Entertain the littlies this summer

As the summer holidays continue we invite you to throw a bit of a party and celebrate the release of an UnBEARably funny new book by superstar author illustrator Emma Dodd.  

The Entertainer by Emma Dodd

Templar Publishing celebrate 10 Year Anniversary of Classics with Robert Ingpen

After 10 years and several beautiful editions of classic children's books, Templar Publishing are pleased to announce the release of the stunning new illustrated edition of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. 

With over 70 unique illustrations, the original artwork is from multi-award winning illustrator Robert Ingpen. 

A classic tale, beautifully told, Pinocchio joins other popular titles in the list such as The Jungle Book, The Secret Garden and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Over 130 years old, the story of a wooden puppet full of tricks and mischief who wants more than anything to be a real boy has transcended time to become a true classic in children’s literature. Turned into the hugely popular Disney film in 1940, there is also a live-action film adaptation in production from Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro starring Robert Downey Jr, proving that Pinocchio is an enduring classic with ongoing appeal for all.

Robert Ingpen is a prolific writer and illustrator who has contributed to over 100 books. He has received the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustration, and has previously worked for the United Nations. He lives in Australia with his wife Angela and has four children and four grandchildren.

*WIN* To celebrate the release of this stunning new edition of Pinocchio and celebrate 10 years of Templar Classics, we are giving away 5 copies of the book. 

For your chance to win, answer the question below as a comment:

What does the word Pinocchio actually mean?

A. Pinenut/kernel

B. Wooden Puppet

C. Real Boy

D. Chocolate Pudding

Entries must be made by 5pm on Sunday 9th March - Good luck!

Click HERE to order Pinocchio now...

Whizz your way through the Summer Reading Challenge with Fleeced!

Templar Publishing are thrilled to announce that Fleeced! by Julia Wills has been selected for this year's Summer Reading Challenge.

Set up by The Reading Agency charity, The Summer Reading Challenge takes place every year during the summer holidays. It is completely FREE and allows children to read six library books of their choice, collecting stickers and other rewards along the way.

In addition, children can now track their reading all year round, find new books and take part in competitions and games. There is also advice for parents and carers alongside videos from authors and celebrity recommendations. 2013 saw a record 780,000 children participate with the challenge hoping to improve on this in 2014 by at least 50,000. 

The theme this year is Mythical Maze, perfect for Julia's fantastic novel about a heroic ram called Aries. 

Here she tells us a little bit about her inspiration behind the book...

We are recruiting: are you our next Junior Editor?

Award-winning children’s publisher seeks ambitious Junior Editor, fellow doodler and general book sniffer.

The Chosen One (see above) will work across novelty, non-fiction and picture books, looking after a range of titles.

Working with us in Dorking is an unrivalled experience; we look out of the windows at lush rolling hills, venture into town to be greeted by a majestic (and massive) chrome cockerel and have our very own award-winning vineyard to rival the Champagne region! If that doesn’t tempt you, nothing will.

If you’re already an editorial junior wishing to climb your career ladder, this is an incredible opportunity. We consider quality and innovation the main focus and we have a fantastic future ahead of us – full of hard work, good books and great laughs.

A track record of editing children’s books, excellent proofreading and project management skills, creativity and a drive to explore new ideas are essential.

If you consider yourself worthy of the position and wish to join a dedicated, professional and friendly team – please apply by emailing your CV and covering letter to Libby Hamilton, Managing Editor, at libby.hamilton@templarco.co.uk.

P.S.  Must be able to wiggle an After Eight Chocolate from your forehead, into your mouth. No hands allowed. Get practising. 

Elephantom On Stage!

Ross Collin’s comic tale of a pesky ghost pet has been skilfully adapted for a stage production chock-full of mischief, chaos and laughter!

Directed by the creative team behind Warhorse, Marianne Elliot, Finn Caldwell and Toby Olie and adapted for the stage by Ben Power, Elephantom is showing at the National Theatre's performance space 'The Shed' on London's South Bank from now until Saturday 11^th January.

The wonderfully fun, ghostly tale concerns a young girl, plagued by a mischievous 'elephantom'. He throws parties on Fridays, carries a funky odour throughout the house and devours every bit of peanut butter in the cupboards - much to her Mother’s dismay! The Girl enlists the help of her sympathetic Grandma, with a hilarious outcome. 

