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The Ultimate Book Guide
The Ultimate Book Guides are an award-winning series of reading guides for children and teenagers. The guides are edited by Leonie Flynn, Daniel Hahn, and Susan Reuben and published in the U.K. by A&C Black. The reading guides comprise book recommendations written by children's authors and illustrators including Jacqueline Wilson, Terry Pratchett, Quentin Blake, Susan Cooper, and Dick King-Smith. There are three titles in the series: ''The Ultimate Book Guide'' (for 8-12s), first published in 2004, with an introduction by Anne Fine; ''The Ultimate Teen Book Guide'', published in 2006 (2008 in the U.S.) with an introduction by David Almond; and ''The Ultimate First Book Guide'', published in 2008, with an introduction by Julia Donaldson. ''The Ultimate Book Guide'' won the 'Best Book with Facts' category prize in the 2004 Blue Peter Book Awards. See also Readers' advisory Readers' advisory (sometimes spelled readers advisory or reader's advisory) is a service which involves suggest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Hahn
Daniel Hahn (born 26 November 1973) is a British writer, editor and translator. He is the author of a number of works of non-fiction, including the history book ''The Tower Menagerie'', and one of the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, a series of reading guides for children and teenagers, the first volume of which won the Blue Peter Book Award. Other titles include ''Happiness Is a Watermelon on Your Head'' (a picture-book for children), ''The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland'' (a reference book), brief biographies of the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a new edition of ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature''. His translation of ''The Book of Chameleons'' by José Eduardo Agualusa won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. His translation of ''A General Theory of Oblivion'', also by José Eduardo Agualusa, won the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award, with Hahn receiving 25% of the €100,000 prize. His other tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A&C Black
A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing '' Who's Who'' since 1849. It also published popular travel guides and novels. History The firm was founded in 1807 by Charles and Adam Black in Edinburgh. In 1851, the company purchased the copyrights to Sir Walter Scott's ''Waverly'' novels for £27,000. The company moved to the Soho district of London in 1889. During the years 1827–1903 the firm published the seventh, eighth and ninth editions of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. This was purchased from Archibald Constable after his company's failure to publish the seventh edition of the encyclopedia. Adam Black retired in 1870 due to his disapproval of his sons' extravagant plans for its ninth edition. This edition, however, would sell half a million sets and was released in 24 volumes from 1875 to 1889. Beginning in 1839, the firm published a series of travel guides known as ''Black's Guid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacqueline Wilson
Dame Jacqueline Wilson (née Aitken; born 17 December 1945) is an English novelist known for her popular children's literature. Her novels have been notable for featuring realistic topics such as adoption and divorce without alienating her large readership. Since her debut novel in 1969, Wilson has written over 100 books. Early life Jacqueline Aitken was born in Bath, Somerset, on 17 December 1945. Her father, Harry, was a civil servant and her mother, Biddy, was an antiques dealer. She particularly enjoyed books by Noel Streatfeild, as well as American classics like '' Little Women'' and ''What Katy Did''. At the age of nine, she wrote her first "book", "Meet the Maggots", which was 21 pages long. Wilson was given the nickname Jacky Daydream at school, which she later used as the title of her autobiography, which tells of her life as a primary school-aged child. Wilson attended Coombe Girls' School in Surrey and Carshalton Technical College. After leaving school at age 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his ''Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first novel, ''The Carpet People'', was published in 1971. The first ''Discworld'' novel, ''The Colour of Magic'', was published in 1983, after which Pratchett wrote an average of two books a year. The final ''Discworld'' novel, ''The Shepherd's Crown'', was published in August 2015, five months after his death. With more than 85 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages, Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for ''The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents'', the first ''Discworld'' book marketed for children. He received the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quentin Blake
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, (born 16 December 1932) is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators. Early life Blake was born in 1932 in Sidcup, Kent, son of William and Evelyn Blake. His father was a civil servant, and his mother a housewife. Blake was evacuated to the West Country during the Second World War. He attended Holy Trinity Lamorbey Church of England Primary School and Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, where his English teacher, J. H. Walsh, influenced his life's work. His artistic development during his school year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Cooper
Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May 1935) is an English author of children's books. She is best known for '' The Dark Is Rising'', a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. For that work, in 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognizing her contribution to writing for teens. In the 1970s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language book with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council. Biography Cooper was born in 1935 in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, to Ethel May (''née'' Field) and her husband John Richard Cooper. Her father had worked in the reading room of the Natural History Museum until going off to fight in the Second World War, from which he returned with a wounded leg. He then pursued a career in the offices of the Great Western Railway. Her mother was a teacher of ten-year-olds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick King-Smith
