Festivals and more

 

I have been reminded recently that we are now in the middle of Festival season.  There have been some great posts on Facebook about the fun at Edinburgh and I am so envious of all you lucky people who were able to attend, both as visitors and as participants.  We have just had the stewarding schedules put out for the Bath Kids Lit Festival and I look forward to seeing lots of great friends there at the end of September.  I also heard on the TV this morning that booking has started for Cheltenham Festival which begins on the 3rd October with Michael Rosen and then Henry Winkler.  I think it is the first time that Bath and Cheltenham have overlapped in this way and it will be interesting to see if it will affect ticket sales over the first weekend in October.  For those who cannot attend any of these events then there is the Children’s Roadshow which is touring the country, visiting 15 cities,  from the end of September until the end of November.  There are some great names and with any luck lots of schools will be taking their children to meet and hear some amazing authors and illustrators.children_bookshow_leaflet[1]

This year I am not doing quite as much at Bath, but I am looking forward to the events I am doing, which include a debate on the future of teaching, Michael Rosen and the ‘Big, Big, Bath Book Quiz with Andy Stanton.  During that week we also have the local Centurion Book Award ceremony and the national ‘Information Book Award’, in association with the School Library Association.

Before all of this activity I have two other book related events that I am attending.  Next week we have the launch of the new book by Lauren Child, which is being hosted at Daunt’s on Marylebone High Street; it is a fabulous book that looks at the issues of having a new baby in the house. The following weekend is the Nosy Crow Conference and the following Saturday is the Cilip Members day, thankfully that is being held in Bristol, so on my home turf.  It’s only when you write all of this down that you see what a hectic month this is going to be and that is before I add in my school governor training.  I will definitely need a holiday after all of that.

Something I will still manage to fit in among all of these activities is my reading.  I have got some really great books in the pipeline and I look forward to talking about them in the near future; they include authors such as Michael Morpurgo, Holly Black and Garth Nix.  There are also some superb picture books at the moment and lots more coming in our direction in time for Christmas.  Why are there only 24 hours in the day, I need more?

 

Summer sun and cakes

For those in the children’s book world this is a very busy time of year.  Not only do we have a swathe of book awards but we have book launches, publishers parties and book festivals and conferences as well as  advance notice of some of the wonderful offerings coming in the autumn.  It can be quite overpowering knowing what to read next, but this can be helped when you get to see some of your favourite authors.

Cakes in Space by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre

2014-07-17 12.36.58

Oxford University Press, 9780192734563

For younger readers one of the most exciting books to look for this autumn will be the fantastic new offering from Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre called ‘Cakes in Space’.   Fantastic costumes

Fantastic costumes

2014-07-01 19.29.34

The pre-launch party was amazing and as always the two stars produced the best entertainment with a new song to go with the book. The book itself is about a young girl, Astra, who wakes from from a frozen sleep to find that robot like cakes are taking over the spaceship she is on.  All of this as a result of her asking the Nom-O-Tron computer for cakes “so delicious, it’s scary”, before she went into hibernation.  Science Fiction has never been such fun and this is going to be a real favourite for this Christmas.

 

 

 

Scavenger Zoid by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

2014-06-21 11.07.12

Macmillan, 9781447231486

 

Macmillan,

Macmillan,

 

Keeping with the science fiction theme, the new book by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is also set on a space craft but it is a very different world from that of the ‘Cakes’.  Aimed at the 9-12 years it is about the human survivors aboard a huge space vessel which has been taken over by ‘Zoids’ which have evolved from Robots intended to help and protect humans.  As you would expect, the illustrations are amazing and the story itself is quite dark as groups of people find each other and combine to try and overcome their increasingly sophisticated enemies.

 

Dragon Shield by Charlie Fletcher

Hodder 9781444917321

Hodder
9781444917321

This is the first in a new trilogy by the author of Stoneheart.  Once again it is set in London and statues are coming to life.  However this time the source of the danger is  from the Egyptian gallery at the British Museum, a place full of mystery and an atmosphere that makes the plot really feasible.  This really is a great book for reminding you of places you have visited and those you would really like to go to .  I know that there have been walking tours based on the previous books, so perhaps this is another opportunity to add to the literary walks around central London. Aimed at a slightly younger audience than previous books, this will still find fans among those of us well past our 21st birthdays.

 

 

 

Destination earth by Ali Sparkes

I first came across the books of Ali Sparkes when she produced her Shapeshifter series and I really loved them.  However I have to admit that my favourite for several years has been ‘Frozen in Time’ but this latest book is absolutely fascinating.  Lucy is the last survivor from her planet and has spent the last ten years on a journey to Earth, where she hopes to find a safe haven.  Over the years she has been finding out about the world she is hoping to live in.  Unfortunately what she does not realize until it is almost too late is that she has got an unwelcome stowaway on the outside of her space ship – one of the creatures that has killed off the rest of her race.  Lucy, together with two children from earth are in a race to prevent the same catastrophe happening here.

Oxford University Press 9780192733443

Oxford University Press
9780192733443

 

 

Purely by accident I seem to have had a bit of a Sci-Fi Fest here.  However,  perhaps we are seeing a rise in the number of books that have been published recently within this genre, a move away from the dystopian and vampire/zombie stories which have been so popular over the last few years.  For those who enjoy Sci- Fi why not try and look out authors from the past such as Andre Norton and John Christopher, both of whom were read widely in the 1970s.