Congratulations to Manjeet Mann, who has won the Costa Children’s Book Award 2021 for her book, The Crossing. A trail-blazing novel about two teenagers from opposite worlds, The Crossing is a profound story of hope, grief, and the very real tragedies of the refugee crisis told in narrative poetry. Manjeet Mann is a multi-award winning children’s author, actress, playwright and screenwriter. Her debut YA novel Run, Rebel was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2021, won the UKLA Award, and the Diverse Book Award. It was also a Guardian best book of 2020. Manjeet Mann is also the founder of Run The World – a not-for-profit that uses sport and theatre as a means to empower women and girls.
While the worrying news comes out of Tonga, we learn that Anne Fine’s next book, Aftershocks, due to be published on 10th February, is set against a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami in a distant land, where the young protagonist is accompanying his engineer father. Aftershocks is at the top of our wish-list. Read more here: Anne Fine. There is plenty more to discover on other pages of the website about the work and ideas of this prolific, versatile, and astute writer.
National Storytelling Week falls between 29th January and 5th February 2022. This year’s theme is Your story~My story. To help you prepare, there are some useful resources on the Society for Storytelling (SfS) website. The American equivalent of the SfS has a rich analysis of what makes storytelling both unique and universal as an artform here. (Why feature oracy on a children’s literature blog? Well, before we sit down to write, we really should have something to say.) The image at the top of this post is taken from the flyer for this year’s National Storytelling Week.
Our current display, opposite the main doors of the Centre, is Discover the Dark, with lots of attractive books arranged around themes of Night-time, the Night Sky, To the Moon, Nocturnal Animals, and Underground. Do pop in and have a look. It was curated by one of our new members of staff, who comes to us with a wealth of experience of children’s books, and a creative flair for display. She will be taking over primary responsibility for this blog soon (although I do hope to contribute from time to time), and will introduce herself here soon.
The answers to the Christmas Quiz now appear in the Comments sections under the original post. How did you do?
