Story Website for Deaf Children

A website that teaches deaf children classic stories has won its North-East inventor an honour. Malcolm Wright, from Darlington, was named a 'Reading Hero' by the Prime Minister's wife, Sarah Brown.

Mr Wright caught the attention of judges for his new website, which makes reading more accessible to deaf children. The site, at http://www.signedstories.com/, features stories brought to life with sign language, sound, text and vision.

The service, launched by ITV, is expected to grow into an online library of more than 300 children's books.

Mr Wright said: "Being acknowledged at Downing Street for helping children to enjoy and benefit from reading is an unexpected honour. Through no fault of their own, deaf children in the UK have been disadvantaged by poor levels of literacy. We hope our website will make a real difference to their lives.

It's a place where all the family can share the fun of stories together. I hope signed stories.com will encourage thousands of children to get pleasure from reading some brilliant books."

The Northern Echo: Tues 3rd March

Interview on Book Bites for Kids

Recently I was invited by Children's Writing Coach Suzanne Lieurance to be interviewed for Book Bites for Kids on Blogtalk Radio. Suzanne and I talked about my prize winning children's stories and discussed the benefits of entering short story competitions. If you'd like to hear more about my exciting competition wins and get tips on how to win competitions yourself, click the arrow on the Blogtalk radio box on the right.

One World One Heart Promotion: Win a signed copy of Mini Mysteries and Kooky Spookies

As part of this year's One World One Heart event I'm offering readers of my blog the chance to win a signed copy of Mini Mysteries and Kooky Spookies, an anthology of twelve stories for children including my three Ghost Twin Tales. All you have to do is leave a comment on my post. Make sure you leave a link to your blog or an e-mail address so I can notify you if you are a winner. The winner will be announced here on my blog on Thursday February 12th. For more details of the One World One Heart event, in which you can enter to win lots more freebies and/or generate traffic to your own blog, click on the badge in the column on the right hand side.

My story recorded by Gail Porter

Last Friday my son, Ben, and I visited a recording studio in London, where my story, Munch the Storyteller was recorded by Gail Porter. Gail really brought the story to life and it was an experience Ben and I will never forget. I especially loved the high-pitched voice used by Gail as Munch the Cow. We were videoed before, during and after the recording, which was a little daunting, but fun nonetheless. While I was being interviewed after the recording, Gail took Ben over the road to Hamley's toy shop where, he tells me, they toured the ground floor and played with remote control cars. Ben was even given the chance to go into the studio to read part of the story himself which was recorded on a souvenir CD. I can't wait to see the podcast of my story and those of the other winners when they go live in March.

Recommended sci-fi and children's book authors

The Yahoo Group, Wordpool Writers have recently been recommending sci-fi and children's books they rate. The dozen authors below all featured on the list:

Julia Golding
Jasper Fforde
Garth Nix
Philip Reaves
Holly Black
Michele Paver
Katherine Roberts
Joseph Delaney
Kate Thompson
Philip Pulman
Angie Sage
Steve Augarde

I'm off to the library to borrow some of their books!

I'm a Munch Bunch Winner

Yesterday I received an e-mail telling me that I am one of the winners of The Munch Bunch Storytelling competition. My short story, Once Upon a Munchtime, will be recorded as a podcast by TV presenter Gail Porter and will be available to download later on the Munch Bunch website. Next week I'll be travelling to London to attend the recording. I've also won a day trip to Lapland to meet Santa and his elves and take a husky-led sleigh ride on a frozen lake, so I've got that to look forward to at the end of the year. Next weekend I'll blog about my podcast recording experience and let you know who the other winners are.

Patrick Ness wins Booktrust Teenage Prize

Patrick Ness rounded off a successful 2008 by winning the Booktrust Teenage Prize for his novel, The Knife of Never Letting Go.

The announcement was made at a prizegiving ceremony in London, where Patrick was presented with a trophy and a cheque for £2,500.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is Patrick's first novel for teenagers and has been widely acclaimed, winning him the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a longlisting for the Carnegie Medal and a placing as one of Amazon's top 100 books for 2008.

Speaking at the ceremony, Chair of Judges, Amanda Craig said, "In a strong year for Young Adult fiction, the judges of the Booktrust Teenage Prize selected six novels that we all felt were outstanding for the scope of their imagination, their originality, their writing and their appeal.

The Knife of Never Letting Go made the judges laugh, cry and debate its contents with passion; a striking mixture of thriller, science fiction and literary tour de force, it's influenced by writers as diverse as Laurence Sterne and Ursula le Guin and should appeal to a large readership."


The Booktrsust Teenage Prize judges included five children who won their places on the judging panel by submitting the best entries to a Booktrust competition. (Writers' News Feb 2009)

Jaqueline Wilson's Cookie is age-banded!

Jacqueline Wilson's latest hardback children's book has been age-banded by her publisher despite the author signing the "No to Age Banding" pledge. The hardback of Cookie, which is published this week (2nd October) by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, includes the age band 9+, as does the back of the special edition tin that contains the book.
The development first came to light when a bookseller left a comment on theBookseller.com. It read: "We received stock of Jacqueline Wilson's new book Cookie at work today.

She's signed the statement at www.notoagebanding.org and yet the back of the tin that the book is inside (and therefore I'm guessing the back of the book itself) has an age banding stamp on it of 9+. I've seen stamps on quite a few other books recently (including the new Puffin Classics edition of What Katie Did) but this is the first time I've seen one on a book by one of the signed up authors."
In a statement Random House said Wilson had agreed to the banding on the back of the hardback after "close discussion" with the author. The statement read: "Jacqueline can see the arguments both for and against printed age guidance on books but does retain some reservations about the subject. She has agreed for age guidance to be put on the cover of Cookie but RHCB will maintain the discussion with her and her agent over the matter and will review the situation on a book by book basis."

Wilson told The Guardian that her future titles would not be age-banded, but that as this one had been produced "ages ago" with special "cookie tin" packaging she had decided against making a fuss over the inclusion of the 9+ graphic.

(TheBookseller.com 3rd October 08)

My Top Ten Picture Books

By special request here are my top ten picture books for children. Some I discovered as a family learning teacher and some were in my son's collection when he was younger. I have to admit, some of them are so well loved my son and I have kept them. The list features most of my favourite children's picture book authors, but there are many more. Look out for further features on picture books later.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle



2. The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr



3. Where's my Teddy by Jez Alborough



4. Winnie the Witch by Korky Paul



5. Q Pootle 5 by Nick Butterworth



6. The Green Queen by Nick Sharratt



7. Handa's Surprise by Eileen Browne



8. The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood



9. Mrs Honey's Hat by Pam Adams



10. Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae

Fairy Tales and Folklore

Fairy tales traditional stories and are a passion of mine, so I was delighted to discover a website which is dedicated to ...'fairy tales, folklore, and everything in between.' The link is http://www.les-bonnes-fees.com/ and the site is well worth a visit. The second issue of their free e-zine has just been published and contains poetry, stories, non-fiction and artwork of exceptional quality. The editors are looking for submissions of flash and longer length fiction up to 3000 words. Both new, modern tales as well as retellings of traditional tales are welcome. Also needed are poems, book and movie reviews and commentaries. Excellent guidelines are provided and payment is offered. See you in fairytale cyberspace!