shen when the Emperor finds out about the magic paintbrush and wants it for himself…

So, about the book’s background, Julia told me that a friend of hers had been running a multicultural project in Stirling, Scotland, with local women from different countries telling traditional stories from their cultures. One woman told the story of The Magic Paintbrush. After hearing the story, Julia originally envisaged writing it as a play, and in fact, often uses the book during school visits as there’s plenty of scope for getting a whole class involved in acting out the story, with Julia herself playing  Shen and the teacher as the Wicked Emperor! And it’s also a great vehicle for Julia to pass on her passion for language as she invites children to come up with objects for Shen to paint and thereby make real – as long as they have two syllables to fit the rhythm of the original verse. Interestingly, Julia also acted The Magic Paintbrush out with children last year at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh to promote two resource packs for schools produced by Amnesty International (you can

I had an amazing day yesterday at the opening of the latest exhibition at Seven Stories in Newcastle, UK: A Squash and a Squeeze: Sharing Stories with Julia Donaldson.

The exhibition is a glorious extravaganza where fans of Julia‘s books will be able to revel in the worlds of all their favorite characters. Each section takes you into one of her books and as always at Seven Stories, there’s something for everyone – plenty of interactive activities to absorb the youngest visitor while older children and the grown-ups revel in the archival material such as Julia’s notebooks and the original artwork on display. There are buttons at toddler height; lots of opportunities for dressing up; and a house full of animals to get squashed and squeezed in. There’s a monster-sized Gruffalo and even a gruffalo stage with lots of costumes, and a juke box playing Julia’s songs – I think that’s one of Julia’s favourite displays.  It is very special to see so much original artwork by her illustrators: Axel Scheffler of course, and also Karen George, Emily Gravett, Lydia Monks, David Roberts and Nick Sharratt (who also figures prominently in Seven Stories other current exhibition about Jacqueline Wilson). One of my favorite bits is a  letter from Julia to her publisher about Room on the Broom, which was and is my dad’s favorite book to read to my two.  In it Julia asks for the witch to look more scatty as she’s come to realise the witch is based on her as far as putting things down and not remembering where she’s put them!  Another gem is the film entitled The Gruffalo’s Mum, a mini-documentary about Julia, with a specially written poem that she enacts to takes us through her day, with a few surprises along the way. I don’t think you can say “typical day” for Julia…

As Julia said in her speech to declare the exhibition open, she is “thrilled that it encapsulates some of my themes as Children’s Laureate” – namely music, drama and making stories accessible to deaf children. For Bessie-Belle, the partially deaf fairy in Julia’s Freddie and the Fairy guides visitors through the exhibition; Seven Stories has worked with ITV Signed Stories to produce signed films of some of the stories profiled; and visitors can learn to handsign book titles and key words from the stories.

Here’s a selection of photos from the day.  The good ones, with an asterisk, are kindly provided by Seven Stories.

I paused on my drive north for a coffee at the lovely White Rose Books in Thirsk and lo and behold, was straight into the Gruffalo theme…

First stop at Seven Stories: their bookshop…

One of

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: October 12, 2011

Looking for some spooky good reads this Halloween? Below is our family’s list of all-time favorites. Have a Happy Halloween!

A cautionary tale from 1829 The Spider and the Fly will capture your children’s imagination. Tony DiTerlizzi spins a masterful retelling of Mary Howitt’s poetic fable with his perversely charming pictures. It’s such fun and best read with a wicked voice… Ba ha ha ha ha! (Ages 6-9)

Humbug Witch is a little witch who can’t quite fly her broom or make her cauldron boil and bubble, but Lorna Balian’s surprise ending will delight your little ones. (Ages 3-8)

Diane Goode’s Book of Scary Stories & Songs is a fabulous collection of old folktales, poems, and songs that will either send a shiver down your spine or make you laugh out loud. Goode’s playful illustrations bring old favorites back to life like “The Ghost of John” and “The Green Ribbon.” (Ages 5-8)

From the creators of The Gruffalo, zooms Room on the Broom. Julia Donaldson tells the story of this enterprising witch and cat. Young children will become bewitched by the rhyme and have a silly time. (Ages 4-8)

