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Friday 28 March 2008

The Horn Book

The Horn Book Magazine is an American publication about books for children and young adults. The current edition (March / April 2008) has a running theme throughout where authors write brief articles about their relationships with their editors. Major articles include a consideration of what makes a good alphabet book by Lolly Robinson and an appreciation of the new (British) Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen, by Madelyn Travis.

The Horn Book also has a website where you can access some of the magazine's content, read the editor's blog, sign up for a monthly newsletter or subscribe to their podcast.

Tuesday 18 March 2008

Sonya Hartnett wins Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking books, was Sweden’s favourite author and one of the world’s most popular. She died in 2002 at the age of 94, and to honour her memory and promote children’s and youth literature around the world, the Swedish government founded an international prize in her name. It is the world’s largest for children’s and youth literature, and the second-largest literature prize in the world.

The winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2008 is Australian author, Sonya Hartnett. The judges said of her:
"Sonya Hartnett is one of the major forces for renewal in modern young adult fiction. With psychological depth and a concealed yet palpable anger, she depicts the circumstances of young people without avoiding the darker sides of life. She does so with linguistic virtuosity and a brilliant narrative technique; her works are a source of strength.”

Check the Jordanhill Library catalogue for titles by Sonya Hartnett.

Books or TV? Children's preferences surveyed

Watching television has become a less popular pastime with 9-11 year-olds in the last four years. It's still more popular than reading books, but only 55% preferred watching TV to reading in 2007 as opposed to 62% in 2003. Encouragingly, nearly 70% of 9 year-olds and 60% of 11 year-olds said they enjoyed reading stories. For full details, see the survey by the National Foundation for Educational Research or, for a summary, see the coverage in the Independent.

Friday 7 March 2008

BooksfromScotland.com features Mairi Hedderwick

BooksfromScotland.com is a commercial site, but it showcases Scottish-interest books by combining bookselling with interesting, newsy content. This month, they have started a new feature celebrating Scottish books which have become international successes. The first to be featured are Mairi Hedderwick's Katie Morag stories. As well as information about the books, the site features the island of Coll which was the inspiration for Struay, Katie Morag's home.