The world is made of sugar

Saw this thanks to Sarah Webb. Take 4 minutes to listen to Sarah Kay's deadly spoken word poem and spend the next 14 mesmerized and inspired.
“This world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.” That quote is going straight on to my wall...

Tell me what you read | Bracelet of Bones, by Kevin Crossley-Holland

As mentioned previsously, Inis is now online, where it hosts a heap of articles and reviews that are not available anywhere else. One of those is my take on Kevin Crossley-Holland's latest novel Bracelet of Bones. Here's a teaser:
"The fantastic setting of 11th-century Europe (think boats rolling over land, Viking settlements from Iceland to Russia, runes, bone-carving and Christian–Muslim–Pagan conflicts) provides Kevin Crossley-Holland with a wealth of fascinating detail as well as a plot rich in danger, tension and drama."


For the rest, I'll invite you, again, to go over to the Inis site, right here.

Inis: live

Hear! Hear! The new glossy-fab Inis magazine is out and shiny! Go and grab your copy at a bookshop near you and have a wander around the brand new website: it's full of reviews and features from back issues as well as things that will not appear in the print edition. It also has a blog to help you keep in touch with your kidlit side and keep you posted on events, competitions and debates. Speaking of which, you should join in the current discussion about the Bisto Awards: how they work, what they do, and what they're for. See what you think!

And the winners are... | (NOT the Eurovision!)

Hear, hear! The winners of the Bisto awards have been announced to-day!
Here goes...

Winner of the Eilis Dillon award for best first children's book: A bit Lost by Chris Haughton

Winner of the award for best illustration: Winner of the award for fiction: Taking Flight by Sheena Wilkinson
Winner of the jury's special award: The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

Winner of the Children's award: Taking Flight

Over-all winner for best book of the year... yes, him again!

Well done to all!

Busy, busy

 After a couple of months of "far niente" (ie, writing board books, game books and stocking up on trivia for a forthcoming info book), I've recently got stuck in a new translation. And quite a task it is: over 350 pages of dystopian teen sci-fi involving genetic and environmental issues, politics, love and a couple of child-births.
The book is called Prized and it's the second in the BirthMarked trilogy by US writer Caragh M. O'Brien. It's very different in feel and style from the other series I've been working on, so it's an added challenge, but a welcome one, too, as I get to exercise a different part of my brain/dictionary. I really like what O'Brien has made of Gaia, the heroine, in this second instalment and I'm looking forward to showing it to her French fans...

Coming up next: The winners of the 21st Bisto Awards

Patience, the wait is nearly over. Next Monday (16 May) will see the announcement of the winners of the 2010-2011 Bisto Book of the Year Award at the National Library. In the meantime, as last year, Scoil Cholmcille in Skryne has put together the verdict of its own Junior Jury and you can see what they think of each of the shortlisted titles here and here. Brilliant!