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Branford Boase Award – SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR 2020!

I am SO excited to share the Branford Boase Book Award Shortlist for 2020! Not least because I am on the judging panel this year and it has been the most brilliant experience but challenging too, because the quality of books on the longlist was outstanding. However, myself and my brilliant fellow judges – Sue Bastone, vice-chair SLA; Layla Hudson of Round Table Books, Brixton; and Muhammad Khan, author of I Am Thunder, winner of the 2019 Branford Boase along with panel chair, Julia Eccleshare, children’s director of the Hay Festival, deliberated and discussed all the wonderful books and we are delighted with the hugely impressive final shortlist:

Little Badman and the Invasion of the Killer Aunties by Humza Arshad and
Henry White, edited by Holly Harris and Sharan Matharu, illus Aleksei Bitskoff (Puffin)

The Space We’re In by Katya Balen, edited by Lucy Mackay-Sim, illus Laura Carlin
(Bloomsbury)
A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby, edited by Liz Bankes and Sarah Levison
(Egmont)

Bearmouth by Liz Hyder, edited by Sarah Odedina (Pushkin Press)

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, edited by Lindsey Heaven
(Electric Monkey)
Frostheart by Jamie Littler, edited by Naomi Colthurst (Puffin)
The Million Pieces of Neena Gill by Emma Smith-Barton, edited by Naomi
Colthurst (Penguin)

Congratulations to all the authors and editors who have created such memorable stories!

Since 2000, the Branford Boase has been awarded annually to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children. Uniquely, it also honours the editor of the winning title and highlights the importance of the editor in nurturing new talent. The Award is the joint idea of Julia Eccleshare and Anne Marley. Julia is chair of PLR and director of the Hay Festival children’s programme. Anne was a co-director of Authors Aloud UK and was Head of Children’s, Youth & Schools Services for Hampshire Library & Information Service for many years. Founded to commemorate author Henrietta Branford and influential Walker Books editor Wendy Boase, the Branford Boase Award is recognised as one of the most important awards in children’s books with an impressive record in identifying outstanding authors at the start of their careers. Winners and shortlisted authors include Siobhan Dowd, Meg Rosoff, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Frances Hardinge, Patrick Ness and Marcus Sedgwick. Since starting The Book Activist, I have supported the award through my blog and have been absolutely honoured to participate on the judging panel this year!

Julia Eccleshare, one of the founders of award and chair of the judges says: “In
highlighting the most exciting new authors and the most talented editors, the Branford Boase Award also identifies the preoccupations and strengths of current children’s literature and we are pleased to say that this year’s shortlist is particularly rich and diverse. Here are extremely powerful, challenging stories tackling complex issues alongside funny, exciting, original fiction; the range of voices represented is unparalleled in the award’s history. We are excited not only about the books on the shortlist, but about what their authors will write next too.”

You can read the judges comments here. The winner of the Branford Boase Award would normally be announced at a ceremony in London in early July. This year the announcement of the winner has been delayed until 24th September. The winning author receives a cheque for £1,000 and both author and editor receive an inscribed crystal plaque.

For further information about the Award contact Andrea Reece on andrea.reece@zen.co.uk

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A.F. Harrold at the Bookchat Roadshow!

Helping parents and carers encourage their children’s reading and creative writing for pleasure.

The brilliant poet, performer and writer of children’s fiction A.F. Harrold is joining the line-up at the Bookchat Roadshow!

This event is especially for parents and carers to help them encourage their children’s reading and creative writing, and I am so excited A. F. Harrold is going to share his amazing imagination with all those attending.

He has written numerous wonderful books for children including the Fizzlebert Stump (illustrated by Sarah Horne) series – a particular favourite of mine to read aloud in the library! The first Fizzlebert Stump book was chosen as 2017’s Young City Reads book in Brighton and Hove. He has also written thought-provoking books such as The Imaginary (illustrated by Emily Gravett, longlisted for both the Carnegie and Greenaway Awards 2016)) and The Song From Somewhere Else (illustrated by Levi Pinfold). His children’s poetry collection, Things You Find In A Poet’s Beard is illustrated by Chris Riddell. His new book, Greta Zargo and the Death Robots from Outer Space (illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton) comes out in September.

A.F. Harrold will be participating in the author panel bookchat and sharing his experiences as a writer and thoughts on reading and creativity – and maybe even a line of a poem or two!! He says:

“I’m very pleased to be taking part in the Roadshow, because I like to read and I liked to read when I was younger too, and sometimes it’s nice to share those things that make you happy. In this day and age the empathy and other-person’s-shoe-ness that reading, both fiction and non-fiction, can help nurture and grow inside a human heart cannot be a bad thing to encourage, so let’s encourage it.”

The Bookchat Roadshow is an event designed especially for parents and carers bringing together authors, industry experts and people passionate about children’s reading and writing for pleasure. With inspirational talks and an author panel bookchat, plus a selection of exhibitors, we give parents and carers a huge range of ideas to help them support their children. The next event takes place on 20th July 2017 at Harlands Primary School, Haywards Heath, West Sussex. Read all about our last event here.

For more information about the Bookchat Roadshow visit www.thebookactivist.com.

Nikki Sheehan at the Bookchat Roadshow!

Helping parents and carers encourage their children’s reading and creative writing for pleasure.

I’m so excited to tell you that the wonderful Nikki Sheehan is participating in the Bookchat Roadshow on 20th July 2017!

Nikki is author of Swan Boy, recently nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017 and Who Framed Klaris Cliff ?. Her next novel Goodnight Boy, is due to be published in July and is already receiving critical acclaim. (Watch this space for a review – I’ve read it and it’s amazing!).

