Friday 24 February 2012

The Book People Gala Dinner

Last night the South Bank played host to the Book People Gala Dinner - and what a wonderful evening. All the great and the good of children's publishing were there - booted, suited and glitzy and ritzy.

The Templar team scrubbed up well - as Jamie Oliver our Master Chef for the night, would have said! We had a song from Michael Morpurgo, a rap from Lem Sissy and a polemic from Anthony Horowitz to accompany delicious food from the Jamie Oliver kitchens.

Thanks to the Book People for a terrific celebration to round off a very successful Imagine Festival.



Tuesday 21 February 2012

Templar's Last Show at Imagine

To finish off Templar's busy half-term week, Jamila Gavin, author of Tales from India,  entertained a crowd of young and old with her storytelling. Located in the rather grand Ballroom, Jamila explained myths and legends to the young Imagine festival goers. Her stories were brought to life by dancer Trishna who created a visual representation of the figures in Jamila's stories. The dynamic due created a compelling show that tantalised all the senses.





Jamila Gavin and the wonderful dancer Trishna

A captive audience



See all of the pictures from throughout the week on our Facebook page

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Friday 17 February 2012

The Robots Return to London

We've had an incredibly fun and action packed half term here at Templar Towers!


Sshh, artist at work!


A few days after Tuesday's event at the Royal Festival Hall, Paul Collicutt and his robots were once again London bound. Yesterday, Thursday 16th February, Paul set off to enthrall and inspire young Londoners in the Science Musuem.



Paul with a young fan!

He spent the day drawing and interacting with his young fans, demonstrating how he brings his robots to life. Everybody, artistic or not, shared Paul's enthusiasm for his drawings, with some receiving some helpful tips! It was an extremely busy, but enjoyable day - Paul ended up staying an extra two hours longer because he was having so much fun!

The finished pictures from the day!
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Wednesday 15 February 2012

Templar @ Imagine Children's Festival

Yesterday was the first event I have attended as an Intern with the Templar team at the Imagine Children's Festival.

Having successfully navigated my way through London, and its commuters, I was relieved to be saved from battling with the highly technical Artist's Entrance to the Royal Festival Hall by Jayne, our Press Officer, who had arrived moments before me, arms laden with caffeine. 

I was lured into a false sense of security by the scene that greeted me: the Robot City posters were up, the paper was rolled out and Paul Collicutt was ready to go.

Paul limbering up for
the pancake competition
 
As we added the finishing touches to our workshop, the rumbling of small excitable voices became louder and louder. There was just time for Paul to participate in a pancake tossing competition with The Book People (he achieved a very respectable 9 flips of the pancake in 10 seconds) before a tirade of children joined us.


Although space was limited, the children and their parents squeezed alongside the long roll of paper to create their very own robot city. Paul's enthusiam was contagious and soon all the children were busily concocting robots with a magnatude of special powers, including flame throwing robots, a cooking robot and my personal favourite: a gardening robot.


Paul met and gave encouragement to each and every child, leaving them, I'm sure, a little more inspired than they had been forty-five minutes earlier.









As soon as the robots had been carefully rolled away and the rogue pen lids had been found,  it was time to create pop-up cards with Templar's very own designers and paper engineers. Andy and Nghiem had created templates that the children could chose, colour and then construct to make their very own pop-up cards. Getting the children to colour was the simple part, aside from our frantic pencil sharpening, however the construction proved to be a little trickier, particularly because Jayne and I were pretty clueless about how the more complicated designs worked!

The children's patience didn't dwindle and it was worth getting various limbs stuck together to see the look of joy when a child opened their pop-up for the first time!



We had survived the morning, but after a quick lunch break it was time for round two! The afternoon saw more excitable children, eager to create and have fun. One little boy decided that when he got home, he was going to write a story about the robot he had drawn with Paul. It was a great day and I think we all fed off the children's enthusiam for creativity and imagination- I hope the children enjoyed themselves as much as I did!

If you have a spare few days this half term and are running out of ideas to entertain your children, it is definitely something I would recommend checking out!

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Guest Blog post from Author Teresa Flavin!

Teresa Flavin writes us a special blog post that reveals the highlights 
of meeting her young fans on her tour of schools in West Sussex


Thank you, West Sussex!


Teresa Flavin with some Year 7 pupils from
Holy Trinity CE Secondary School, Crawley, West Sussex
One of the most exciting things that can happen to a new author is meeting children who have read and loved your books. I have been introducing school and library groups to The Blackhope Enigma and The Crimson Shard for a year and a half and I never get tired of telling them about the paintings, labyrinths and sea monsters that inspired the books. I often get lovely feedback after my visits but nothing beats arriving at an event and finding excited kids waiting to have their copies signed.

