Our reviews of the year!

We have been digging into the 2014 archives to come up with some of our favourite reviews. Enjoy!

 The Wall Street Journal ­ review of Animalium:

"Animalium (Big Picture, 112 pages, $35) is large, stunningly beautiful and filled with pictures of surpassing elegance and detail: in this case, of invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals- all the profusion of the natural world displayed in a portable museum curated by Katie Scott and Jenny
Broom."

Your chance to win 5 amazing books!

To those of you that can't make it into a store for the Indie 12 Days of Christmas  bookstores, you have a second chance to win. Simply keep an eye out for our Tweets and Facebook messages to be in with a chance!

The 5 books are:

12 Days of Christmas - the official stores

Hello all!

Welcome to our 12 Days of Christmas competition! We have decided to get all festive here at Templar HQ and help support the local independent bookshops. From today you will have 12 Days to go to one of the book shops (below) and enter to win these marvellous 5 titles:

• Animalium
• 12 Days of Xmas
• Maps
• Snow
• Winter Child

Imagine and Draw: Storystock 2014

The Big Draw is the world’s biggest drawing festival running from October 1^st to November 2^nd across the UK and twenty other countries. It aims to encourage everyone and anyone to pick up a pencil and draw, embracing their creativity and unleashing their inner artist.

As part of the Big Draw, three of our fantastic Templar authors and illustrators appeared at Storystock at Bush Theatre in London.

A visit to "Germany - Memories of a Nation by the British Museum"

When I was invited to a viewing of the exhibition “Germany – Memories of a Nation” in the British Museum, I was looking forward to a German breakfast and some exhibits representative of Germany’s history over the past centuries. I couldn't have been more wrong...

My First Book Festival

Firstly, allow me to introduce myself - my name's Stephanie Allen & I'm the new PR Executive at Bonnier Publishing. On Monday, on only my second week, I was sent to my very first book festival...

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

Special Guest Blog

This week we have a special guest blog post from Templar author Yuval Zommer who is in the middle of a tour of London bookshops with his fantastic picture book Big Blue Thing On The Hill. An insight into what it's like for a début picture book author undertaking the daunting prospect of promoting his book.

Adventures in Paddington with Simon Bartram

Once upon a sunshiny day in London Paddington.
Near a very beautiful canal... 

A primary school was celebrating the opening of their brand new library! They invited fantastic Templar author Simon Bartram in to talk about his books, what it's like to be an author, and even sign a few copies of his new book:

Up For The Cup! 

Elephantom at the National Theatre

Author Ross Collins tells us about taking his picture book The Elephantom from page to stage

I remember exactly where I was when the idea for 'The Elephantom' came to me. I was walking my dog, Willow, on a hill called Queens View at the southern end of Loch Lomond. It's a beautiful place and a great thinking spot. I was rummaging around for words that I love. There was 'sausage' and 'linoleum' of course and then I came to the word 'elephant'. Elephant is one of those lovely onomatopoeic words. 'Ele' is flexible and wriggly like a trunk and 'phant' is big and heavy and solid. When I thought of 'phant', 'phantom' came to mind. An Elephantom. Ghost elephants. I wondered what it would be like to be haunted by an elephant. At first my childish brain thought "Amazing!" but then my weary adult brain thought "Actually, if you lived in a small semi-detached property, full of breakable objects, being haunted by an elephant would be no fun at all." So my story became more about the difficulties of having an Elephantom and how you would go about getting rid of one…

The book that emerged was first published by Templar in 2006. Sales were healthy, children loved it and it was recognised by that year's Kate Greenaway Award. But after that, like most books, we went our separate ways and I forgot all about phantom elephants for five years.

Awards news for Templar Publishing – Plus WIN all of these titles…

2014 has been a pretty busy year for us. We’ve been on some pirate adventures with Jonny Duddle, discovered how Marvellous Maths can be with Jonathan Litton and Thomas Flintham and learnt How Animals Live with Christiane Dorion. 

We love hanging out with our authors and illustrators.  In fact, we think we have some of the finest (and most fun) books – and it seems lots of other people think so too. Just look at the awards we’ve been shortlisted for below:

Schütterts Bilderbuch Bärchen (Winner)

Adam Stower – Silly Doggy

Hampshire Illustrated Children’s Book Award (Winner)

Jonny Duddle - Pirates Next Door

Blue Peter Book Awards

Jonathan Litton and Thomas Flintham  - Marvellous Maths

Maine State Library ‘Cream of the Crop’ List

Helen Ward - The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

Waterstones Children’s Books Prize

Helen Hancocks – Penguin in Peril

Read it Again! The Cambridgeshire Children’s Picture Book Award

Emma Yarlett – Sidney, Stella and the Moon

Helen Hancocks – Penguin in Peril

Independent Bookweek Shortlist

Jonny Duddle – The Jolley Rogers and the Ghostly Galleon

Dundee Picture Book Award

Gemma O’Neill – Oh Dear, Geoffrey

Kate Greenaway Medal

Olivia Gill – Where My Wellies Take Me

Royal Society Young People’s Prize

Christiane Dorion – How Animals Live

Sheffield Children’s Book Award

Adam Stower – Troll and the Oliver

Andy Mansfield and Henning Lohlein – Fish Food

* * WIN * * 

To be in with a very special chance to win a bundle of all of these titles, just tell us in the comments box below which is your favourite Templar Publishing book and why :-)

Enter by 6pm on Monday 23rd - UK Only.

Don't forget to Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! 

Our Hay Festival Adventure 2014 - Part 2: Plastic and Pooches

Sadly Hay Festival ended - but what an amazing time we had! Yes, there was lots and lots of rain, but we had some great events and learnt a lot about books. In fact, the last two Templar authors gave great talks about the environment, animals and the First World War. 

Have you ever wanted to know where burgers and rubber ducks come from? Or the best way to recycle your rubbish? Christiane Dorion, author of  the fantastic How it Works series of books hosted a wonderful workshop with answers to this and so much more. 

From creative design where the audience was encouraged to draw something that could help the environment in the future to a fascinating talk about animals, how they survive and what we can do to protect them and their habitats. At the end of the event Christiane encouraged people to take a look at some of the exotic things she had brought along with her (including ivory tusks and leopard fur) which had been confiscated by customs at airports around the world for being illegal items. We all left the event feeling much more informed about what we can do to help preserve the wonderful planet we live on.

Our Hay Festival Adventure 2014 - Part 1

Anticipating glorious sunshine and countryside, Templar Publishing embarked on a journey to a very wet Wales last weekend for Hay Festival; a truly exciting celebration of literature and the arts, with very special children’s authors and events.

We were lucky to have five authors and illustrators invited this year, with the first of two sold-out events on Saturday hosted by Jonny Duddle, creator of The Pirate Cruncher and Gigantosaurus.

Dressed as a swashbuckling pirate, Jonny read excerpts from his fantastic adventures into children’s books to a captivated audience. Breaking the spell, he then went on to demonstrate his artistic talent for drawing pirates amid plenty of piratey ‘arrrrghhhhhhs’ from the crowd.

Aaron Blecha – Ten Monsters In The Bed

Ten Monsters in The Bed, illustrated by the super Aaron Blecha, is a humorous play on 10 Green Bottles/10 in a Bed, where 10 monsters are squished together on a bunk bed.

On each spread, a monster gets pushed out and tumbles to the floor. Readers can press the characters to hear the fun sounds they make; plenty of snoring, burping, sniffing and farting!

Aaron invited us to have a sneaky peek at a few early stages of the Ten Monsters in The Bed book design, check these out!

Character Development:

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.