Little literati will have their own fair, “Little Bookniks”, at Jewish Book Week, on Sunday March 7, 2010. The theme is “dreams and nightmares” (with fancy-dress prizes). Participants will have the chance to design a book cover, contribute to a “Word Wall”, or add their input to a Morris Gleitzman story.
Authors running sessions include former Children’s Laureate Anne Fine and Carnegie Prize-winner Meg Rosoff, who will join Daniel Hahn and Susan Ruben, editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, to discuss their favourite books. Other events will be led by Justin Somper, Inbali Iserles, author of The Tygrine Cat and The Bloodstone Bird; cookery expert Judy Jackson and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, who will launch his first children’s book, Shmendrik and the Croc, an illustrated chapter book about the Jewish year.
Bookworm, the north-west London children’s bookshop, will hold a special Little Bookniks fair. Tickets for Jewish Book Week events are available now to Friends of JBW. Booking opens to the public on January 7. www.jewishbookweek.com
Books to put on your wish-list for 2010 include Empire of Night, the new adventures of Justin Somper’s Vampirates, due out from Simon & Schuster in March. Sidorio is plotting to become King of the Vampirates and twins Grace and Connor Tempest are plunged into the battle against him.
April will see Usborne’s publication of My Life on TV, part three in Kimberley Greene’s My Sister’s a Pop Star series. When we last saw heroine Sam, she was discovering her Jewish roots and learning to cope as the sibling of a celebrity. Now she faces new challenges.
For younger kids, Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend will be published as an early-reader version in May and a paperback edition of Michael Rosen’s jolly picture book, Bear Flies High, illustrated by Adrian Reynolds, is due out in summer. Tale of Two Seders, by Mindy Avra Portnoy and Valeria Cis (Kar-Ben), will be welcomed this Passover by under-sevens whose parents are divorced.
Paul Dowswell’s Auslander, about teenage resistance in wartime Germany, is out in paperback from Bloomsbury in January, offering teenagers an unusual angle on the Second World War.
New writing to look out for includes When I Was Joe (Frances Lincoln, £6.99), the debut thriller by Keren David. The drama focuses on teenager Ty, who witnesses a knife murder and has to assume a new identity. Knife crime is also at the centre of Nicky Singer’s Knight Crew, which will be staged as an opera at Glyndebourne in March, with a cast of young adults — Glyndebourne’s first ever commission from a teen novel.
Starting in July, the Starmakers series by Anne-Marie Conway (Usborne) offers young, fun, thoughtful stories about a drama club where everyone can become a star.
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.