BfK News: January 1990
February 1990
Launch of two competitions:
1. To name the Story Aid Bookworm (see logo).
2. To write a story.
Prizes include holidays to Asterix Pare in Paris and £3,000 of books.
April 1990
Publication of the third Federation Anthology, Stories Round the World (Hodder & Stoughton). All stories in the book have been tested internationally by more than 21,000 children.
21st June 1990
Story Aid Carnival Day … in Glasgow and London. School-children are invited to come in national costume or dressed as their favourite book/TV character to meet authors and TV personalities.
Throughout 1990 … WHAT CAN YOU DO?
For details of all the above, along with suggestions for activities in your locality, contact (enclosing sae) Thelma Simpson, Project Director: Story Aid, 34 Hopetoun Place, Kirkcaldy, Scotland, KY2 6TY.
The ultimate goal of all this? Stunningly simple … literacy for all by the year 2000!
POSTER POINTS
Six full-colour posters, A2 size, showing children and books in a variety of surroundings . . . for £14 including VAT? Sounds like a good deal to us. It’s a new venture by Youth Libraries Group Publications – beginning with infants, but extending eventually through the full age-range. The first set is now available from Remploy Ltd, London Road, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs ST5 I RX. For details of what’s to come, though, ‘phone Keith Barker, YLG Publications Officer on 021-472-7245, Ext. 217.
Books for Students Buy-out
Sometimes history repeats itself … and sometimes it comes full-circle. Books for Students, specialist supplier of paperback books to schools and libraries since the mid-sixties, are now independent again. Last November they parted company with W H Smith plc, who took them over in the early eighties, in a management buy-out which they say ‘will enable us to continue the development of our base interest while expanding into new markets, including children’s hardbacks, both at home and abroad.’ Well, let’s hope so. In the conglomerating, and perhaps recession-bent, nineties, the success of independent companies in the children’s book world is something we can all root for.
Book Bus Re-routing
The Greenwich Book Bus-is at the crossroads. And it’s looking to take new people on board. The Book Bus has been on the road since 1981. And since then, apart from providing an endless supply of bad journalistic puns, it has made well over a thousand visits to schools and libraries, bringing some of the magic of books to an estimated quarter of a million children.
The formula is a simple one: bringing books into the playground on a double-decker with highly qualified, enthusiastic staff in charge Extra ingredients are regularly added, including literally hundreds of author visits as well as writing projects and specially, made vidoes.
But, after nine years, the directors of the charity which runs the bus are pressing for a change. ‘We feel that the time has come for a new approach,’ says Bob Cattell, who has been involved with the project from the outset. ‘The Bookbus is more popular with schools than it has ever been, but we feel that we are beginning to generate fewer new ideas. To keep the bus on the road into the nineties, we need to open new routes and have fresh hands at the wheel.’
So, the current directors (including author, Bernard Ashley and local teachers) are planning to step down next year, once a new management team is in place. Those with ideas and enthusiasm should contact Bob Cattell, 63 Albion Road, London N16 9PP.
