Tag Archives: children’s books

Book review: Actually, I Can

Posted on by

0

Actually, I Can cover_medTitle: Actually, I Can
Author: Nicky Johnston
ISBN: 9780987092670
RRP: $16.95
Type: picture book
Publisher: Rough Draft
Publication date: 3 August 2013

Amelia is confident and loves going on adventures. Her friend Connor is shy, and worries about everything; he’s a ‘worry bunny’.

Amelia tries to entice Connor to try new things and be adventurous, but he worries about what might happen: what if they get into trouble for playing where they shouldn’t? What if those plums are poisonous?

With his friend’s help, Connor eventually realises that he doesn’t have to worry so much, and that he can have fun.

This is Nicky Johnston’s third book. She self-published her first, Go Away, Mr Worrythoughts!, to try to help her son overcome anxiety; her second, Happythoughts Are Everywhere …, continued with that theme. Both were quite successful, which isn’t surprising considering how many children deal with anxiety and worry. Actually, I Can is published by Rough Draft, and is a great follow-up to Nicky’s first two books.

Nicky manages to capture what goes on inside a child struggling with anxiety: wishing you could be different, a churning tummy, not wanting to eat. She also cleverly deals with Connor’s realisation that he can be adventurous, without being preachy. Her gorgeous illustrations complement the text very well. One or two words within the dialogue jumped out at me as being words a child probably wouldn’t say, but this is a very minor point in what is a lovely book, very accessible to children.

I recommend Actually, I Can for parents whose children are anxious or nervous – but children without this problem would certainly enjoy it too.

Opportunity for picture book authors

Posted on by

0

One of our clients, a Melbourne-based children’s media company, is looking for an author to write a six-book picture book series aimed at two to six year olds. This series will be based on a concept that they have developed.

The client has big plans for the picture books, wishing to expand the concept to other media platforms if all goes well.

If you are interested in this opportunity, we’d love to hear from you. We’d like to be able to see examples of your writing, so if you have one or more manuscripts to show us, please get in touch, by email in the first instance. Please send us a brief summary of your experience and areas of interest, one manuscript, and any specific questions you may have.

We look forward to hearing from you.

CBCA Book of the Year 2012 winners announced

Posted on by

0

Big news today for the Australian children’s book community – the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year 2012 winners have been announced!

Here are the winners:

  • Older Readers Book of the Year: Scot Gardiner for The Dead I Know
  • Younger Readers Book of the Year: Kate Constable for Crow Country
  • Early Childhood Book of the Year: Nick Bland and Freya Blackwood for The Runaway Hug
  • Picture Book of the Year: Bob Graham for A Bus Called Heaven
  • Eve Pownall Book of the Year: Alison Lester and Coral Tulloch for One Small Island: The Story of Macquarie Island

See the CBCA website for full details of the winners and honour books. Congratulations to everyone!

Penguin’s ‘Monthly Catch’ puts children’s submissions on hold

Posted on by

0

As outlined in an earlier post, at the beginning of the year Penguin included children’s and YA submissions in their Monthly Catch, so that for the first week of every month authors of these books could submit their manuscripts.

Unfortunately, they have had to suspend the inclusion of children’s and YA manuscripts because of the number of submissions they received. Bad news for authors, but keep checking their website for updates, as they suggest they’ll reopen submissions soon.

Are you having trouble with your novel’s beginning?

Posted on by

0

Writing the beginning of your novel is one of the most challenging, and most important, aspects of writing a novel. Get it wrong and you’ll lose the reader’s interest pretty quickly. Maybe they’ll come back to the book later in the hope it will get better, or maybe they’ll put the book down, never to pick it up again.

For those of you who are having trouble, I just read a great blog post from the Ampersand Project (Hardie Grant Egmont’s project that accepts new submissions from unpublished writers for a period each year – see more on the project here).

The post outlines some fantastic tips from Writer’s Digest on what to avoid when you’re writing your beginning, including opening with a dream or with an alarm clock buzzing, being unintentionally funny, and opening with dialogue.

Take a look at the post, and revisit the opening scene of your novel. Does it need tweaking?

Good luck!

Hachette accepting manuscripts

Posted on by

0

Another publisher has announced that they are accepting manuscript submissions. Hachette Australia is accepting submissions from children’s writers (as well as writers of adult fiction and non-fiction). Note that they will only accept submissions in Word format; see their website for details.

Good luck!

Penguin and A & U accepting manuscripts

Posted on by

3

Many children’s book authors out there will know how difficult it is to find a children’s publisher willing to accept manuscript submissions. However, the good news is that two of our major publishers have announced that they are now accepting them.

Penguin recently began accepting submissions for their adult fiction and non-fiction lists through the newly created Monthly Catch, and now their Books for Children and Young Adults (BCYA) division is also accepting unsolicited manuscript submissions. Their submission guidelines are strict, so make sure you read through the requirements thoroughly; see their website for full details.

Allen and Unwin has a well-established ‘Friday Pitch’ program, in which authors can email submissions to the publisher on Fridays, and they’ve now added children’s and YA submissions to the program. See their website for information about the Friday Pitch and their books for children and teenagers.

Good luck!

Formatting a picture book

Posted on by

3

If you’re working on a picture book and are unsure about how to present it to prospective publishers, agents or editors, this post looks to provide a little guidance.

A picture book is 32 pages long, and around half of those pages will be illustrations, so try not to go over around 500 or 600 words for the most part. Don’t spell things out too much in the text; let the illustrations tell the story to some extent. Remember that the content of the illustrations should tell a child a lot more about the story than what can be gleaned from reading the text.

The book begins with endpapers, the title page and the dedication and imprint page (although these last two sometimes appear at the back of the book). Look at how other picture books are set out, and if you’re having trouble picturing how to place the text and spread it out evenly throughout the book, it can sometimes help to create a mock book.

When you are ready to submit your manuscript to a publisher or editor, send it as a Word document, using 12-point font, double-spaced. You can indicate with a text break where you think the page breaks should go, if you’d like.

If you are submitting to a publisher, do not include any illustrations; the publisher will choose an illustrator/artist. If you are self-publishing, the illustrator you choose should be happy to get some guidance from you as to what kind of look and feel you have in mind, but they will probably expect some freedom of expression when it comes to actually completing the artwork.

A publisher will require you to submit a synopsis of the book along with the manuscript. The aim of the synopsis is to give the publisher a snapshot of what the book is about, and why they should publish it. Make it as catchy and interesting as you can, but keep it brief, at around four to six sentences for a picture book.

There’s a common misconception that it’s easy to write a picture book; in fact, the opposite is true. The limited number of words and the fact that the text and illustrations need to work together to tell the story make it difficult enough, but the picture book’s audience, the child, is the toughest of critics. Any flat spot or flaw in the story and the child will lose interest. The answer? Redraft, redraft, and redraft again. And seek feedback from trusted sources, such as writing groups, as you go.