The Federation of Children’s Book Groups Blog
Q&A with Iona Rangeley
We were recently given the opportunity to ask Iona Rangeley a few questions about her debut novel, Einstein the Penguin. Thank you to Iona and HarperCollins for making this happen! Where did the idea for Einstein come from? I started down the route of writing children’s books whilst I was at university. The first book […]
Nura and the Immortal Palace: Why I Wrote It and Why It Matters
Imagine mining mica in narrow, shadowy tunnels at claustrophobic temperatures and with no safety equipment. Then imagine finding a portal at the end of it, leading you into an enchanting realm of pink seas and purple skies – the realm of jinn, full of the trickster beings from your mother’s cautionary tales. This is the […]
FCBG List for the Summer Reading Challenge
We asked Sue Wilsher, of Through the Bookshelf and North Somerset Teachers’ Book Awards, to create a list of books linked to the Summer Reading Challenge. Please read on for some great recommendations! The Summer Reading Challenge started in 1999, taking children on a Reading Safari and has since engaged them with themes such […]
Wild Summer: Life in the Heat by Alex Morss
I think we set ourselves a mighty challenge with creating ‘Wild Summer: Life in the Heat’. How to make a book that spotlights a daunting and somewhat apocalyptic topic – climate change – and examples of what a warming planet is doing to wildlife, into a friendly and appealing book for young readers?! […]
Imagining Menageries by Roger McGough CBE
Mention the word poetry to many adults and the response may well be indifference, but for children it can have a universal appeal, which is fortunate because rhymed poetry and verse are important for their language development. We are born into a world of rhythm, from the heartbeat of the womb to the pulses of […]
Why Access to the Outdoors Matters by Yarrow Townsend
All children should have access to a good libraries and green spaces. They’re both essential for feeding the imagination. Have you ever walked down a path and wondered what you’ll find at the end? Followed a stream to see where it begins? Or perhaps squeezed through an overgrown passageway between houses to peek into a […]
Q&A with Nicola Skinner
Nicola, we have always been a fan of your one-word titles! Always eye-catching and intriguing, was this always part of your writing plan? What impact did you want this to have on readers? Thank you! It was never, originally, part of the plan – the title for Bloom came about by accident via a series […]
Rex: Dinosaur in Disguise by Elys Dolan
Rex: Dinosaur in Disguise is about standing out, fitting in, finding your place in the world and of course a band of supposedly extinct animals! What inspired this story and how do you hope it will inspire the children who read it? When I began writing Rex I didn’t really set out to say anything […]
Reluctant to Rhapsodic Readers by Myles McLeod
There must be a moment in our childhoods when we became interested in books. A moment when we thought… this is for me. This is a doorway into something more and I want to step through it. We moved from the task of learning to read, through to a self-motivated desire to read for ourselves, […]
The Greatest Show on Earth by Mini Grey
About ten years ago I was spending an awful lot of time in the Oxford Museum of Natural History with my then 5 year old son Herbie. It was our favourite place to hang out. The Oxford Museum was built before that other famous one in London – in fact, it inspired the London one. […]
Finding Jupiter by Kelis Rowe
The protagonist of Finding Jupiter writes found poetry. How did you first discover found poetry and what impact has it had in your own life? Why was it important for you to weave found poetry into Finding Jupiter? Before I knew what my young adult novel would be about, I knew that I wanted it to […]
Inspiration behind Ready or Not and writing YA thrillers by Tracy Darnton
Ready or Not is a thriller about the disappearance of a teenage girl called Kat who goes missing during a game of hide-and-seek on holiday in Cornwall. The same group of three families have gone away together for years so the kids have grown up together, but cracks are appearing in their friendships. One year […]
The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman
When I first met my protagonist, Isabel Ryans, she was living in the wrong book. As the secretary to the main character of a crime novel I would never finish, she was bursting with backstory. She’d worked as an assassin since her teens. She was connected to a shadowy organisation called Comma. Her first language […]
If you Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So
I have had countless crushes on people I’ve met through fandom, on the Internet. In some cases, I didn’t—and still don’t—know what they look like. I fell in love with them through their words. All of them wrote fanfiction, and I would be completely mesmerised by their prose. The way they wrote about love. This […]
Black girl magic in Georgian Britain: could mystery be the key to unlocking hidden histories?
By JT Williams, author of The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger As a young reader, I lost myself daily between the pages of my beloved books. I stepped into new worlds and adopted new identities. I was Lucy, crunching through Narnian snow; Darrell, bounding around Malory Towers; Margaret, sharing secrets with God in […]
The Tale of the Whale introduced by illustrator Padmacandra
The Tale of the Whale introduced by illustrator Padmacandra Padmacandra is one of six illustrators shortlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize, which recognises the most exciting and talented new picture book illustrators. ‘I am trying to keep the whale’s eye out of the gutter and the tail out of the trim. I have had to […]
Get Reluctant Readers Raring to Go by Ria Grover
Get Reluctant Readers Raring To Go – Ria Grover Reading is a relatively simple pastime. But, in today’s digital world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to encourage children to swap their console for a book. Those of us that enjoy reading, recognise it’s a pleasure that can be enjoyed wherever you are. A great book has […]
The Odd Fish by Naomi Jones
The Odd Fish – World Oceans Day By Naomi Jones My two boys now aged 5 and 7 are a huge source of inspiration for all of my picture books. Seeing the world through their eyes as they’ve grown up has been fascinating. When my youngest son was two, we were watching Blue Planet 2 […]
