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.

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

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.

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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: