Tom 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 […]
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Gill Lewis, author of the award-winning Sky Hawk and White Dolphin tells us about the inspiration behind her extraordinarily moving new book Scarlet Ibis. What’s the story behind a book? Where does the inspiration come from? For Sky Hawk , White Dolphin and Moon Bear , I have a clear idea where the stories came from and what inspired them. With Scarlet Ibis , I’m […]
Read moreTo celebrate Mother’s Day, an ode to mums by Mina May, illustrator extraordinaire of the Wendy Quill series Wendy Quill is a Crocodile’s Bottom , Wendy Quill Tries to Grow a Pet and Wendy Quill is Full Up of Wrong (out July 2014), which she creates with her own mum, author Wendy Meddour. This is me when I was ten: the year I became an illustrator with Oxford University Press. I’ve wanted to be an […]
Read moreAnne-Marie, head of rights at Oxford Children’s, once worked out that her team travel over 109,000 miles every year. Their job is to sell rights to publishers from around the world to publish OUP children’s fiction, picture books, dictionaries, home learning and schoolbooks into their own languages. The team visit publishers in their offices and […]
Read moreThis month we’ve had the company of a rascally sea monkey, who has escaped from the pages of Oliver and the Seawigs to learn what it’s like to work in publishing and help us in the lead up to Christmas. It’s been an interesting time to say the least, and it does seem suspicious how all our mince pies and […]
Read moreIt’s hard to believe that four and a half years have shot by since Frozen in Time was first published in January 2009. For its launch I dressed up in a 50s style frock and convinced my family to clothe themselves similarly (the menfolk objected but the frocks didn’t look bad), hired a Wurlitzer jukebox and got some […]
Read moreCAN YOU MOVE THINGS AROUND JUST WITH YOUR MIND? DO ALI SPARKES’ FUN QUIZ AND FIND OUT… A NEW telekinetic is in town! The thrilling adventures of Tyrone Lewis are out now in Ali Sparkes ’ new summer must read, Out of this World . Shapeshifter fans will have met Tyrone in the last two books of the Shapeshifter series , when he shows up […]
Read moreI wasn’t supposed to be a writer. I was supposed to be an iconic artist or a world-famous DJ spinning the wheels of steel in front of a crazy festival crowd. Writing was a complete accident. It wasn’t an accident that I learned to actually write – we all have to do that. It was […]
Read moreLife-long pony enthusiast and OUP Children’s Books Editorial Assistant Helen Bray joins us to talk about the experience of editing Che Golden’s brand new series for pony-mad children, The Meadow Vale Ponies. If someone had told me when I was a child that a job existed which satisfied both a love of books and a […]
Read moreI have always ‘done’ funny. Both as a reader, and a writer. As a child, I snorted through every page of every Dr Seuss, laughed until I cried at Russell Hoban’s inspired creation Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong in her iron hat cooking mutton sog, and the mere mention of the East Pagwell Canal from Professor Branestawm […]
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