There is no nicer way to start the new year than to find a glowing review for The Beetle Collector’s Handbook in the January edition of BBC Wildlife magazine.
“…as delightful as it is educational…” says Sally Ann Spence.
I’m hoping the book will prove a big hit with the bug hunters this spring.
The British Interplanetary Society have partnered with UCLan Published to announce a new children’ book prize - The STEAM CHildren’s Book Prize. And I am delighted to be able to announce that Battle of the Beetles is on the shortlist. I’m over the moon that the book has been acknowledged int his way, because I believe that the Arts need to become more of a part of the STEM curriculum. Science and Art compliment and inspire one another.
The aim of the prize is to highlight the importance of STEAM subjects and praise the publishing industry and authors for championing them. By providing children with engaging fun, and exciting literature, they’ll hopefully be inspired to take an interest in STEAM further into their education.
Heads up schools and teachers in Cornwall. I'm doing a day of events at The Eden Project, in February 2019, talking insects and storytelling, set in the Biomes that inspired Lucretia Cutter's evil lair.
Come and bring your class!
Your day will include exploring the hidden world of insects in our Invisible Worlds laboratory, some beetle-inspired craft to take home and a chance to explore the Rainforest in search of the amazing interconnections between insects and plants.
I will be on the children’s floor of Waterstones Piccadilly this Thursday drinking mulled wine, signing books, eating mince pies and chasing people around with mistletoe. If you fancy a party with about twenty children’s authors and picking up some Christmas presents at the same time you should come! We’d love to see you.
PS. STEPHEN FRY IS GOING TO BE THERE!!!
Beetle Boy has won the Children's Choice Book: Gold Medal for 2018 from a list of the Top Ten Children's Fiction (Adventure Fantasy) selected by Reading Promotion Committee of China Library Association. I cannot tell you how moved and proud I am that Beetle Boy has been bestowed this honour. I was over the moon when I was told we’d reached the longlist of 100 books. I never dreamed we would win, but we did!
35 Chinese libraries, three hundreds schools and 100,000 students are involved in the award. The children cast votes for their favourite books and Beetle Boy won the most votes!
This award was first run in 2014 and was initiated by the Shenzhen Library.
You can READ MORE here, but you will need to click Google Translate.
Here are some pictures I was sent of the ceremony and my publishers in China (Beijing Huaxia Winshare) accepting the award.
Since 2000, the enormously popular and influential Blue Peter Book Awards have been recognising and celebrating the best authors, the most creative illustrators and the greatest reads for children. The Blue Peter Book Awards 2019 celebrates children's books published in the last year in two categories: the Best Story and the Best Book with Facts.
I am over the moon that The Beetle Collector’s Handbook has been selected for the longlist for this prize and have all my fingers crossed.
This half term I took a trip to the Natural History Museum to do a wonderful sold out event in the David Attenborough theatre, combining the science in my books with the extraordinary collection of beetles at the museum and with one of my favourite coleopterists, Max Barclay. I even got to go behind the scenes and choose the beetles for the event, which was glorious.
We discussed the featured beetles in the Beetle Boy books and of course Max’s wonderful contribution to The Beetle Collector’s Handbook, which I was signing afterwards. It was a delight to meet so many young people excited about beetles.
If you’ve read the books and want to become a Beetle Buddy, then head over to the Blue Peter website and watch me make a beetle hotel, for invertebrates to shelter in over winter.
There’s a really tough beetle quiz to do after you’ve watched the video. How well do you know beetles? Don’t worry if you don’t score highly, just pop into a bookshop or a library, grab a copy of The Beetle Collector’s Handbook and you’ll be able to get all the answers right.
It may not surprise you to learn that I am a huge Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell fan. I was very excited to spend an evening listening to them in conversation with the whip smart Lauren Laverne talking about why Art Matters, and get my mits on their newest collaboration.
At the end of the evening there was an auction for a piece of their work, and a series of smaller lots, in support of EnglishPEN - a freedom of speech charity that helps writers all around the world who’ve been punished for their words in horrific ways. I am delighted to say that I won that auction and this glorious picture is now hanging above the piano in my study.
The whole evening was fantastic and thanks to the wonders of modern technology you can watch it on the video below. If you want to see the auction, it’s at 1hr and 40 mins, towards the end. It was joyously dramatic and something I’ll remember forever.
If you live in the UK and wander into a bookshop you will be able to get your hands on my newest book, The Beetle Collector's Handbook. I am so proud of this book. It is illustrated by the amazing Carim Nahaboo and has a strong ecology message. I've made it as funny and astonishing as possible, as well as including the most amazing facts about beetles.
This is a stand alone non-fiction book about beetles, featuring sixty of the most fantastic beetles on planet earth and plenty of advice on how to keep a nature journal and plan your own expedition. It is also a companion volume to my fiction trilogy as all the beetles in this book also feature in the trilogy and this book is annotated by a few of the key characters from the trilogy.
To give you an insight into what the book is like, I have made this little video for you, reading the introduction and staring my pet beetles Beatrice and Barty.
The Edinburgh Book Festival is one of my favourite festivals, but this year it was particularly special because my brand new book The Beetle Collector's Handbook was made exclusively available to attendees. It was so wonderful to see Beetle Boys and Beetle Girls clutching the book. It is a non-fiction book and a companion to the fiction trilogy with annotations from the characters. I'm very proud of it, and it completes the series beautifully, with a message about habitat preservation and the importance of learning about the environment and in particular, invertebrates.
Here is a gallery of photos from the festival. One of the highlights of coming to Scotland is that I get to do events with Callum from Cool Creatures and he always brings the most amazing live beetles for children to meet.
Countryfile Live is always such a wonderful show. I was very proud to be asked to be a Friend of CountryFile and part of their anniversary exhibition of passionate people sharing their experiences of appearing on the show. They included Carim Nahaboo's excellent beetle illustrations that featured in the program, and we both are very happy to be flying the flag for beetles at Countryfile Live.
Beetle Boy has been selected as one of one hundred children's books competing to be in the Top Ten Children's Books of the Year in China. Beetle Boy is listed in the 'Children's Literature' category along with 39 other titles.
Through-out the next three months, titles will be read by families and children, who will vote for their favourites and the winners will be announced in November 2018.
I am beyond delighted that Beetle Boy is on this list. It is a great honour that I would never have dreamed of. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
You can read all about it here.
The BBC have repeated their great 30 minute documentary about Dr Sarah Beynon (scientific consultant to the Beetle Boy books) and Andy Holcroft's (bug chef extraordinaire) mission to get the UK eating bugs - The Bug Couple.
My 2017 Hay Festival event with Sarah and Andy was filmed for the documentary and features in the film. We got the audience munching insects. If you were there, you might spot yourself eating a cricket cookie.
