Nosy Crow - Free Downloadable - Coronavirus A Book for Children - Professor Graham Medley and Illustrated by Axel Scheffler

FREE INFORMATION BOOK EXPLAINING THE CORONAVIRUS TO CHILDREN, ILLUSTRATED BY GRUFFALO ILLUSTRATOR

Axel Scheffler has illustrated a digital book for primary school-age children, free for anyone to read on-screen or print out, about the coronavirus and the measures taken to control it. Published by award-winning independent children’s book publisher, Nosy Crow, and written by staff within the publishing company, the book has had expert input: Professor Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine acted as a consultant, and the company also had advice from two head teachers and a child psychologist.

 The book answers key questions in simple language appropriate for 5 to 9-year-olds: 

What is the coronavirus? 

• How do you catch the coronavirus? 
• What happens if you catch the coronavirus? 
• Why are people worried about catching the coronavirus? 
• Is there a cure for the coronavirus? 
• Why are some places we normally go to closed? 
• What can I do to help?
• What’s going to happen next?

Nosy Crow wants to make sure that this book is accessible to every child and family and so the book is offered totally free of charge to anyone who wants to read it.  However, the company suggests, at the back of the book, that families might make a donation to help our health service if they find the book useful: https://www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/.

Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow, said:

“We were very aware that many parents and carers are struggling to explain the current extraordinary situation to children, many of whom are frightened and confused. We thought that the best thing we could do would be to use our skills to produce a free book to explain and, where possible, reassure children. We asked Axel, whose work is so familiar and so loved, to illustrate it. He was happy to do it, and did it extraordinarily quickly. Meanwhile, having heard Professor Medley interviewed by the BBC, we looked him up and wrote to him, and despite his huge workload, he reviewed the book over a weekend, and we were able to incorporate his suggestions, together with those of two headteachers and a child psychologist, into the final version of the book. We hope it helps answer difficult questions in difficult times.”

Axel Scheffler, the illustrator of The Gruffalo, said: 

“I asked myself what I could do as a children’s illustrator to inform, as well as entertain, my readers here and abroad.  So I was glad when my publisher, Nosy Crow, asked me to illustrate this question-and-answer book about the coronavirus. I think it is extremely important for children and families to have access to good and reliable information in this unprecedented crisis, and I hope that the popularity of the books I've done with Julia Donaldson will ensure that this digital book will reach many children who are now slightly older, but might still remember our picture books.”

Professor Graham Medley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“This pandemic is changing children’s lives across the globe and will have a lasting impact on us all. Helping children understand what is going on is an important step in helping them cope and making them part of the story - this is something that we are all going through, not something being done to them. This book puts children IN the picture rather just watching it happen, and in a way that makes the scary parts easier to cope with.”

You can download a copy of the book here. 

Guest Post - Father Figures By Jeff Norton - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books (Stomp School)

It's great to have one of my favourite authors on the blog today. With back to school looming, it's time to get the lovely picture books out to share with your kids or 'little monsters'. Jeff has already published a fantastic series, that I loved, which was in the futuristic world of 'MetaWars'. However, he has now turned his written hand into entertaining the younger ones with a fantastic picture book called "STOMP SCHOOL". It's a fantastically endearing story about a set of MONSTERS. 

You will meet Rikki, the little kaiju who just loves to build things. Find out what happens on his first day at Stomp School - he is in for a few surprises! It's a very bright and colourful book which is full of humour and fun specifically aimed at children from the age of 3 to 6. Jeff has written a guest post to give us some insight behind this book, which was published early August 2017 by Caterpillar Books.

It’s fair to say I’m a feminist. 


I believe that when women have equal access to opportunity we are all better off. One of the things that’s struck me since becoming a father is how pervasive gender stereotypes are in our society, starting with the very first exposure to pop culture that children encounter: picture books.

As the father of two young boys, I’ve been a voracious consumer and reader of picture books for seven years now. And I’ve noticed an assumed sexism in many of the books whereby mothers hold down the household and dads hold down an out-of-home job. Surely this normalises role expectations for much later in life. My major observation of parenting couples is that typically the man “klutzes out” of domestic duties while the woman is forced to be more competent in order to compensate. Thus, the burden of domestic life falls largely on female shoulders.

In the UK, the myth of the “useless husband” is so dominant, that’s a widely accepted norm that allows chaps to be let off the hook from domestic roles ranging from changing nappies to reading bedtime stories. But the useless husband myth holds back young women from achieving their potential because there is an often-unstated expectation that upon becoming mothers they will take on well over 50% of the domestic tasks. It’s an in-built sexism that stifles achievement and, I believe, economic potential. If dudes stepped up at home, Sheryl Sandberg wouldn’t have to urge women to ‘lean in’ at work. 


So, in moving from writing YA and middle-grade book to mounting my first picture book, I wanted to present a father figure who was engaged in the child’s life and pulling his own Godzilla-scale share of the domestic duties. 

The daddy kaiju in the book readies Rikki for school and pushes the pram. He still stomps off to Tokyo on a professional rampage, but then he’s back in time to for school pick up.


