Russell Ayto
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Russell Ayto
Russell Ayto is an English author and illustrator of children's books including many picture books. Biography Russell was born in Chichester, Sussex in 1960 and grew up in Kidlington, Oxfordshire. After school he worked as a postman, then in the Histopathology Department of the John Radcliffe Hospital before studying at Oxford Polytechnic and Exeter College of Art and Design where he gained a degree in Graphic Design. He gained work with '' Observer Magazine'' and ''Time Out'' and began illustrating adult fiction before his work was spotted by Walker Books and he moved to illustrating children's fiction. Russell has illustrated over 80 books, including ''The Cow That Laid an Egg'' by Andy Cutbill, ''Quacky Quack-Quack!'' and ''Whiff'' both by Ian Whybrow, and ''The Witch’s Children'' series by Ursula Jones. His illustration of ''The Witch’s Children go to School by'' Ursula Jones won the 2008 inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Russell’s illustrations for ''The Cow That Al ...
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Children's Books
A child () is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking countries, the legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, in this case as a person younger than the local age of majority (there are exceptions such as, for example, the consume and purchase of alcoholic beverage even after said age of majority), regardless of their physical, mental and sexual development as biological adults. Children generally have fewer rights and responsibilities than adults. They are generally classed as unable to make serious decisions. ''Child'' may also describe a relationship with a parent (such as sons and daughters of any age) or, metaphorically, an authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in "a child o ...
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SLR Productions
SLR Productions is an Australian company, specialising in the development and production of children's content. It was established in 2000 by Founder and CEO, Suzanne Ryan. NZ based company South Pacific Pictures bought out Ryans's stake in the company and joint ventured to produce animated shows aimed at international markets. SLR Productions has produced more than 180 hours of content sold in more than 165 countries throughout the world. Credits Animation *'' Deadly'' (2006) (co-production with Yoram Gross-EM.TV) *'' I Got a Rocket'' (2006–2007) (co-production with Mike Young Productions, MotionWorks, Europool, Peach Blossom Media, Sunwoo Entertainment and Network Ten) *'' Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist'' (2008–2009) (co-production with March Entertainment) *'' Gasp!'' (2010–2011) (co-production with Screen Australia) *''The DaVincibles'' (2011) (co-production with Zodiak Active, Rai Fiction, MoonScoop and Telegael) *'' Guess How Much I Love You'' (2011–2017) ...
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Bloomsbury Publishing
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in New York City, an India publishing office in New Delhi, an Australian sales office in Sydney CBD, and other publishing offices in the UK, including in Oxford. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History The company was founded in 1986 by Nigel Newton, who had previously been employed by other publishing companies. It was floated as a public registered company in 1994, raising £5.5 million, which was used to fund expansion of the company into paperback and children's books. A rights issue of shares in 1998 further raised £6.1 million, which was used to expand the company, in particular to found a U.S. branch. In 1998, Bloomsbury USA was established. Bloomsbury USA Books for Young Read ...
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HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmillan Publishers, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and London and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The company's name is derived from a combination of the firm's predecessors. Harper & Brothers, founded in 1817 in New York, merged with Row, Peterson & Company in 1962 to form Harper & Row, which was acquired by News Corp in 1987. The Scotland, Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons, founded in 1819 in Glasgow, was acquired by News Corp in 1987 and merged with Harper & Row to form HarperCollins. The logo for the firm combines the fire from Harper's torch and the water from Collins' fountain. HarperCollins operates publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Austr ...
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Hilary Mantel
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces. Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: the first was for her 2009 novel ''Wolf Hall'', a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII, and the second was for its 2012 sequel ''Bring Up the Bodies''. The third installment of the Cromwell trilogy, ''The Mirror & the Light'', was longlisted for the same prize. The trilogy has gone on to sell more than 5 million copies. Early life Hilary Mary Thompson was born on 6 July 1952 in Glossop, Derbyshire, the eldest of three children, with two younger brothers, and raised as a Catholic Church, Roman Catholic in the mill village of Had ...
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Fludd (novel)
''Fludd'' is a novel by Hilary Mantel. First published by Viking Press in 1989, it won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize that year. The novel is set in 1956, in Fetherhoughton, a dreary and isolated fictional town somewhere on the moors of northern England. The people of the town seem benighted, but are portrayed by Mantel with sympathy and affection. The plot centres on the Roman Catholic church and convent in the town and concerns the dramatic impact of the mysterious Fludd, who is apparently a curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ... sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin, a priest who continues in his role despite privately having lost his faith. The novel presents an uncompromisingly harsh view of the Roman Catholic Church, portraying a vividly cruel ...
