Oxford Smart Activate is the next evolution of the best-selling KS3 series, Activate. From the initial discussions of the Curriculum Development group, through to the testing phase with over 20 Pioneer Schools working with Year 7 groups, the development of Oxford Smart Activate has been a team effort. We wanted to shine a light on […]
Read moreBen Davis, YA author by day and superhero extraordinaire by night, shares his top three super villains of all time in celebration of his new series, Danny Dread. Greetings! I’m Ben Davis – author, citizen, eater of pies – and I am here today to talk to you about my latest book, Danny Dread. It’s the swashbuckling […]
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We are very excited to host a guest post from master storyteller Philip Reeve as part of his A-Z of Railhead tour! K is for K-Bahn When I realised that interstellar trains were going to be at the heart of Railhead, one of the first things I did was look up teleportation, in the hope of […]
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Christopher Edge tells us about the inspiration behind his new book How to Write Your Best Story Ever! A bank-robbing banana being chased by a police pigeon, an accident-prone spy with the nickname Double Oh No!, a crime-fighting baby who googles for clues… These are just a few of the fantastic ideas that children have come up with when I’ve visited […]
Read moreTim Hopgood, author and illustrator shares his love of Louis Armstrong’s world-famous song What a Wonderful World and takes us behind the scenes of making it into a picture book and getting it published. One Father’s Day about five, six years ago my daughter gave me an old vinyl copy of Louis Armstrong’s rendition of What A […]
Read moreJulia Lee, author of The Mysterious Misadventures of Clemency Wrigglesworth examines the different types of childhoods experienced by the children in the Victorian setting of her new book The Dangerous Discoveries of Gully Potchard. In my latest book, The Dangerous Discoveries of Gully Potchard , I got to plunge back into the perilous Victorian world of The Mysterious Misadventures of Clemency Wrigglesworth . (I have to take a deep breath even to type those long titles!) It’s a […]
Read moreTom Moorhouse, an ecologist at the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology and author of the brilliant debut The River Singers (out now in paperback) shares his tips on finding and seeing water voles in their real habitat. When I talk to classes of children in schools, I always ask them the same question: “How many of you […]
Read moreNilanjana Banerji, Editor of Children’s Dictionaries for Oxford Education gives us a sneak peek behind the creation of the brand new edition of the Oxford Children’s Colour Dictionary for primary schools, which includes writing tips from top children’s authors for the first time. Charlie Higson, Andy Stanton, Jeremy Strong, Jacqueline Wilson are all well-known names in […]
Read moreJulia Green, author of Sylvie and Star and Tilly’s Moonlight Fox gives us an insight into the inspiration behind her brand new book for younger readers, Seal Island . I’ve loved islands as long as I can remember: I like the smaller, more intimate scale of an island, the way you can get to know it on foot, the sense of community found […]
Read moreSpace travel! Toilet roll tubes! Moon-walking! Author/illustrator Richard Byrne counts down the journey to publication of his latest new picture book The Great Moon Confusion. Way back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, during the time of the great space race, just about every child I knew wanted to be an astronaut – and […]
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