The Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour
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The Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour
The Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour is a programme devised and created by Scottish Book Trust in 1998. It is currently sponsored by Scottish Friendly and is designed to take leading children's authors to schools and libraries throughout the United Kingdom to allow young people and teachers to meet and be inspired by the authors. Leading authors who have participated on the tours are Julia Donaldson, Michael Rosen, Jacqueline Wilson, Melvin Burgess, Malorie Blackman, Steve Cole, Michael Morpurgo Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo ('' né'' Bridge; 5 October 1943) is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as '' War Horse'' (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelli ..., Chris Riddell and Sophie Mackenzie. The Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour has won the following awards: * Arts and Business Scotland Arts & Kids Award (2005) * Arts and Business Scotland Young People Award (2010) The Tour ...
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Scottish Book Trust
Scottish Book Trust is a national charity based in Edinburgh, Scotland promoting literature, reading and writing in Scotland. Scottish Book Trust works with and for a range of audiences, including babies and parents (through the Bookbug programme), children and young people, teachers and learning professionals, and writers and publishers. The charity was established in 1998. Budget Scottish Book Trust invests £3 million annually to fund and promote reading and writing in Scotland. It uses this budget to gift over 1 million books to the public and fund over 1,200 literature events in order to connect Scottish readers and writers. Scottish Book Trust reaches many young children in Scotland through its Bookbug book gifting program. It supports over 400 Scottish writers and illustrators and runs two children's book awards, in which the winners are chosen by Scottish schoolchildren. It also develops resources to help teachers and librarians inspire students and improve literacy. T ...
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Scottish Friendly
Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited (Scottish Friendly) is a leading UK mutual life and investments organisation. It provides a range of investment and protection products and provides life and investment products and services to other financial organisations. The largest life offices in Scotland, Scottish Friendly is based in Glasgow, United Kingdom and operates throughout the UK and Ireland. It has over 838,000 members and over 1 million policyholders. As of 31 December 2023, the society looked after assets worth over £4.6 billion. History Early beginnings Scottish Friendly was established in 1862 as the City of Glasgow Friendly Society, and was a breakaway movement from the Royal Liver Friendly Society, whose headquarters were in Liverpool. The first meeting of the City of Glasgow Friendly Society took place in the Bell Hotel, 68 Trongate, on 16 September 1862. The first committee consisted of seven men — James Logan (chairman), John Stewart (secretary), James ...
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ...
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Julia Donaldson
Julia Catherine Donaldson (; born 16 September 1948) is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include ''The Gruffalo'', '' Room on the Broom'' and '' Stick Man''. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree. In January 2025, Donaldson became Britain's best-selling author, surpassing J.K. Rowling by some 600,000 sales. Life and career Childhood Donaldson was born on 16 September 1948, and was brought up in Hampstead, London, with her younger siste ...
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Michael Rosen
Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is an English children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic, who is a professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written over 200 books for children and adults. Select books include '' We're Going on a Bear Hunt'' (1989) and '' Sad Book'' (2004). He served as Children's Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009. He won the 2023 PEN Pinter Prize, awarded by English PEN, for his "fearless" body of work. Early life and education Michael Wayne Rosen was born into a Jewish family in Harrow, Middlesex, on 7 May 1946. His ancestors were Jews from an area that is now Poland, Romania, and Russia, and his family had connections to The Workers Circle and the Jewish Labour Bund. His middle name was given to him in honour of Wayne C. Booth, a literary critic who was billeted with his father at Shrivenham American University. Rosen' ...
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Jacqueline Wilson
Dame Jacqueline Wilson (' Aitken; born 17 December 1945) is an English novelist known for her popular children's literature. Her novels have been notable for tackling realistic topics such as adoption and divorce. Since her debut novel in 1969, Wilson has written more than 100 books. Early life Jacqueline Aitken was born in Bath, Somerset, on 17 December 1945. Her father, Harry, was a civil servant and her mother, Margaret "Biddy" (née Clibbens), was an antiques dealer. Jacqueline particularly enjoyed books by Noel Streatfeild, as well as American classics such as ''Little Women'' and '' What Katy Did''. At the age of nine, she wrote her first "book", "Meet the Maggots", which was 21 pages long. Wilson was given the nickname "Jacky Daydream" at school, which she later used as the title of her autobiography, telling of her life as a primary school-aged child. Wilson attended Coombe Girls' School in Surrey and Carshalton Technical College. After leaving school at the age of ...
