A number of Frances Lincoln books are also available in British Sign Language via the free fully accessible online website Signed Stories,  which provides deaf children and their families, access to some of the very best of British books.

Keep a look out for more Frances Lincoln titles on www.signedstories.com!

Frances Lincoln Children's Books now have a page on Facebook! Become a fan and look out for events, reviews and special offers!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/London/Frances-Lincoln-Childrens-Books/62475867932

A new six-part television series, Coast to Coast with Wainwright, presented by Julia Bradbury, starts on BBC-4 on Thursday 9 April.

Frances Lincoln supports the petition to 10 Downing Street to make school libraries compulsory. It’s in all our interests to get as many people as possible to support this petition and the wider campaign for libraries as fundamental agents of promoting reading.

The petition reads:

We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to make school libraries statutory

We, the undersigned, call on Her Majesty's Government to accept in principle that it will make school libraries, run by properly qualified staff, statutory and to prepare the necessary legislation in consultation with the appropriate professional associations and trade unions.

To support this cause, click here to go to the official Number 10 petitions site.

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is delighted to announce that the winner of the CLPE Poetry Award for 2009 is:

John Agard: The Young Inferno, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura

The presentation was made at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education on Tuesday July 7th 2009 by last year’s winner Jackie Kay.

The CLPE Poetry Award honours excellence in poetry written for children. It is presented annually for a book of poetry published in the preceding year. Previous winners include Roger McGough, Fiona Waters and Grace Nichols whose anthology Under the Moon, Over the Sea edited with John Agard won the inaugural CLPE Poetry Award in 2003.

The judges of the award this year were Jackie Kay, Andrew Lambirth and Lindsay MacRae, chaired by Margaret Meek Spencer.

Jackie Kay, poetry award judge said of The Young Inferno:

“John Agard’s work for young people is always engaging. You can never tell through which original lens Agard will look. His depth of thought and vision always surprise as well as entertain. The Young Inferno is a vibrant and brilliant retelling for young people of Dante’s classic, Agard finds ways to make the old new as we follow our hoodie hero through the nine circles of hell and back again. Bang up to date and invigorating. Those that know the original will enjoy the double read, and those that don’t will still enjoy Agard’s way of seeing. The book is fabulously illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura and is a nice object to hold in the hand. Always energetic and mentally dextrous, Agard’s The Young Inferno puts us through the paces and brings us face to face with the Furies!”

For further information, please contact:

Ann Lazim 020 7902 2287 email ann@clpe.co.uk

Cartoonist John Ryan, creator of Captain Pugwash, has died in hospital in Rye, East Sussex, aged 88. The BBC commissioned the first TV series in 1957 after spotting potential in Ryan's books about the tales of Pugwash and his nemesis Cut Throat Jake.

His agent, Jane Gregory, said there was "a huge amount of love" for the childish pirate and his shipmates, who included Tom the Cabin Boy and Willy.

Mr Ryan is survived by his wife and three children.

Details taken from the BBC website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8166946.stm

John Ryan signing copies of Captain Pugwash in 2007 when Frances Lincoln Children’s Books brought back into print new editions of the classic picture book series.

We are pleased to announce that 2 Frances Lincoln titles have been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2009! Crocodiles Are the Best Animals of All! by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Hannah Shaw, has made it onto the 6 and Under shortlist and Purple Class and the Half-Eaten Sweater also by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Helen Bate, has made it onto the 7-14 category shortlist.

Founded by Michael Rosen as part of his work as Children's Laureate 2007-09, the Roald Dahl Funny Prize is the first prize of its kind – founded to honour those books that simply make us laugh.

The Roald Dahl Funny Prize aims to:

reward and encourage authors (and illustrators) who write and illustrate books using humour in their stories, poetry and fiction. By creating these awards we hope to promote a vibrant area of publishing often overlooked by other awards.

 

The winner of each category will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on 10 November.

For more information, click here

Roald Dahl Funny Prize Shortlist 2009

Building Norfolk, by Matthew Rice, was named East Anglian Book of the Year at a ceremony at Jarrold in Norwich, attended by more than 100 people and hosted by writer and raconteur Keith Skipper.

The competition, supported by the literature development organisation Writers' Centre Norwich, was held to highlight the best new writing about Norfolk, Suffolk and Fenland.

Novelist Rose Tremain, who lives near Norwich, presented the prizes to the winning authors in six categories and gave a talk explaining how East Anglia has influenced her writing.

The judges hailed Building Norfolk as "an impressive achievement - a wonderfully illustrated book that makes you look again at Norfolk and see its glorious array of architecture with fresh eyes".

Mr Rice's book combines his watercolour paintings of a variety of local buildings with an architectural history of the region.

Winning the overall prize brought Mr Rice £250 in Jarrold vouchers. It had earlier been named as the winner in the Art and Photography category.

Mr Rice, who lives in Oxford and Blakeney with the potter Emma Bridgewater, could not attend the ceremony owing to long- standing commitments in Spain.

In a speech delivered by Emma O'Bryen, of the book's publishers Frances Lincoln, he said: "This book is what my wife Emma calls my 'love letter to Norfolk'. "And it is just that, a deeply felt illustrated song about the most beautiful county in Britain."

The judges for the second annual East Anglian Book Awards were Booker Prize longlisted author and UEA creative writing tutor Andrew Cowan, Writers' Centre Norwich chief executive Chris Gribble, Jarrold's community affairs adviser Caroline Jarrold, and EDP books editor Keiron Pim.

The winners of the East Anglican Book Awards with Frances Lincoln's Emma O'Bryen in the centre accepting the trophy on Matthew Rice's behalf.

