Lauren Beard's 'The Mummy Shop' shortlisted for the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards!

Congratulations are in order to Lauren Beard! The Mummy Shop, illustrated by Lauren, written by Abie Longstaff and published by Scholastic, has been shortlisted for the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards under the Never Too Young category! How exciting! 

Here's some more info from the awards:

The 8th year of the Inspiration Book Awards will be launched in Children's Book Week, (7 October 2013), and we are hoping to continue to be more successful each year. The last round of the Awards again saw  another massive increase in the number of votes cast. Over 6000 people voted! The Coventry awards are unique in the country in that they have something for all ages, including adults and involve the whole family and the whole community and they are obviously the ideal vehicle to promote Reading For Life!

A series of panels comprising of librarians, teachers, students and education advisers have been meeting to select the short listed books for each award. Our criteria have been books that inspire readers, books that will get you hooked on reading! 

The voting will take place between October and February - good luck Lauren and Abie!

The Paper Watch Project - Templar Needs You!

Calling all illustrators! The lovely people at Templar Publishing need our help! They are doing everything they can to raise £5000.00 for Breast Cancer Care, a cause that is of particular relevance to Templar after their lovely Creative Director Amanda Wood was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. The fantastic news is that Amanda is responding really well to treatment but never the less Templar are continuing in their fight to raise their target amount for this worthy cause. They have come up with the brilliant idea of auctioning off these fabulous, fully functional paper watches for this charity and this is where they need you. The idea is that each of these watches will be decorated by a different illustrator. And who wouldn't want to bid on such a uniquely creative item?! So, if you are interested in lending a hand by decorating one of these paper watches for them to auction and in doing so showcasing your work to Templar, please contact Emma Odonovan and she will post a watch to your straight away! You can email her here: emma.odonovan@templarco.co.uk 

Have fun illustrators and good luck Templar in reaching your goal!

Alternatively you can donate at their Just Giving page here.

Eddie and Dog!

To celebrate the publication of PP author and illustrator Alison Brown's gorgeous new picture book Eddie and Dog, Little Tiger Press have produced this fabulous video of Alison reading this heartwarming tale. Sit back, relax and enjoy with your own loveable four legged friend here.

PP Artists' Gromits Unleashed

We've talked on the PP blog about Bristol's major new public art trail, Gromit Unleashed. Today it brings me great pleasure to be able to show you some pictures of PP artists Emily Twomey and Paula Bowles and their fabulous hand painted Gromits! For more info about this fabulous event see here.

To get a feel for where you might find some of these giant, hand painted Gromits in Bristol, (including those from artists Axel Scheffler, Raymond Briggs and our own Emily Twomey and Paul Bowles), watch the 2 minute film here.

Emily (left) and Paula (right) in front of Paula's lovely Gromit 'Bunty'

Emily with her colourful Gromit 'Patch'

Paula with 'Bunty' and his sponsors!

Paula, Emily and other contributing artists with English Film Maker and creator of Wallace and Gromit Nick Park.