How does he do it?
He probably works late, after the kaiju kids have gone to bed. Maybe he “hides” the school run from his boss by tacking it onto an out-of-office meeting with King Kong? But his commitment to the kids allows his spouse to also have a fulfilling and important career decimating San Francisco. As a two-career kaiju family, daddio pulls his weight so that his partner can soar. 


It may not be a lot, but my hope is that since Stomp School portrays a father who is engaged and competent, we can start to make that role the norm.

Jeff Norton is the author of numerous books for older readers including the award-winning METAWARS series, the laugh-out-loud MEMOIRS OF A NEUROTIC ZOMBIE books, and is the creator and co-author of the best-selling PRINCESS PONIES chapter books (together with Julie Sykes, writing as “Chloe Ryder”). STOMP SCHOOL is his first picture book, which is brilliantly illustrated by artist Leo Antolini. Jeff is the father of two young boys, who inspired STOMP SCHOOL. 
Jeff is on the web at www.jeffnorton.com and social media as: @thejeffnorton.

PUBLICATION DAY: Anne Booth & Sam Usher - Refuge - Nosy Crow

Nosy Crow publishes Refuge on 12th November. It is a book I dearly hope you will all support.

Like you, I suppose, all of us at Nosy Crow have watched the ongoing refugee crisis on the news – the terrible stories, the appalling pictures, the daily suffering and tragedies – and have wanted desperately to do something. Not just to raise money, but to help parents with young children asking difficult questions about the pictures they see of boys and girls their own age in unimaginable circumstances. But we did not know what we could do.

And then, just five weeks ago, Anne Booth, a picture book author on the Nosy Crow list, sent in a beautiful, careful, succinct text that we read. It made some of us cry with the beauty of the writing and the way it took a story that is already familiar and moving for many of us and cast it in a completely new light. We knew that this could be a book that helps. We matched Anne’s words with the hugely evocative and engaging illustrations of Sam Usher – who had recently visited the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp and met refugees for himself – and we had the book we will publish in just a few days’ time on November 12: Refuge.

Nosy Crow won’t make any money at all from Refuge. By absorbing everything other than our print costs, and through the generosity of all involved in producing, distributing and selling it (the list is on the copyright page of the book), we will be able to give £5 for every copy of this £7.99 book sold to our partner charity, War Child, to help care for Syrian refugee children and their families in camps and host communities in Jordan and Northern Iraq and other children displaced, orphaned and suffering as a result of war too. It’s a small, focussed charity, and they are delighted to be involved.

The Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell, has called Refuge “an important Christmas book.” He says it is “a book to share with a lump in your throat and an ache in your heart until the beauty and hope of the very last page.”

I agree, and I hope you will too.

Buy Copies here please: http://nosycrow.com/product/refuge/

Three Great New Picture Books: Published In April 2013

                                       
Tom Percival - Jacks Amazing Shadow - Published by Pavilion Children's (18 April 2013)
Jack and his amazing magical shadow are the VERY best of friends. But when Jack s shadow is naughty and Jack himself gets the blame they have a falling out. Will jack and his shadow ever be reunited? A lively story that's perfect for anyone who's ever wondered what their shadow gets up to when they're not looking!




Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen - The Dark - Published by Orchard (3 April 2013)
Laszlo is afraid of the dark. The dark lives in the same house as Laszlo but mostly it spends its time in the basement. It doesn't visit Laszlo in his room. Until one night it does. With emotional insight and poetic economy, Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen bring to light a universal and empowering story about conquering fear. Join a brave boy on his journey to meet the dark, and see why it will never bother him again.




Oliver Jeffers - The New Jumper  (The Hueys) - Published by HarperCollins (25 April 2013)  
Meet the Hueys - a fabulously quirky group of characters from international bestselling, award-winning author/illustrator, Oliver Jeffers, creator of How to Catch a Star and Lost and Found.

A fight has broken out amongst The Hueys. “It was not me! It was him!” But no one can remember what they’re fighting about. If only they could find an interesting distraction…

Book Launch: Nicola L Robinson - The Monster Machine

'The Monster Machine' is a monster picture book written and illustrated by Nottingham illustrator Nicola L Robinson. It is published by Pavilion Children's Books on the 16t May 2012.

From the back cover-

'My Dad is an inventor… he has just finished his latest and greatest invention. The Monster Machine!' A story of fun, inventions and all the monster mischief you can imagine. A great message about having fun and working together, beautifully illustrated with masses to look for on every page, a wonderful text to read aloud. (Approximately 350 words.)

Nicola has been illustrating children's books for many years now,  and 'The Monster Machine' is her first picture book and outing as an author.

She has  always loved things with teeth and claws and fur and scales (and machines are fascinating anyway) so creating this picture book has been a lot of fun. Nicola's illustrations are vibrant and colourful with a lot of detail making The Monster Machine a picture book with lots and lots of things to look at and look out for. It tells the story of a small boy and his Dad and their monster making machine. If you like monsters and machines this one is for you...

To learn more about the book or to contact Nicola and/or the monsters  do visit the Monster Machine's website here - www.monstermachine.co.uk