Rob Biddulph is sharing #DrawWithRob videos twice a week on social media to encourage children to draw and keep themselves entertained.
Oliver Jeffers is producing a #StayAtHomeStorytime where he will read one of his books every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and talk about how they were made. This happens at 6pm on his Instagram and is then uploaded to his website.
The National Shelf Service is a new daily YouTube broadcast featuring book recommendations from professional librarians. Launched by CILIP and the Youth Libraries Group and supported by Nielsen Book, OverDrive, RB Digtial, Bolinda and Libraries Connected. Its videos help children and families discover new, diverse reading experiences. The broadcasts run Monday to Friday at 11.00am each day at
www.cilip.org.uk/nationalshelfservice with selected titles available to borrow as e-books from most local libraries via their websites.
Authorfy works with year-round to make reading and writing interactive, accessible, engaging and fun and is hosting free creative writing challenges created by favourite children’s authors including Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell. The challenges aim to inspire children, introduce them to new books and demonstrate new storytelling techniques. Good news – the challenges are only 10 minutes each, with a new challenge every day for three months from authors.
The annual Henrietta Branford Writing Competition encourages young people to get writing and the deadline for this year’s competition has been extended to 30th May. Young people under the age of 19 are challenged to finish a story started by 2019 Branford Boase Award winner Muhammad Khan.
Lovereading4Kids is one of the centres recommended by the Department of Education and their Kids Zone is packed with activity downloads, videos, polls and competitions, with content regularly updated. Their blog offers regularly updated reading recommendations.
www.lovereading4kids.co.uk
BookTrust have risen to the challenge too launching BookTrust HomeTime. Children and parents will find free online books and videos, games to play, competitions, book-themed quizzes, and how to draw films and tips created by favourite illustrators. www.
booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/
The Phoenix comic has launched Q Club, a free ‘quarantine club’ which features comics, tutorials, videos and boardgames. Drawing and writing guides as well as videos by contributors such as Jamie Smart, Neill Cameron and the Etherington Brothers aim to show and inspire children how to create their own comics and characters.
Over at the Harry Potter Wizarding World website, you’ll find Harry Potter At Home, designed to help children, parents, carers and teachers ‘add a touch of Harry Potter magic to our new daily lives’. It features special activity kits, magical craft videos (teach your friends how to draw a Niffler!) fun articles, quizzes, puzzles and more.
Authors going above and beyond …
Frank Cottrell-Boyce is running writing workshops followed up with live Q&As and – with the help of some actor friends – sharing his books on his Instagram account. Well worth checking in: www.
instagram.com/frank_cottrell_boyce/
Konnie Huq is sharing content for young children on a regular basis on her YouTube channel including STEM learning and experiments, arts & crafts, as well as reading and storytelling. Educational and entertaining too.
The Alligator’s Mouth bookshop might be closed, but their YouTube channel has a mixture of live stream and pre-recorded videos and there are downloadable worksheets on their website created as part of their special Comics Club. Send your comics to them and they’ll share encouraging feedback and feature the best on their new website Comics Club Gallery.
Walker Books has created a Youtube playlist of Stay Home resources such as author readings, Q&As and book trailers.
HarperCollins Children’s Books has announced new initiatives to help children and families stuck at home via Fun and Learning with HarperCollins Children’s Books, an online interactive hub where readers can find book recommendations for young readers, as well as free activities.
file:///Users/louisemillar/Documents/BfK May 2020/Marks_Storytime_ad.webp 1/1
New STEM publisher QuestFriendz has launched a range of downloadable STEM activity sheets based on its new series The Adventures of Lillicorn.
www.questfriendz.com/meet-lillicorn
Scholastic has been hosting Julia Donaldson’s weekly broadcasts, Julia Donaldson and Friends, and has launched Chapter One with readings from authors of their own books and related resources such as discussion guides.
Happy reading, viewing, listening and creating! Books for Keeps No.242 May 2020 11
Matt Brown does a live chapter read every day at 4pm on his Facebook page (Matt Brown Writer). All the chapters so far can be found here
www.facebook.com/MattBrownWriter/live He’s also created a Word Monkeys podcast where he chats to other writers. It can be found on most podcast platform and Spotify too. Or here
thewordmonkeys.podomatic.com
Poet Cheryl Moskowitz has spent the weeks of lockdown finding ways to talk directly to children about what life is like for them in this age of Covid-19, and to reflect their perspectives through poetry written for and about them. Asking children to suppose they woke up tomorrow in a coronavirus-free world she has turned their answers to the questions Where would you go, what would you do? What new rules, if any, might you put in place for a safer, happier world? into poems that will serve as a record of the time and create the possibility for continued conversation well after the current crisis is over. Pop Up Projects, the pioneering children’s literary organisation, has taken on the publication of Cheryl’s pamphlet, planning to turn it around in record time, and to distribute free copies to each child in Years 3-7 in the schools Pop Up serves across the UK.
5/11/2020 Marks_Storytime_ad.webp (974×510) Publisher and bookseller sites to check out
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
