This set of four pages will be up for silent auction at the Australian Children’s Laureate Fundraiser. Consider buying a ticket to what will be a fabulous night of fun with the Australian children’s publishing community and grab a one of a kind gem from the selection of silent auction items. (Soon to be uploaded to the Laureate Website.)
Dick Russell Grinned
Three Tasks for Dick and Porky
A Bone of Contention
A Little Unreal
Set of Four pages
There are 15 Days to go until the Crowd-funding deadline for The Story Box Library is up. If they don’t reach their target, they don’t receive any funding at all.
If you love children’s books, you might like to check out their site and their Pozible funding page. At the moment there are some gorgeous Australian book illustrations (prints and originals) up for grabs as rewards for those who pledge towards the project, but you also get a subscription to the site with your pledge. The site will be a great resource for parents and teachers. (Check out the videos while you are there.)
Here’s what I just bought!
There are cheaper options than this and it also goes up. Something for everyone.
And this is my reward!
Oh my!!
Come on, get on board.
New book by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre – watch the video here
Find out more about the creators here and here and here.
Admire Sarah’s excellent poster below! Click on it for a link to her post about the lobby for school libraries.
This poster was used for a mass lobby of parliament for school libraries in the UK.
Oliver and the Seawigs. This is a lively and appealing video promo. So effective that I immediately went and pre-ordered my copy of the book. Well… alright, I admit I was an easy target. But nevertheless I think video skills are a probably a good thing to develop to promote books these days.
Here’s one place you can learn how… I’m not sure yet. But I might… Video Idiot Boot Camp
Congratulations to the Shortlisted book creators and the Notable creators! Some great reading in these lists. When I’m not so flat out busy, I intend to read my way through quite a few of them.
Here are two beauties that I know well already.
The Coat, by Julie Hunt and Ron Brooks
And It’s a Miroocool by Christine Harris and Ann James
Some real endpapers that I resisted at Rosebud Vinnies on Saturday. (How did I do that? The cover wasn’t great.)
And some endpapers that I just couldn’t resist. From Doctor Dolittle’s Circus. A copy without its dust jacket but rather delightful, and paired with a copy of Dr Dolittle and the Secret Lake. I bought both, along with a 1956 copy of Latta and Macbeath’s ‘The Elements of Logic‘ for Scotty to satisfy both his love of logic and his illogical weakness for a nice old book with a special feature. In this case, a custom ‘postage stamp’ on the inside of the front cover advertising the bookstore where it came from. Grahame Book Company.
Going back to Dr Dolittle for a moment, is it just me, or does this internal illustration from the book depict The Mymble’s long lost sister? (feistiness of this kind runs in the Mymble family, remember.)
Here’s the mysterious Dolittle lady apparently bumping people from a high place ‘by accident’…
And here is the Mymble with sundry feisty daughters. She is introduced to moomin fans in The Exploits of Moominpappa by Tove Jansson (one of my all time fave books).
What are the essential skills of a good waiter? Friendly helpfulness and not spilling your dinner down your neck? Well, yes. But they are bonuses. What you really want is children’s book recommendations and a chat about literature.
So here are Gabe’s two most influential reads from the age of around 11.
1. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – a cult classic soon to be a film. Gabe says ignore the blurb that emphasises a sci-fi theme. It’s really about people.
2. Blueback by Tim Winton – a great book. I’ve read this one.
By the way, Gabe was our bonus waiter. Our real waiter was fantastic and friendly too, but we didn’t get his name. (Only the names of his kids – Arte and Will.) So thanks to the staff at Main Street for my fabulous birthday dinner out. Whenever we have been to this café we have been blown away by the loveliness of the staff.
This is the copy of E Nesbit’s The Book of Dragons that I have just bought.
NOW I find, (from my latest ABE books newsletter) that for a mere A$ 813.48 I could have bought this!
Judy Watson 