That’s why the West Sussex Children’s Book Award has been so brilliant. As a short-listed author I was privileged to visit school libraries in November and again last week. This is the tenth anniversary of the Award and the West Sussex Library Service have done a fantastic job of bringing authors to meet the children who have been reading the nine short-listed books over the past months.

I toured the county, from Steyning to Haywards Heath and Horsham to Crawley, speaking mainly in secondary school libraries to reading groups from several schools. Students from the host schools mixed with Year 6s from surrounding primary schools, discussing the short-listed books and working on creative projects inspired by the stories. It was fantastic to see enthusiastic young people connecting through their love of books.

The Blackhope Enigma shortlisted
I loved the children’s questions after my presentations. They were intelligent, sensitive and even pithy at times! And how could I not love it when a girl waited till her classmates had had their books signed to tell me that The Blackhope Enigma is her favourite book? Or when a boy announced that he read my book and it made him write his own story? To know that my stories have touched even a few children makes all the hard work so worthwhile.

The children finished voting for their top read last week and the winner will be announced on World Book Day. Of course it would be great if The Blackhope Enigma is chosen, but I already feel like a winner, and that’s down to the wonderful young people, librarians and teachers of West Sussex and the warm welcome they gave me.

Teresa Flavin
@TeresaFlavin

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Wednesday 8 February 2012

The Pirates Next Door shortlisted for Waterstones prize!

Shiver me timbers, Jonny Duddle's The Pirates Next Door has been shortlisted for the Waterstones 2012 Children's Book Prize!

The Jolley-Rogers - a pirate family, are moving to Dull-on-Sea, a quiet seaside town where rumours spread quickly. Defying the grown-ups, Matilda from next door decides to become friends with the youngest pirate son. When the Jolley-Rogers leave, the town discovers they were wrong to assume the worst - the pirate clan have buried treasure in everyone's gardens.


Arrr Cap't Jonny Duddle
Jonny Duddle
About the Author: Jonny Duddle is an illustrator and concept artist. He wrote and illustrated the hugely successful picture book, The Pirate-Cruncher, which was longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. He also illustrated the cover for Nation by Terry Pratchett, which was shortlisted for Best Children's Illustrated Book at the English Association Book Awards. As a leading computer games illustrator, Jonny's work has been used by Sony, Warner Brothers, Vista and Universal. Jonny is one of the concept artists for Aardman Animation's forthcoming film The Pirates! (released in March 2012). He also lectures in Animation and VFX at Staffordshire University. Jonny lives in Mold, North Wales with his wife and young family.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Tales from a Pea Green Boat Exhibition

 
Did you fall in love with Holly Clifton-Brown's beautiful illustrations in Elephant White as much as we did? 

Then don't miss the chance to see Holly Clifton-Brown, Sarah Dennis and Jennifer Pitchers' exhibition of illustrations to celebrate Edward Lear's 200th year anniversary!





Exhibition: Thursday 5th April- 18th April 9.30am - 6.30pm every day
Tales from a pea green boat @ Le Garage Gallery 115 Dulwich Road, Herne Hill, London. SE24 ONG

Friday 3 February 2012

Debut author leaps into Richad and Judy Kids Book Club 2012!


Frogspell by C J Busby, illustrated by David Wyatt is one of 10 titles chosen by Richard and Judy for their Kids Book Club 2012!

Frogspell is the first in a four-book series for younger readers set in the time of King Arthur from debut author C J Busby. The adventures revisit Camelot, Merlin and Arthur but with a fresh touch, using great characterisation, dialogue and humour.


Join would-be wizard Max Pendragon, his sister Olivia (who wants to be a knight), two humorous pet animal characters - Ferocious, a world-weary rat and Adolphus, an over-enthusiastic young dragon on magical quests and adventures.

Coming in March is the second book, Cauldron Spells with Ice Spell slated for autumn 2012 and Sword Spell in 2013.

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Thursday 2 February 2012

Feeling Lucky in February?



It is only the second day of February and already Templar have some fantastic competitions lined up for this month!

To celebrate the re-release of Michael Morpurgo's Not Bad for a Bad Lad in paperback, we are giving away a beautiful Collector's Edition!

Head over to our Facebook pages (Templar Fiction and Templar Publishing) to see details of how to enter!