Announcement of the winner of the 2011 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Childrens Book Award

Announcement of the winner of the 2011 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award This year’s  Diverse Voices award was presented last night at Seven Stories, the UK’s national centre for children’s books… and… It was won by Helen Limon for Om Shanti, Babe, a story about growing up, family and friendships that the judges [...]

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You’ve heard of the headless horseman? How about the headless horse?

You’ve heard of the headless horseman, right? He’s a famous legend that grew from a character in a story published in America nearly 100 years ago. But…have you heard of the headless horse? The headless horse is the favourite method of transport for a Japanese ogre called Mr Yagyo, or Yagyo-san. Introducing Yagyo-san Mr Yagyo [...]

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There’s a tanuki in the classroom! Japanese language learning and yokai demons

Creative language teaching ideas Today I was at the Hyogo Prefectural Cultural Government Centre as part of a series of workshops organised by Ms Yuko Fujimitsu, Japanese Language Advisor for the Department of Education as part of the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP). We worked with Year 9 students from three [...]

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10 activities for International Childrens Book Day

Celebrating international childrens books I am a member of the Childrens Book Council of Australia and recently recieved their terrific February newsletter. In it was an awesome list of suggestions for ways to celebrate International Childrens Book Day, which is on April 2, the birthday of Hans Christian Anderson. Here, shamelessly reproduced so you can [...]

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Gather your courage and enter: Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Childrens Book Award

THIS PRESS RELEASE WENT OUT THIS WEEK: HAVE YOU READ IT YET? What are you waiting for??? REMINDER OF DEAD LINE   - it is not too late to enter….. The closing date for the current Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award is Friday 25th February 2011. “Gather your courage and just do it: this award is [...]

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The meaning (and luck) of Miku Takeshita’s name

I’m neck-deep in Monster Matsuri after a FABULOUS Children’s Book Week (hello to everyone I met: thanks for being such great audiences!). So…a short but sweet post on the meaning of Miku’s name (which, incidentally, was originally Aiko, or “love child”…) Miku can be written using several different kanji: 美空 – Beautiful sky 美久 – [...]

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The JET program, budget cuts and Return On Investment

Yokozo Japan! I studied Japanese at high school, but my first trip to Japan was as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, or JET, a huge international exchange program that now has 50,000 alumni around the world. I was a JET in Kawanishi (the town Miku Takeshita and her family come from ). [...]

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Free resources for UK Children’s Book Week

Free Children’s Book Week resource pack! Woo hoo! Another surprise in the mailbox this week: A pack of fun things to celebrate UK Children’s Book Week (4 – 10 October 2010), complete with stickers, posters, a Best Book Guide and booklet full of Children’s Book Week resources (including teaching ideas, tips for planning a writer [...]

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Interview with Tom Avery, winner of the 2010 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award

So by now you might already know: the winner of the 2010 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award is Tom Avery with Too Much Trouble. But who is Tom Avery? And what was he doing before the Frances Lincoln Award team got their hands on his manuscript? Well, I’m glad you asked, because…..I’m lucky [...]

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Take&#$@a Demons?

The reviews for TAKESHITA DEMONS keep coming in and, although I try not to look and to focus on my own enjoyment of the stories, it is great to see that people are enjoying the read. An interesting thing: one of the reviews was censored by Amazon for including an obscene word. Guess which one? [...]

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