The production is a riotous act, with spectacular character portrayal, imaginative set design and roars of laughter throughout from children and adults alike.

Ross Collins has illustrated over 100 children’s book and has written 8, winning many prestigious awards including the Scottish Children’s Book Award and Royal Mail Book Award.

You can book tickets to see The Elephantom HERE

SHOP The Elephantom HERE

Stephanie Burgis Guest Post

Author of the magical Kat Stephenson series, Stephanie Burgis, has written us a special guest post to mark the occasion of the third book in her trilogy publishing this month!

Over six years ago, I heard a girl’s voice start whispering in my head: “I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy and set out to save my family from impending ruin. I made it almost to the end of my front garden…”

They were the first lines of A Most Improper Magick. I dropped my knife (I’d been chopping onions in my kitchen at the time!) and ran to find a notebook and get the lines down before I could forget them.

Between then and now, so much has happened. I had a baby, and I moved from Leeds to Wales. I finished the book, and I found an agent. He sold it as the first book of a trilogy, the Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson. When I found out that it had sold to Templar in the UK, I laughed out loud with pure joy and delight. I got to attend my first publishing party in London, got to actually meet my editor. I got to see my books on the shelves of my local bookstore, one of the biggest miracles in the world.

I wrote the three Kat books sometimes lying on my couch, typing with my laptop on my legs (and Adam & the Ants’s “Stand and Deliver” blasting through my speakers), and sometimes sitting in my favourite coffeeshop, eating hazelnut-chocolate brownies and drinking endless lattes as I typed. I dragged my husband around every Regency-era house/museum I could find in England, Scotland, or Wales.

I’ve met so many smart, curious, inspiring girls and boys through Kat’s adventures. A Most Improper Magick won the Waverton Good Read Children’s Award, and on one of the best days of my life, I got to travel to Waverton to meet and talk to the fantastic kids who’d voted for Kat.

And I finished the last book in the trilogy. A Reckless Magick made me laugh out loud as I was writing it at a few points, as Kat gleefully threw herself into trouble, but it also made me cry, as she faced her biggest fears. This book pushed Kat to her utmost limits, and it pushed me to mine, too.

It finishes Kat’s story, at least for now. I really hope you like it.

When my author copies arrived, I got to hold all three books in my hand, together. I cried again, this time from happiness. Here they all are! They’re a trilogy. And they’re mine. Thank you so much for sharing them.

Keep up to date with Stephanie's news on Twitter @stephanieburgis or on her website

Happy Publication Day to A Reckless Magick

Today the third, and final, book in Stephanie Burgis's wonderful Kat Stephenson series is published. We talk to Steph's editor, Emma Goldhawk, about her experience working on the books

A Lovely Sort of Magick 

I share few similarities with Kat Stephenson - my dad's not a vicar, I don't live in 1804 and last time I checked, I couldn't do magic. BUT, I did take a pair of scissors to my own hair I was a kid, just like Kat does in A Most Improper Magick, so when the manuscript of the first of The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson landed on my desk, I instantly liked this feisty, funny, tomboy heroine.

What a pleasure it was, then, to discover that Kat's creator, author Stephanie Burgis, was as instantly likeable as her central character. Over coffee and brownies in Stephanie's local cafe in Abergavenny, just before the launch of A Most Improper Magick, she and I talked Austen, a shared obsession with CBBC’s Horrible Histories and most importantly, what was coming next for Kat and the series. It was 2010, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every minute of working with Stephanie since.

Each of the Kat manuscripts have come in at around 80,000 words and I know how carefully Stephanie will have considered each and every one of these words on the page. It’s an editor’s job to help an author make her book the best it can possibly be, not tell her what to do, so we would bandy ideas back and forth, suggesting different ways for teasing out more complex sentences or weaving in detail from previous books. We’ve also debated fun things like Mr Collingwood’s first name (Is ‘Reginald’ quite right for the gentle, romantic but shy young man who woos Kat’s eldest sister…? We eventually settled on ‘Peregrine’.) and whether we should use the word ‘garderobe’ instead of the rather more boring, but easier for readers to understand, ‘toilet’. (We kept ‘garderobe’ – it was historically accurate, and besides which, we decided it would be a delicious word to introduce to the reader.)

