The author was repeatedly told that no one wanted to read fun books with disabled heroes. Now she has won the £5,000 Waterstones children’s book prize for her debut, A Kind of SparkWhen Scottish author Elle McNicoll was first trying to enter the publishing world, she was repeatedly told that people didn’t want to read about an autistic heroine. “In job interviews, I was saying that I wanted to see more books with disabled characters in them that were not traumatic, boring or educational, but fun and full of life. A lot of the reactions were, ‘Waterstones don’t like books like that’,” she says.Now McNicoll’s debut novel A Kind of Spark has won the Waterstones children’s book prize. Published by tiny independent Knights Of, it follows Addie, an 11-year-old autistic girl, as she campaigns for a memorial to the witch trials that took place in her Scottish village. The novel has been praised by Waterstones’ booksellers as “eye opening, heart-wrenching, sad [and] inspiring”. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-01 05:01:05 UTC ]
The debut novel examines the lives of people who are more interested in how they appear online than who they are in real life. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-01-21 17:44:04 UTC ]
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In “Sunnyside Plaza,” Simon’s funny, observant protagonist solves a mystery. She also has developmental disabilities. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-01-21 14:45:40 UTC ]
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In this delightful debut novel Katherine Kayne sweeps us back to a Hawaii still mourning its lost kingdom, where ladies—their ballgowns covered in yards of protective fabric—gallop across the mountains and down the city streets on their way to polo matches and parties, men dance the hula as well... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-17 09:46:07 UTC ]
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Heidi Sopinka’s debut novel The Dictionary of Animal Languages is the deceptively gentle tale of the aging artist Ivory Frame, whose character and life are based, both loosely and closely, in alternation, on Leonora Carrington. In fact, Sopinka was struggling to write the book—struggling to get... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-13 09:48:01 UTC ]
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TV presenter and children's author Dermot O'Leary will join Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon and children's book consultant Jake Hope on the judging panel of Oscar’s Book Prize for 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-13 06:24:18 UTC ]
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Kiley Reid’s debut novel is a funny, fast-paced, empathetic examination of privilege in America. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2020-01-08 13:00:00 UTC ]
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The Scholastic Corporation has revealed a 7% rise in operating income in the second quarter of the fiscal year, as c.e.o. Richard Robinson said the firm "continued to stand out as the world’s leading children’s book publisher and distributor". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-23 08:45:28 UTC ]
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Delia Owens’s debut novel has sold more than four million copies — an astonishing trajectory for any new writer, much less for a 70-year-old wildlife scientist. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-12-21 10:00:08 UTC ]
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This week, Lauretta Charlton reviews Darryl Pinckney’s collection of essays “Busted in New York.” In 1992, Edmund White wrote for the Book Review about “High Cotton,” Pinckney’s debut novel about a young black man coming of age. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-12-20 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Magazine and newspaper executives may beg to differ, but our love affair with print media has been surprisingly resilient in the digital era. E-book sales have flattened, and physical book sales continue to outstrip the “disruptors” by a wide margin. In fact, as our annual review of “Books for... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2019-12-18 21:53:27 UTC ]
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Find a new author to follow or the first book your fave wrote with this list of debut novels by queer authors for the 2020 Read Harder Challenge. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-12-18 11:31:50 UTC ]
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Text Me When You Get Home: the Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship by Kayleen SchaeferIt’s a non-fiction book about the change in perspective around female friendship over the last few years, featuring interviews with a huge range of people including Judy Blume. The book looks at... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-12-17 09:49:28 UTC ]
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Can the iconic brand rediscover what made it a cultural phenomenon and financial success in the 1990s? In 1990, when I was in first grade, a children’s book author named Valerie Tripp visited my school. She was there to talk about a new series she had written for a four-year-old startup... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-12-17 07:00:46 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle’s annual letter to company employees emphasized the acquisitions the publisher has made across the publishing world this year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-12 05:00:00 UTC ]
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In the publishing world, it seems like winning the Nobel Prize just isn’t what it used to be. A Deutsche Welle interview with Lucien Leitess, director of the Swiss publishing house Unionsverlag, explored the business of predicting a Nobel laureate’s commercial success. The controversy... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-11 19:54:24 UTC ]
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Today, we present an excerpt from a debut novel that earned praise from Victor LaValle, who called it a "gripping and moving book." The post ‘Africaville’: Featured Fiction from Jeffrey Colvin appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-12-10 19:30:59 UTC ]
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Tramp Press has bagged the “stunning” debut novel from Irish writer Niall Bourke. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-06 16:27:30 UTC ]
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Raymond AntrobusWho/ What inspired you to start writing? I never started writing poetry with the intention of writing books until publishers approached me. I was happy to write poems and travel and read the poems for audiences. I live poem by poem. The idea of a book of poems doesn’t really... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-12-05 12:09:15 UTC ]
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"It’s like the children’s book version of a president crime-ing his way to being impeached," said the MSNBC host. Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2019-12-04 08:44:14 UTC ]
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