NEWS


Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2022 The headlines


Tate lines up three new titles


Tate Publishing has acquired three new titles to be published in 2022: Malola’s Museum Adventures by Joelle Avelino, In Our Hands by Lucy Farfort, and How the Sun and Moon Came to Be by William Luong. Malola’s Museum Adventures


follows young Malola as she wanders through her favourite museum, wondering what she will be when she grows up. When the paintings come to life to give her guidance, she meets many inspirational African women who teach her that she can be anything and everything she


JOELLE AVELINO


wants to be. Its creator Avelino is a Congolese and Angolan illustrator and animator who has previously contributed to Dapo Adeola’s anthology Hey You! and Floella Benjamin’s Coming to England. It has also signed the next title


in the How it Came to Be series, How the Sun and Moon Came to Be, written and illustrated by Ho Chi Minh City-based illustrator Luong, which is inspired by Vietnamese stories about how the sun and moon were created from two gems sent from heaven by the Jade Emperor. Tate acquired world all language rights for both books from Amy Milligan of Illo Agency. In Our Hands, written and


illustrated by Newcastle-based freelance illustrator Lucy Farfort, is described as “a timeless fable to entrance and empower a new generation”. The publisher signed world all language rights from Alice Sutherland-Hawes of ASH Literary Agency. Since joining Tate Publishing,


commissioning editor Cherise Lopes-Baker has re-envisioned the children’s list to put inclusivity at the heart of its mission. Tate will publish Malola’s


Museum Adventures and In Our Hands on 1st September 2022, with How the Sun and Moon Came to Be following on 5th November.


04 23rd March 2022 JOSIE WILLIAMS


Historian, philosopher and writer Yuval Noah Harari, author of bestseller Sapiens, will publish an “extraordinary” new illustrated middle-grade book about how humans came to dominate earth with Penguin Random House children’s groups in the UK, US and Canada.


Unstoppable Us: How Humans Took Over the World is the first book in a projected four-volume series and will be released by Puffin in the UK on 20th October. It will publish on 18th October in the US and Canada, via Bright Mater Books and Puffin Canada respectively. Tom Rawlinson, commissioning


editor, acquired UK, Common- wealth and audio rights from Harari, and will collaborate closely with Sapienship, the social impact


company co-founded by Itzik Yahav and Harari in 2019, which is producing the series. The book contains full-colour illustrations by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz. The synopsis says: “Harari brings his talents to the page for young readers for the very first time to share how humans eventually came to dominate earth. And how, through triumph and growth, but also relentless, destructive voracit, they became truly unstoppable. From learning to make fire and using the stars as guides, to inventing stories and co-operating in huge numbers, the secrets of how our ancestors evolved millions of years ago will be uncovered, revealing the superpowers that brought us to ‘now,’ and how they were used


to make us invincible… but also insatiable.”


Harari said: “Unstoppable Us is the book that I wanted to read as a kid. It tells the history of humans since the time we were just apes living in the savannah, until the time we almost became god-like by flying in airplanes and spaceships. “I hope young readers won’t


want to put it down; and it’s also dead serious—aiming to preoccupy you with the questions it raises. Every question from why we have nightmares and why we like sugar, to why people believe in gods and why there are so many wars. Unstoppable Us has one key message for kids: the world in which we live didn’t have to be the way it is. People made it what it is. And people can change it.” Reporting Sian Bayley


Dominion of Drama options YA romance


Dominion of Drama, the IP and production company founded by writer- producer Jeff Norton, has optioned the media rights to Josie Williams’ YA supernatural romance novel, The Wanderer. The deal was brokered on behalf of Josie Williams by Meg Davis at the Ki Agency acting on behalf of Lorella Belli at the Lorella Belli Literary Agency. Dominion is represented by Huw Walters and Rosemary Klein at Industry Media. Written by Norfolk-based Josie Williams (a pen name for author


Kirsty Moseley) and published in the UK and Commonwealth by Wales- based Firefly Press, The Wanderer tells the story of Ryder, a ghost of a teenage boy who never crossed over into the afterlife and is deeply in love with Maggie, a 15-year-old girl in foster-care following the death of her mother. When Ryder saves Maggie’s life by possessing the body of another teenager, it brings the two closer together but the harsh reali- ties of life and death conspire to keep them apart. Williams said: “I am absolutely thrilled that Dominion has optioned media rights for The Wanderer.”


YUVAL NOAH HARARI


Harari signs up for middle-grade book


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