Read Alert

The venerable New Yorker looks at picture books in the ‘confrontation-averse age of parenting‘.
Like the novel or the sitcom, the picture book records shifts in domestic life: newspaper-burrowing fathers have been replaced by eager, if bumbling, diaper-changers. Similarly, the stern disciplinarians of the past—in Robert McCloskey books, parents instruct children not to cry—have largely vanished. [...]

Whether you’re a Twilighter or a Twihard, you’ve all got the same sparkly dilemma. Sure, it’d be nice to just read Twilight over and over again, into your small but perfect piece of forever…But you know it’s not going to work. You have to move on. Meet new books. Here’s a list of ten that [...]

Last night I presented the Older Reader’s section at the Victorian Clayton’s. Here are the five books that I picked as the best of 2008.
The Last Days
The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld is a sequel to Peeps, but not really. It’s set in the same world – New York City, around the same time – [...]

‘If children are to become readers for life, they must first love stories.’
So says Michael Morpurgo here, and we couldn’t agree more.
However. I’m not entirely convinced that the 3 lists of ‘100 Books Every Child Should Read‘ accompanying Morpurgo’s article are really the right ones to foster a love of stories.
Wuthering Heights, King Solomon’s Mines, [...]

Welcome to the hard working students, well, teachers really, from the Australian Government Summer School for Teachers of English.
Here are links to many of the books and websites that I will mention in today’s talk. I’m highlighting books about cultural identity and multiculturalism and indigenous writing. Oh, a couple of tasty graphic novels. Enjoy!
American [...]

Before Lili jumped on a plane we workshopped a list of the twelve books of Christmas. This list represents, in our occasionally humble opinions, the best reading of 2007 and some of the books that would be great reading over summer. We have included two from the the previous year: The Arrival by Shaun Tan [...]

The Booktrust Teenage Prize has announced its shortlist.
Theresa Breslin The Medici Seal Doubleday
Kate Cann Leaving Poppy Scholastic
Mal Peet The Penalty Walker Books
Philip Reeve Here Lies Arthur Scholastic
Meg Rosoff Just in Case Penguin
Marcus Sedgwick My Swordhand is Singing Orion
For background on the prize, see The Times or the Book Trust website. The shortlist is a wonderful [...]

Remember reading sad books as a kid? Do you think it damaged you for life? This lady does, and she’s planning to BURN all children’s books with sad endings. Oh, I hear you say. That must be one of those crazy American things. Nope. It’s British. It’s an initiative of the Happy Endings Foundation’s East [...]

The Shortlist has been announced and voting has opened for the Inky Awards!
Golden Inky
The Arrival, Shaun Tan (Hachette)
Notes from the Teenage Underground, Simmone Howell (Pan Macmillan)
The Birthmark, Beth Montgomery (Text Publishing)
Silver Inky
Looking for Alaska, John Green (HarperCollins)
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Rachel Cohn & David Levithan (Allen & Unwin)
Valiant, Holly Black (Simon & Schuster)
Tell [...]

The shortlist announcement for the Inkys will be made on Monday 24 September.
Which means… on Monday we start voting.
To celebrate, we’re going insideadog crazy next week. There’ll be a new competition, new stuff on the forum, LOTS of book giveaways of the six shortlisted books. New first chapters, new booklists - new everything.
In the meantime, [...]