Fabulous activities for The Sorcerer’s Tower
We’re delighted to announce that Ian Irvine’s fabulous fantasy quartet, The Sorcerer’s Tower, published by Second Look as an omnibus in 2017, now has its own Featured Book pages on the United Publishers of Armidale website. This includes an information page about the book, the author Ian Irvine and the illustrator DM Cornish, and a link to buy the book, and also a great activities page which includes a lively video reading by Ian of a chapter from the book, and some great writing and art activities. All free to download and use in schools, libraries, and by families.
Shortlisting for The Boy who Could Fly!
We are delighted to announce that Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy Who Could Fly And Other Magical Plays for Children (illustrated by Amy Golbach) has been shortlisted for the 2020 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards, in the 8 to 10 year old category. Congratulations, Ursula and Amy, on this very well-deserved award for a very special book we are very proud to publish!
The Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards which are held every year, aim to promote quality Australian books that help children get the best, most literate start in life.
Books are awarded for “Best Book for Language and Literacy Development” in the following categories:
- Birth to 3 years
- 3 to 5 years
- 5 to 8 years
- 8 to 10 years
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Authored Children’s Book Award.
Each book is judged on its appeal to children, interactive quality and ability to assist speech pathologists and parents in communication and literacy development.
Some fantastic news!
United Publishers of Armidale, a collaboration between children’s books publishers Christmas Press and Little Pink Dog Books, is delighted to announce that it is the recipient of a 2020 Resilience Fund Grant, an initiative by the Australia Council for the Arts.
The 2020 Resilience Fund is designed to provide emergency relief to support the livelihoods, practice and operations of Australian artists, groups and organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australia Council has directed more than $5M to the Resilience Fund to provide immediate relief to the Australian arts sector.
United Publishers of Armidale was granted funds under the Adapt stream of the Resilience Fund, to create a wide range of fun new free activities and resources centred around their books, to join those already featured on their website, www.unitedpublishersofarmidale.net These are aimed at children, families and schools. Funds will also be used by the publishers to create special ‘Journey of a Book’ video presentations for adults which will look at aspects of writing, illustrating and publishing children’s books, around a focus on books produced by each publisher. These presentations, to be hosted on the UPA You Tube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCebJK9zqg1f1ROlrSrtAFuA, and showcased on their website, will be aimed at aspiring creators as well as anyone interested in children’s books.
Christmas Press and Little Pink Dog Books, under our United Publishers of Armidale banner, wish to warmly thank the Australia Council for their generous support of our joint initiative. We look forward to creating some fantastic resources–watch this space!
(And as a Christmas Press imprint, Second Look is delighted to be part of it!)
The Boy who Could Fly a Featured Book on United Publishers of Armidale website
We are very pleased to say that our most recent title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s wonderful collection, The Boy Who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children, (illustrated by Amy Golbach) is one of the Featured Books for the newly-launched United Publishers of Armidale website.
As well as details of the book, including buying links(just click on the book cover on the page), you will find some fabulous fun activities created by Ursula and Amy, centred around the book. We invite you to check them out!
Announcing United Publishers of Armidale!
NEWS!
Christmas Press(of which Second Look is an imprint) and fellow children’s books publisher, Little Pink Dog Books, are delighted to announce a brand-new joint initiative, United Publishers of Armidale, with the launch of a new website, www.unitedpublishersofarmidale.net, and associated social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The United Publishers of Armidale website features a number of books from each publisher, with free activities and resources to go with each, as well as information on each title. Activities and resources include audio and video presentations by creators, puzzles, quizzes, word searches, printable colouring pages, teachers’ notes, and more. The Featured Books page will be updated regularly with new, upcoming and backlist titles and their associated activities, while the About page gives information about the UPA partner publishers.
‘The idea behind United Publishers of Armidale is that in these difficult times, it makes sense for publishers, especially small, regionally-based publishers like us, to pool our efforts and resources in order to promote and showcase our books and help to support our creator communities, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Little Pink Dog Books on this,’ said Sophie Masson, co-director of Christmas Press. ‘But it’s also very much about supporting the wider community, especially children, their families, teachers and carers, by offering free resources and activities through a dedicated website.’
‘We are delighted to be partnering with Christmas Press in this new enterprise and we hope that everyone will have lots of fun discovering our featured books and the activities around them,’ said Kathy Creamer, co-director of little Pink Dog Books. ‘And we warmly thank our authors and illustrators for getting so enthusiastically behind the project and creating such fabulous and diverse activities for our readers.’
Books featured for the website launch are, for Christmas Press, middle grade historical fantasy novel, The Phantasmic Detective Agency, by Julian Leatherdale (out May 2020 in Eagle Books imprint) and Australian Children Laureate Ursula Dubosarsky’s recent collection of plays, The Boy Who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children(Second Look, 2019); and for Little Pink Dog Books, author-illustrator Trish Donald’s picture book Tissy Woo and the Worry Monsters(2018) and Parmesan, The Reluctant Racehorse, written by Jacqui Halpin and illustrated by John Phillips (2017).
Check it all out here.
Great review of The Boy who could Fly in Magpies Magazine
There’s a great review of The Boy who could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children, in the most recent issue of Magpies Magazine. Here’s a short extract:
Dubosarsky uses straight-forward, sometimes humorous language for the dialogue and episodes. The scripts are ideal for children to read or perform and can be staged simply or more extravagantly…Amy Golbach has illustrated one simple picture at the beginning of each tale to help orient children into the ancient period and characters.
The review isn’t available online, but below is the full review, as a jpeg.
The Boy who Could Fly reviewed at Read Plus
There’s a nice review of Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children just published at Read Plus. Here’s a short extract:
Taking ideas from ancient Greek and Roman literature and mythology, Ursula Dubosarsky has applied her deft touch to transform these ancient stories into simple play scripts suited to performance . . . or just reading for pleasure for younger readers.
You can read the whole review here.
Great review for The Boy who Could Fly in Reading Time!
There’s a great review in Reading Time for our latest title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children. Here’s a short extract:
The literary qualities of the plays are high, consistent with the quality of Dubosarsky’s novels. The language sparks, full of wit and vigour, and it is easy to visualise a performance from the text.
You can read the full review here.
Ian Irvine’s The Sorcerer’s Tower now available in ebook format
We are pleased to announce that Ian Irvine’s exciting fantasy quartet ,The Sorcerer’s Tower, which we published in omnibus print form in Second Look in 2017, has now also been released in ebook format, published by the Santhenar Trust. You can get it as an omnibus ebook edition, or as the separate four books.
And of course you can still buy the print edition!
Second Look Publishing 