The Witches’ Supermarket is a terribly clever book for ages 4-8 who will enjoy being one step ahead of the little girl in disguise who shops for all manner of shocking grocery items (like apples with worms and shake n’ bake snake) with her faithful dog. (Ages 5-8)

Ghosts in the House become repurposed by the new owner as lovely curtains, tablecloths and comforters. Decorating her cozy home with Kazuno Kaharo’s simple yet charming illustrations, kids might just want to move in. (Ages 3-6)

You’ll probably have to check your local library for copies of Adrienne Adams classic Halloween books

Authors Kate Atkinson and Julia Donaldson have been awarded MBEs in this year's Birthday Honours List.

Transworld author Atkinson and newly-appointed children's laureate Donaldson were both recognised by the Queen, with the list of those honoured released on Saturday. 

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The Gruffalo, a beloved children’s picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, has hit the silver screen.

The Gruffalo

A Magic Light Pictures Production in Germany brought The Gruffalo to life. In fact, The Gruffalo was nominated in the Best Visual Short Film (Animated) category at The 83rd Annual Academy Awards held this past Sunday. Here’s a trailer:

In my opinion, A Magic Light Pictures Production got it right. And let me tell you, I don’t say that very often.

Ten days ago I reported on the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Book Award Presentation, which took place at Seven Stories, The Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle, UK – and I definitely want to tell you more about this wonderful place! We’re lucky – we live reasonably close to Newcastle, though far enough away that it took us a few years of living here to get ourselves there, which we did in the last school-holidays. I now know that the path will start to become a well-travelled one…

The name of Seven Stories not only refers to the axiom that there are but seven stories in the world told in an infinite variety of ways, but is also played out in the Centre’s daily life: it is housed in a seven storey building that is open seven days a week for a seven hours a day.

The late-nineteenth-century building was originally a mill warehouse. Many original features have been restored and the interior spaces have been designed with imagination and children in mind. The criss-cross of original beams in the top-floor room, beautiful to behold, also gives you a start, as you realise that there is a weird, curvy beam, winding its way through all the other beams – what structural use can it possibly be? Aaah – it is a bookshelf! And as it snakes its way down almost to floor-level, it houses enough copies of Julia Donaldson’s Playtime! for young visitors (and older ones too!) to come together and put on a play in the theatre corner, with the help of a sumptuous array of costumes. These include Donaldson’s and Axel Sheffler’s creation, the Gruffalo and the Mouse (and by the way, read this lovely interview with Julia Donaldson by Vulpis Libris - Part 1 and Part 2). Under this panoply of beams are also to be found a story-teller’s area complete with its exuberant throne, and a vast selection of books for a family storytime.

The current exhibitions are All Aboard, Away We Go! and From Toad Hall to Pooh Corner – both a feast for the eyes, ears and hands, and each with its own beautifully produced interactive trail. During our family visit, we chanted Mrs Armitage’s Mantra (“What we need, what we really need…”) and flew a plane while marvelling at Robert Crowther’s intricate paper-engineering from his book Flight. We discovered new-to-us old stories, like The Little Train, ostensibly by Dorothy Craigie but really written by Graham Greene and illustrated by Dorothy Glover (read this great post from Bear Alley for the full story…). We toot-tooted our way to (imaginary!) destruction in Toad’s car and, the highlight for me, we gazed on original’s of Robert Ingpen’s beautiful illustrations for Wind in the Willows, then looked at them in the book, while listening to the appropriate extract, seated in a replica, from the illustration, of Badger’s kitchen. Perfect!

I was astounded, when speaking to Lynda Jackson, Seven Stories’ Exhibitions Curator, to discover that these exhibitions are not permanent but usually run for about eighteen months – and the really good news is that they can tour elsewhere after their space in Newcastle has been taken over by something else… And I was given a sneak preview of what the next something else, From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Mog and Pink Rabbit: A Judith Kerr Retrospective, will look like. So we’ll definitely be going back in September and I’ll tell you all about it!

In the meantime, I’ll be posting again soon about Seven Stories, with a closer look at its background and its role as a keeper of British children’s books, not to mention its superb children’s bookshop.