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Melvin Burgess
Melvin Burgess (born 25 April 1954) is a British writer of children's fiction. He became famous in 1996 with the publication of ''Junk (novel), Junk'', about heroin-addicted teenagers on the streets of Bristol. In Britain, ''Junk'' became one of the best-known young adult books of the decade. Burgess won the annual Carnegie Medal (literary award), Carnegie Medal from the CILIP, Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. For the 10th anniversary in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. Early life Burgess was born in the Municipal Borough of Twickenham, Middlesex, England (now administered as part of Greater London). Author He completed his first book accepted for publication in his mid-thirties: a novel, ''The Cry of the Wolf'', published by Andersen Press in 1990, which was highly commended by librarians for the Carnegie Medal ...
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Malorie Blackman
Oneta Malorie Blackman (born 8 February 1962) is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues, for example, her ''Noughts and Crosses'' series uses the setting of a fictional alternative Britain to explore racism. Blackman has been the recipient of many honours for her work, including the 2022 PEN Pinter Prize. Early life and education Malorie Blackman was born on 8 February 1962 in Merton, London, and grew up in Lewisham, one of 5 siblings. Her parents were both from Barbados and had come to Britain as part of the " Windrush generation"; her father Joe was a bus driver and her mother Ruby worked in a pyjama factory. Blackman's father walked out on the family while she was younger, leaving her mother to single-handedly raise her and her siblings. At school, Malorie wanted to be an English te ...
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Stephen Cole (writer)
Stephen Cole (born 1971) (also credited as Steve Cole, Tara Samms and Paul Grice) is an English author of children's books and science fiction. He was also in charge of BBC Worldwide's merchandising of the BBC Television series ''Doctor Who'' between 1997 and 1999 and as executive producer on the Big Finish Productions range of ''Doctor Who'' audio dramas. In 2013, Ian Fleming Publications announced that Cole would continue the Young Bond series first penned by Charlie Higson, with the addition of four new books to the series. The first of these, '' Shoot to Kill'', was published in the UK in November 2014, where Cole is credited as 'Steve Cole'. Early life and career Cole was brought up in rural Bedfordshire and attended the University of East Anglia between 1989 and 1992, where he studied English literature and film studies, graduating with first class honours. After a brief time working in local radio with BBC Radio Bedfordshire (now Three Counties) he became a junior a ...
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Michael Morpurgo
Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo ('' né'' Bridge; 5 October 1943) is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as '' War Horse'' (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelling", for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or the trenches of the First World War. Morpurgo was the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005, and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity. Early life Morpurgo was born in 1943 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, as Michael Andrew Bridge, the second child of actor Tony Van Bridge and actress Kippe Cammaerts (daughter of the writer and poet Émile Cammaerts). Both RADA graduates, his parents had met when they were acting in the same repertory company in 1938. His father came from a working-class family, while his mother's family included actors, an opera ...
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Chris Riddell
Chris Riddell ( ) (born 13 April 1962) is a South African-born English illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the ''Observer''. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medalsthe British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002. Books that he wrote or illustrated have won three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes and have been silver or bronze runners-up four times. On 9 June 2015, he was appointed the UK Children's Laureate. Life Chris Riddell was born in 1962 in Cape Town, South Africa, where his father was a "liberal Anglican vicar" and was opposed to the system of apartheid. The family returned to England when Chris was one year old, where he spent the rest of his childhood with his sister and three brothers, who now live in South Africa, Brighton, and Egypt. He attended Archbishop Tenison's Grammar School in Kennington. Chris displaye ...
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Education In Scotland
Education in Scotland is provided in state schools, private school, private schools and by individuals through homeschooling. Mandatory education in Scotland begins for children in Primary 1 (P1) at primary school and ends in Fifth Year (S5) at secondary school. Overall accountability and control of state–education in Scotland rests with the Scottish Government, and is overseen by its executive agency, Education Scotland, with additional responsibility for nursery schools being the joint responsibility of both Education Scotland and the Care Inspectorate (Scotland), Care Inspectorate. Scotland's List of private schools in Scotland, private schools are overseen by the Scottish Council of Independent Schools. Children in Scotland sit mandatory National Standardised Assessments in Primary 1 (P1), Primary 4 (P4), Primary 7 (P7) at the end of primary school, and Third Year (S3) in secondary school, which assist in monitoring children's progress and providing diagnostic data informa ...
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