hungry caterpillar on holidays but here’s some Black Books to keep you amused

VHG is off to France for holidays (new novel from Oisin McGann and new O’Brien Press title, The Poison Throne packed). In the meantime here’s three great excerpts from the incomparable Black Books which all feature children’s books – watch out for Billl Bailey as a book worm…..

 

 

Mercier’s Eoin Purcell – on the Arts Council and Children’s Publishing

Thanks to Tom in CBI and Michael Diggle for sending this my way. Intesting post from Mercier Press Commissioning Editor Eoin Purcell about arts council funding and publishers in Ireland.

He makes many interesting points about what exactly arts council funding can facilitate.

Since joining Mercier Press I have been struck by the confidence with which the company embarks on large-scale illustrated children’s projects. These only happen because the original artwork can be commissioned with the aid of Arts Council funds. Even then, the first print runs of such titles are tightly costed affairs and yet they deliver wonderful books into the hands of young readers instilling a love of reading and reinforcing the threads and stories of Irish history and mythology.

He’s also honest about his own change of heart with regard to Arts Council funding.

A younger, more radical and, if I am honest, less wise me was prone to knocking the function of the Irish Arts Council. I propounded the view that books should be able to stand on merit in a given market, even artistic books, and that companies which required funding to support their literary and artistic lists were failing somehow.

Eoin blogs regularly on www.thebookseller.com and also has his own blog - well worth a visit

Eoin Colfer is on the road again

Achuka has spotted that Eoin Colfer is back on the road again with his one man show – i heard great reports of it last time he was out and about- Maybe Eoin is the author to disprove my theory about Leonard Cohen and live literature!

Enjoy the trailer and please anyone do let me know if you make it to the live show. There are some good videos of the american tour up on EoinColfer.com too

Director talks about adapting Louise Rennison books

Good interview with film director Gurinder Chadha about adapting Louise Rennison’s highly successful teen titles in today Irish Times. Article also makes reference to some of the changes the books underwent to make it to film.

There’s been a fair amount of tinkering to make it acceptable to younger girls, or more accurately, to make the material acceptable to their parents. The title of the book, the first in the series, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, is now changed to a less suggestive Perfect Snogging. Gone, too, are references to drugs, smoking and going all the way (not, let it be said, that the Ace Gang would ever dream of doing any of these things). If anything, Chadha has focused on the friendships, the mates-in-it-togetherness, scaling back some of the (already pretty low-level) bitchiness.

So it seems you can use more adult material in books for teenagers rather than film – but then we knew that already didn’t we……. ?

Barefoot Books launch a young storytellers competition

Barefoot Books have launched a new competition for those under 14 which is all about storytelling. It’s all happening through youtube and young storytellers have to upload their stories to the site. There is a few technical steps to overcome but you have plenty of time considering the closing date isn’t until November. For more on the competition – visit barefoot books site

Here’s a sample of one of the entries

I came across this on Publishing News which alarmingly has just announced their decision to cease publication both in print and online. It’s a shame I always enjoyed their weekly e-news bulletins.

Review Round up in Irish Times

Full page of reviews of children’s and teenage titles in The Irish Times on Saturday.

Niamh Sharkey looks at picture books.

Paddy O’Doherty dives into books for 8-12 year olds

and Robert Dunbar tackles some teenage titles

It is great to see the IT consisently giving a full page to these reviews – though it would be good to give their reviewers more room for each title. Niall Mac Monagle’s review of Creature of the Night was a rare example of this. Incidentally, Philip Ardagh is equally impressed by Creature of the Night over on the guardian Though Achuka was a bit confused by some of the Ardagh’s meaning

PJ Lynch in words and pictures

Illustrator Pj Lynch has been busy adding to his web presence lately. He has some really interesting stuff about his technique over on his blog

For anyone who has seen his murals in Cavan Library he has a fantastic record of how it was done –

And if you want to hear the man himself talk about his work – head over the Robert Dunbar Archive on the CBI site.

Two bits of diversity

Ibby Ireland have made Cross-Currents, A Guide to Multicultural Books for Young People, edited by Liz Morris and Susanna Coghlan available to download direct from the Ibby website. The guide will also be sent to most primary schools in coming months. More over on ibbyireland.ie

Also this week

New award for diversity has been launched in memory of publisher Frances Lincoln. Frances Lincoln and Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle, have announced the creation of an award in memory of Frances Lincoln, who died, aged 55, in February 2001.

Called The Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award, it aims to

“take positive steps to increase the representation of people writing from or about different cultural perspectives, whose work is published in Britain today”, as well as “promote new writing for children, especially by or about people whose culture and voice are currently under-represented [and] support the process of writing rather than, as with the majority of prizes, promoting the publication”.

The prize of £1,500, plus the option for Frances Lincoln Children’s Books to publish the novel, will be awarded to the best work of unpublished fiction for 8-12 year-olds by a writer, aged 16 years or over, who has not previously published a novel for children. The closing date is 30 January 2009 and the winner will be announced at an award ceremony at Seven Stories in April 2009. Entry forms can be obtained by email from diverse voices@sevenstories.org.uk or from Helena McConnell at Seven Stories on 0044 845 271 0777.

JK opposes age banding

According to the Scotsman newspaper – JK Rowling has weighed into the age banding debate and has added her name to the petition over on notoagebanding.org. The Scotsman seem to think that it is the end of line for age banding if JK opposes – I’m not sure one writer wields THAT much power?

Interestingly the Scotsman does include a round up of how the main UK children’s book publishers are currently standing on the issue.

Children’s publishers now fall into three camps. Walker Books, which was opposed to the move from the outset, has been joined by JK Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury, and about eight other major publishers. Against them are Random House, Scholastic and Egmont.

There is a also a quote from recent visitor to Dublin, Keith Gray about his opinion on age banding

Would those queues for Harry Potter have been so long if the books had had a ‘Teens’ sticker?” he asks. “Younger readers wouldn’t have bothered with it and neither would most of the grown-ups.

“The whole age-banding thing is a nonsense, and I’m very pleased JK Rowling is supporting the campaign against it.”

Ostrich Boys and Creatures of the Night

Kate Thompson and Keith Gray were fascinating on Monday evening in the National Library. There was a couple of key issues that stood out for me….

What is this notion of young adult fiction or writing for teenagers? I think both writers felt that books about teenagers and books for teenagers where distinguished from each other by intent – whether the author was writing reflectively around the teenage years in the former or writing about the teenage experience in the latter – it was a point I would have liked to talk more about – in fact I could have talked about it all evening…..

The other element that struck me was the differences between Kate and Keith in their writing style, their focus and their outlooks. Really interesting stuff.

On a final note – was delighted Keith supplied a collective noun for interesting ideas and pertinent points – apparently henceforth it will be called a “Dunbar” in honour of Robert Dunbar our fantastic chair for the evening.