Nikki will be talking to parents and carers attending the Roadshow about her work as an author and as someone who regularly supports and encourages children’s creative writing through workshops in schools across the region. Nikki has worked with Little Green Pi g, a writing and mentoring charity for young people and she will also be participating in the author panel bookchat. Nikki says:

“I’m so excited to be taking part in the Bookchat Roadshow! As a reader, writer and story mentor with Little Green Pig, I’m very aware of the miracles that can happen when you allow children to take ownership of their reading and writing. There’s nothing better than the look on a child’s face when they realise that there really are no limits to the worlds they can explore and create, and as parents, teachers and librarians it really is within our power to help them to access to their own wildest imaginings.”

Nikki took part in our inaugural Roadshow and I’m delighted she is going to be presenting to parents at our latest event. She is always inspiring, great fun and full of ideas and I am sure all those attending the Roadshow will truly benefit from her knowledge.

For more information about the Bookchat Roadshow, visit www.thebookactivist.com.

A Super Saturday – at Oxford Literary Festival 2017!

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Introducing Korky Paul at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival, Saturday 25th March.

The day dawned bright and fair. ‘Suited and booted’ wearing my favourite Dorothy-inspired book-ish shoes, I set off to the beautiful city of Oxford for the first day of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. I had been asked to introduce none other than Korky Paul, illustrator of the fabulous Winnie the Witch books. On arriving, it was with great delight I spent an hour or so chatting with Korky and helping a real life Winnie the Witch get ready to entertain the audience!

With Winnie the Witch at Oxford Literary Festival

About 80 or so children and parents arrived, all hugely thrilled to meet Korky – and of course Winnie, who willingly posed for photos with them. After introducing Korky, I sat back and watched in wonder as he brought to life Winnie, Wilbur and all their wonderful adventures.

With prizes and stories along the way, everyone went away utterly delighted. Korky shared brilliant illustrations tips and was so encouraging of all the children and even read aloud one of the stories.

It really was a special morning. There are few things more inspiring than watching an illustrator at work, perfectly capturing the expression, movement and magic of a character everybody knows and loves!

“Seeing the World Through Children’s Books” with Elizabeth Laird, Gill Lewis and Anna Bassi, and Nikki Gamble

This was a great opportunity to hear from two renowned authors and the editor of the fantastic news magazine for children, The Week. Chaired by Nikki Gamble from Just Imagine, the discussion focused on why it is so important to write about the real world for children. Each member of the panel gave a brief talk about their work, starting with Anna Bassi, editor of The Week, a magazine for children which aims to make the news accessible for younger readers.

Anna talked about balancing new stories “with fun stuff so that children could see that the world is not all bad; it’s huge and interesting”. Having subscribed to The Week both at home and in the school library, I’ve always found it to be an excellent source of news for children and also full of interesting facts, competitions and great stories from around the world. It is also, most importantly, as Anna described “a safe place to read about serious stories”. I think the whole audience could appreciate the challenge of making news accessible for children in the current climate.

Gill Lewis, author of award winning wonderful books such as Sky Hawk and Scarlet Ibis, then shared her inspiration for her new book A Story Like the Wind (out next month), an incredible tale about refugees which Gill described as a “story about the power of stories”. She also spoke about Gorilla Dawn which focuses on the destruction of gorillas and their habitats through the mining of minerals for mobile phone technology.

Gill shared some wonderful insights into her writing, such as taking big events down to one narrative to make the story accessible for young readers. She talked about finding the character within the story to enable you to create a narrative and enable children to relate to the story. Gill described her writing as not writing for children, but writing as a child, “exploring what it’s like to feel utterly powerless in an adult world.”

Elizabeth Laird, whose work was characterised as “intrepid” by the panel chair Nikki Gamble and has been translated into 25 different languages, was the final author to share her thoughts. Her books include the amazing, award winning The Garbage King and The Fastest Boy in the World. Elizabeth talked about her latest novel Welcome to Nowhere, a story about Syrian refugees. Elizabeth shared an experience of seeing hundreds of refugees arriving at a train station in Munich, making her think of other historical events where multitudes of people have been forced out of their homes.

This motivated her trip to the Middle East and led her to writing Welcome to Nowhere. Elizabeth made an impassioned plea to the audience to help those “people just like us with perfectly good lives who are now refugees”. Elizabeth’s presentation included images of the refugee camp she visited, home to some 80,000 people. She also spoke about the children living in absolute poverty on whom some of her other novels are based, and moved many in audience to tears with some of her stories – including me. Elizabeth encouraged all members of the audience to get involved in raising funds for The Mandala Trust, a charity supporting two schools opened especially for refugee children. Find out more on her website www.elizabethlaird.co.uk.

The overall thread was the importance of ensuring a message of hope whilst still being true to the story or narrative. Younger readers should not be patronised but neither should they be made to feel complete despair. Nikki Gamble asked if there was a line the panel members wouldn’t go beyond with their readers. In response, Elizabeth spoke of having a duty to encourage readers, always showing hope. Gill has had readers who have thanked her for writing stories even about the most difficult of issues, because it helped them get through their own experiences. And Anna shared that even with the darkest of news stories; there are always opportunities to remember what good people there are in the world, focusing on everyday heroes.

It was a fascinating hour, looking at the power of both fiction and non-fiction to enable children to see the world more clearly. I think the conversation also showed the ability writers have to help children feel empathy and make informed decisions about the world around them. This demonstrates why reading is so important, especially in a world which is so visible to children, but also so full of things that are difficult to understand.

Find out more about the Oxford Literary Festival at www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org which runs until 2nd April.

And look out for an interview with Gill Lewis coming up as part of our Spring Feature!