Tail-End Charlie has been shortlisted for the Blue Peter Awards 2010 in the Best Books with Facts category! The winners are due to be announced in March 2010.

For more information click here

Tom Avery has won the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award 2010 for his book Too Much Trouble!

For more information about the winners, click here

Photographs from Edwina and Joanna Cruddas's Three Year Allotment Notebook will be on display at the Garden Museum.

Susan Steggall will be holding collage workshops on 18th September at the Gosport Discovery Centre.

September 2010 ‘Art in the Café’ an exhibition of original collage artwork at the Gosport Discovery Centre.

Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield

Saturday 17th July, 11am to 3pm, As part of Oxfam's second annual Bookfest, Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield (Make it Wild, Go Wild, Nature's Playground) will run clay modelling sessions for children at the:

Oxfam Bookshop 
14 Duke Street
HENLEY-ON-THAMES  
Oxfordshire
RG9 1UP
tel: 01491 577410 

March – July 2010 Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill exhibition, V&A Museum

Tim Richardson at Hay on Wye Festival talking about Great Gardens of America - Time TBC

Dr Brian May and Elena Vidal will be signing copies of their new book 'A Village Lost and Found' on Friday, 21 May 2010 at:
David's Bookshop & David's Music
14 Eastcheap,
Letchworth,
Herts
SG6 3DE.

From:17:00 - 18:00

 Tel: 01462 684631.

Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom are appearing at the Spoken Word Festival.

12pm - Yuck - An event for the under 7's

2pm - Tail End Charlie - This book about the experience of Mick's father as an RAF tail gunner in 1944 is for anyone from eight to one hundred and eight! 

All welcome.

V&A event with Brian May & Elena Vidal for Friends and open to the Public.

Exhibition of Original Collage Artwork from Susan Steggall's  Picture Books – Edwin Young Gallery, Salisbury Library.

Featuring medical and architectural experts, including Rem Koolhaas,  Charles Jencks (author of The Architecture of Hope),  this symposium explores how architecture makes a difference to the way people live with cancer. Price: £15.

To book: call 0300 123 1801, email sarah.leikertas@maggiescentres.org or visit www.maggiescentres.org

Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield

2-4.30pm Come and celebrate the launch of Fiona & Jo's third book 'Make it Wild' with an afternoon of free fun activities for children - make a clay puppet, weave a willow insect, or simply enjoy the sights & sounds of nature. In association with Let's Go Wild! Natural England's new family engagement programme.

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designatedareas/nnr/1006007.aspx

All welcome 

Philippa Abrahams (Beneath the Surface) is speaking at Words by the Water, Cumbria. Contact: 01803 867311

Chris Bonington and Doug Scott are famously known for their legendary climbs, but on Monday 1st February, they’ll be taking to the lecture stage together to raise funds for those involved in the rescue effort Cumbria’s recent floods. In a special, one-off evening, both will appear at Rheged to tell of their joint adventures on Everest, K2 and The Ogre – their climbs and adventures on these three great peaks encompass success, tragedy and an epic escape in one of the greatest mountaineering tales of all time.

Both mountaineers, who have made their homes and raised their families on the edge of the Northern Lake District, feel a great affinity with Cumbria and saw the drama unfold at first hand when the greatest rainfall ever recorded in the county hit the Lake District. As Chris and Doug recently commented, “We are both in total agreement, the rain that fell that night was as ferocious and as scary as any monsoon we’d ever encountered in the Himalaya. Both of our homes lie at the foot of the Northern Fells and the area looked like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster disaster movie.”

The evening is being organised by The Wainwright Society and the aim of the lecture is to help raise funds and support the voluntary rescue services – the local Mountain Rescue Teams and the Royal National Lifeboat Institute – who were in the thick of things alongside the full time Emergency Services. Their specialist skills didn’t just augment those of the Police, Fire Service and the Search and Rescue helicopter crews, but they proved crucial in saving lives. As Eric Robson, chair of the Wainwright Society commented, “Unpaid volunteers they may be, but their response was absolutely professional and their specialist knowledge critical to what was an immense crisis and a major rescue operation”.
The lecture is called, An Evening with Chris Bonington and Doug Scott – Everest, K2 and The Ogre. It really will be a one off, not to be missed event.  Doug recently commented to Chris “It is years since we both gave a lecture together” with Chris responding, “and this will be a totally new talk, and in truth one, we are unlikely to repeat”. The talk will focus on Chris and Doug’s epic climbs; the first ascent of Everest’s South West Face – this was also the first British ascent of the world’s highest mountain -, their attempt on K2 and perhaps their greatest adventure when they became the first to climb the ominously named, vertical rock spire – The Ogre.

Having successfully reached The Ogre’s summit at sunset, Doug had a mishap while abselling off the summit block, breaking both of his legs. The subsequent and totally self-sufficient rescue, when Doug – assisted by Chris and fellow team members Mo Anthoine and Clive Rowland - crawled for 12 days to get himself off the mountain and back to base camp, is one of the greatest ever epics in mountaineering.
Both of the speakers are giving their time totally unpaid and Westmorland Ltd – the owners of Rheged - have offered the use of the venue for the lecture evening for free. Sarah Dunning, Westmorland’s Chief Executive commented “What happened back in November could have been an absolute disaster for the county, but it’s amazing the way people have rallied round and got on with things. We’re proud to be a Cumbrian company and to do our bit to help and I can’t think of a better way of supporting Cumbria’s voluntary rescue teams than spending an evening listening to Chris and Doug ”.

The talk start at 8.00pm on Monday 1st February, tickets go on sale on Tuesday 5th January and can be booked by calling 01768 868 000. For further details visit www.rheged.com

Martin Wood (Laura Ashley) to speak at the Soane Museum, 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3BP, tel: 020 7405 2107

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