Ronald Gordon King-Smith OBE (27 March 1922 – 4 January 2011), was an English writer of children's books, primarily using the pen name Dick King-Smith. He is best known for ''The Sheep-Pig'' (1983). It was adapted as the movie ''Babe'' (1995) and translations have been published in fifteen languages. He was awarded an Honorary Master of Education degree by the University of the West of England in 1999 and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours. Early life, military service King-Smith was born on 27 March 1922 in Bitton, Gloucestershire and grew up in the West Country, his father was Captain Ronald King-Smith DSO MC, who ran several paper mills. King-Smith was educated at Beaudesert Park School and Marlborough College. He was a soldier in World War II, serving with the Grenadier Guards in Italy, and a farmer for 20 years before he became a teacher at Farmborough Primary School and author. King-Smith's first book was ''The Fox B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Fine
Anne Fine OBE FRSL (born 7 December 1947) is an English writer. Although best known for children's books, she also writes for adults. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and she was appointed an OBE in 2003. Fine has written more than seventy children's books, including two winners of the annual Carnegie Medal and three highly commended runners-up. For some of those five books she also won the Guardian Prize, one Smarties Prize, two Whitbread Awards, and she was twice the Children's Author of the Year. For her contribution as a children's writer, Fine was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1998. From 2001 to 2003, she was the second Children's Laureate in the UK. Early life Fine was born and raised in Leicester and educated in neighbouring midland counties of England. She attended Northampton High School and earned a degree in politics from the University of Warwick. She was married to the philosopher Kit Fine until they were divorced; she ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Almond
David Almond (born 15 May 1951) is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim. He is one of thirty children's writers, and one of three from the UK, to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award. For the 70th anniversary of the British Carnegie Medal in 2007, his debut novel ''Skellig'' (1998) was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. It ranked third in the public vote from that shortlist. Early life and education Almond was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1951 and raised in neighbouring Felling. His father was an office manager in an engineering factory and his mother a shorthand typist. He was raised Catholic at St Joseph's Catholic Academy and had four sisters and one brother. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a writer and "wrote stories and stitched them into little books." He d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julia Donaldson
Julia Donaldson (born Julia Catherine Shields; born ) is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include ''The Gruffalo'', ''Room on the Broom'' and ''Stick Man''. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree. Life and career Childhood Donaldson was born and brought up in Hampstead, London, with her younger sister Mary. The family occupied a Victorian three-storey house near Hampstead Heath. Her parents, sister and their pet cat Geoffrey lived on the gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Peter Book Awards
The Blue Peter Book Awards were a set of literary awards for children's books conferred by the BBC television programme '' Blue Peter''. They were inaugurated in 2000 for books published in 1999. The Awards have been managed by reading charity, Booktrust, since 2006. As of 2013, there are two award categories: Best Story and Best Book with Facts. The awards were discontinued in 2022, one month after the end of the Costa Book Awards, which included a category for children's book, leaving only two widely recognized awards for children's literature (the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize). Categories The Book of the Year dated from 2000 when there were also some "Voters' Awards" (2000 to 2002). Previously there were award categories for: * Most Fun Story with Pictures, from 2007 * Best Illustrated Book to Read Aloud, 2004 to 2006 * Best Book with Facts, from 2003 * Best New Information Book, 2002 * Favourite Story, 2011 * Book I Couldn't Put Down, 2000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Readers' Advisory
Readers' advisory (sometimes spelled readers advisory or reader's advisory) is a service which involves suggesting fiction and nonfiction titles to a reader through direct or indirect means. This service is a fundamental library service; however, readers' advisory also occurs in commercial contexts such as bookstores. Currently, almost all North American public libraries offer some form of readers' advisory. History North America "Setting a date for the start of what we now call readers advisory service, particularly readers advisory in the public library, is at best a frustrating, almost arbitrary exercise. Efforts at historical precision can founder on such basic issues as the absence of common definitions. For example, answers to such questions as 'What exactly is a public library?" or "What really is readers advisory?" have long been disputed." (Bill Crowley, from his 2005 journal article "Rediscovering the History of Readers Advisory Service") Opposing Viewpoints on the Mer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