Having worked on these books over a period of two years, it was definitely bittersweet when I signed off on Kat’s third and final adventure, A Reckless Magick. I was proud of Stephanie’s achievement and the hard work she had put into the trilogy was something to be celebrated, yet I wanted more time with her characters and their stories. So, for now, I’ll have to leave Kat to get on with creating magical havoc in Regency England, while I look forward to what I might get to work on with Stephanie next!

Sign back in tomorrow when we will be hosting a guest blog from Stephanie Burgis herself!

Find out more about the series here or buy online from Amazon

VIII in Amazon's Bestsellers Charts!

We are hugely excited in Templar Towers today - yesterday's 8 hours of VIII campaign and the Amazon deal has pushed Harriet Castor's VIII up to no. 1 in Amazon's Children's Bestsellers chart and no. 2 in the overall charts!

Mike McGrath, our Managing Director, was delighted with the one day campaign "VIII by H.M. Castor is a great middle grade piece of YA fiction and to get to his position is fantastic, especially as YA fiction is hardly ever chosen for the Amazon/Kindle Daily Deal".

Just in case you missed it, you can watch the trailer here: http://youtu.be/9ZrOs57rLKY

Lights, Camera, Action!

  Last Wednesday, some of the Templar team invaded the lovely Hot Key Books office, armed with a slightly jet-lagged Michael Gerard Bauer (author of the Don't Call Me Ishmael series) and a film crew!

The Hot Key team very kindly allowed us to use their London based board room for three hours last week to film a series of trailers for Michael Gerard Bauer.

It was very interesting to see how the director translated his finished ideas to his crew and to Michael. Soon enough, Martin's scribbles on a page were coming to life before us!

I was lucky enough to watch the whole filming and took some sneaky behind the scenes photos...  I can't wait to see the finished book trailer - I know it is going to look fantastic!

Michael Gerard Bauer... a man of many talents!

 

Book number 3: not these kind of hoops...

but this kind...!

Staff Templar Title Spots!

Even though it is pouring down in Dorking right now, there is still cause for celebration because it's Friday! #TGIF

The Templar Team have been busy snapping photos of our books as they appear in local bookshops and windows!

Emma Goldhawk, our Senior Fiction Editor, snapped VII in the window
of Wimbledon Village bookshop

   and on the shelf!

As well as Whisper sitting proudly on the middle shelf!

Laura Garrod, our UK Sale Administrator, 

spotted The Pirates Next Door at No.1 in the Kids Chart in Waterstones Cambridge

Jayne Roscoe, Press Officer, spotted Not Bad for a Bad Lad 

 in good company in Waterstones Piccadilly

and The Pirates Next Door

 

Tong Smith, Receptionist, snapped

 I Spy series in the Tate Modern bookshop

and Black Dog

Helen Boyle, Commissioning Fiction Editor, has been super eagle-eyed  

and spotted Not Bad for a Bad Lad in Waterstones Piccadilly

and Black Dog, Farther and Paul Thurby's The Alphabet

 

and Drake's Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology

and Beat the Band in WHSmiths

and in Foyles

 

as well as VIII in Foyles 

and finally Your Not Scary Sid in Waterstones

Phheww! Quite a lot of good spots this week... I think Helen might have overtaken Jayne's early lead!

Not quite a Rocket Car, but just as cool!

Illustrator of our Robot City Series, Paul Collicutt has already achieved one of his goals for 2012!

Paul told us: This year I woke up and thought "What I really need to get 2012 off to a flying start is a Rocket Car or some big Robot City Banners." Having checked with NASA, local second hand car dealers and my Bank Manager I decided against the Rocket Car mainly because the parking restrictions in Brighton are horrendous! Luckily I was able to advance my plan to get some Robot City Banners made up much more easily.

I share a studio with a lot of other illustrators, designers, writers and even one printer! Steve Woodgate at Inky Solutions handled all the production on the banners and as you can see they turned out amazingly well. Of course now I have to make tea for Steve for the next month. I wanted the banners in order to create a better impression at signings and other events. Now I’m thinking I might get some more made up because they look so good round the studio although I still think a Rocket Car would be great!

Perhaps the Rocket Car will have to wait for another year...

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