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Norman Mailer
Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least one in each of the seven decades after World War II. His novel ''The Naked and the Dead'' was published in 1948 and brought him early renown. His 1968 nonfiction novel ''The Armies of the Night'' won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction as well as the National Book Award. Among his other well-known works are ''An American Dream (novel), An American Dream'' (1965), ''The Fight (book), The Fight'' (1975) and ''The Executioner's Song'' (1979), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Mailer is considered an innovator of "creative nonfiction" or "New Journalism", along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, a genre that uses the style and devices of literary fiction in factual journalism. He was a promin ...
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Why Are We In Vietnam?
''Why Are We In Vietnam?'' (''WWVN'') is a 1967 novel by the American author Norman Mailer. It focuses on a hunting trip to the Brooks Range in Alaska where a young man is brought by his father, a wealthy businessman who works for a company that makes cigarette filters and is obsessed with killing a grizzly bear. As the novel progresses, the protagonist is increasingly disillusioned that his father resorts to hunting tactics that seem dishonest and weak, including the use of a helicopter and taking credit for killing a bear. At the end of the novel, the protagonist tells the reader that he is soon going to serve in the Vietnam War as a soldier. ''WWVN'' contains vivid descriptions of Alaska; polarizing, obscene, and stream-of-consciousness narration; and shifting points of view. Mailer uses the narrative to implicitly answer the question the novel's title asks: it demonstrates the attitudes and actions of the United States that landed it in Vietnam. Its experimental style alienat ...
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Bank Street College Of Education
Bank Street College of Education is a private school and graduate school in New York City. It consists of a graduate-only teacher training college and an independent nursery-through-8th-grade school. In 2020 the graduate school had about 65 full-time teaching staff and approximately 850 students, of which 87% were female. History The origins of the school lie in the Bureau of Educational Experiments, which was established in 1916 by Lucy Sprague Mitchell, her husband Wesley Clair Mitchell, and Harriet Merrill Johnson; Lucy Mitchell's cousin Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge provided financial support. The bureau was intended to foster research into, and development of, experimental and progressive education, and was influenced by the thinking of Edward Thorndike and John Dewey, both of whom Mitchell had studied with at Columbia University. The bureau was run by a council of twelve members, but Mitchell was its most influential figure until the 1950s. The name of the institution deriv ...
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Booktrust Early Years Award
The Booktrust Early Years Awards, originally the Sainsbury’s Baby Book Award(s), was a set of annual literary prizes for children's picture books. It was administered by Booktrust, an independent charity that promotes books and reading; from 1999 to 2004. The Booktrust Early Years Awards was sponsored by the supermarket chain Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ... with its last award give in 2010. As of 2005 there were three categories: the ''Baby Book Award'', the ''Pre-School Award'', and the ''Best Emerging Illustrator Award''. The winners in each category received £2000 with the Emerging Illustrator also receiving a specially commissioned award. The publishers of the winning books were given awards too. Honorees See also References External l ...
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The Witch's Children And The Queen
''The Witch's Children and the Queen'' is a children's picture book written by Ursula Jones, illustrated by Russell Ayto, and published by Orchard Children's Books in 2003. It won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for a time, was a set of annual awards for British children's books that ran from 1985 to 2007. It was administered by BookTrust, an independent charity that promotes books and r ..., ages category 0–5 years. Series This is the second of three Witch's Children books created by Jones, perhaps better known as an actress, and Ayto. Ayto made the Greenaway Medal longlist as illustrator of the first one, ''The Witch's Children'' (Orchard, 2001). As of July 2013, it alone has a U.S. edition catalogued by the Library of Congress. There are editions in several other languages. ''The Witch's Children Go to School'' (Orchard, November 2008) won the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, ages six and under.
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Nestlé Smarties Book Prize
The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for a time, was a set of annual awards for British children's books that ran from 1985 to 2007. It was administered by BookTrust, an independent charity that promotes books and reading in the United Kingdom, and sponsored by Nestlé, the manufacturer of Smarties chocolate. It was one of the most respected and prestigious prizes for children's literature. There were three award categories defined by audience ages 0 to 5 years, 6 to 8 years, and 9 to 11 years (introduced in 1987 after two years with no single prize). Silver and bronze runners-up in each category were introduced in 1996 and designation of one overall winner was abandoned at the same time. Eligible books were written by UK citizens and residents and published during the preceding year (not precisely the calendar year). The shortlists were selected by a panel of adult judges, finally chaired by Julia Eccleshare, children's books editor for ''The Gua ...
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