American cover art for Questors

And here's the American cover for Questors:


There's a Russian translation in the pipeline and also the Spanish rights were recently sold, but no cover art for either of those yet - fascinating how different they all are, though. And not one would make you go EUGHH, which has to be a good thing.

All for now, Joan.

Questors - Die Weltenretter, no less

I took German at secondary school many MANY years ago and I'm guessing that Die Weltenretter is something like World Savers? Anyway, I LOVE the cover! At this rate, the compare-versions-of-the-Questors-cover section of my talks is going to involve the entire audience up on stage holding showcards for me. Dass gefallt mir ... unless that means something rude.

Joan.

P.S. Please feel free to express preferences and opinions on the different covers - I'll put up the American one next week.

And the First Prize Goes to ...

The Thing That Mattered Most won! Here's the press release:

"Scottish poems for children win national award

A collection of Scottish poems for children this week won a major national award.

The CLPE Poetry Award for 2007 was presented on Thursday to Julie Johnstone, editor of The Thing that Mattered Most: Scottish poems for children (Black and White Publishing/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006) ... This year’s judges were poet and BBC radio presenter Ian McMillan and last year’s winner, anthologist Fiona Waters. Waters commented:

‘This is such an imaginative and exciting collection of new poems, and you don’t need to Parliamo Glesca to understand them either for while this is an intensely Scottish selection, and justly proud to be so, the poems reach out far beyond the borders of that nation. Full of the sights and smells of the countryside, the hustle and bustle of the city and the tumultuous tumble of thoughts in the reader’s mind, this is a unique and compelling selection.’

Beautifully designed and illustrated by Iain McIntosh (best known for the covers of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Lady Detective series), The Thing that Mattered Most includes poems in Scots, Gaelic and Shetlandic as well as English and features a preface by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo.

Editor and award-winner Julie Johnstone, who is also the librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library, said:

‘From the start The Thing that Mattered Most has been about celebrating the rich variety of poets working in Scotland today. We hear a lot of gloomy news these days about poetry publishing – in particular about children’s poetry publishing. Scottish children had very little access to new poems by Scottish poets; this book is unique and fills a real gap. It was a joy to edit the collection and to play my part in bringing Scottish poets and children everywhere together in a fresh and exciting way.’

A copy of The Thing that Mattered Most was sent to every school in Scotland by Learning & Teaching Scotland, funded by the Scottish Executive, when it was published in August 2006.

The CLPE Award is administered by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education."

Whoopee! Joan.

More Ely Plot reviews

Got a bunch of clippings from Andersen Press today, with some more reviews for Ely Plot in newspapers and magazines like, for example, the Newmarket Journal, where the article is titled "Fenland Backdrop for Historical Chronicle". Philip Daws of the Bury St Edmunds Waterstones writes:

"This first book in the new Wickit chronicles series is full of humour and historical atmosphere. It's an easy yet informative read for five to eight year olds."

It was Book of the Week in the Ely Standard AND the Cambridgeshire Times, and the reviewer in CY Magazine said it was:

"Good for: Readers looking for something completely different - and gargoyle-loving adventurers."

Nice, eh?

Joan.