Editorial 265
The last two months have been busy ones in the world of children’s books. They’ve seen the announcements the shortlists for a number of key children’s book awards, including the Yoto Carnegies and the Children’s Book Award as well as the winners of the inaugural Inclusive Books for Children awards, the ALCS Educational Writers’ Award and the 2024 Ruth Rendell Award. Congratulations to all the authors and illustrators shortlisted and also to all those involved in the judging and administration of awards. Awards do much to alert people to new books, authors and illustrators they may not know, and to raise awareness of the best writing for children and we’re always pleased to cover the lists in BfK.
Augmented reality for toddlers
Research carried out by Oxford University Press reveals that almost 9 in 10 parents believe educational apps can benefit their child’s learning (89%), digital skills (89%) and numeracy skills (89%). While 4 in 5 parents have concerns around online safety, 66% of respondents believe that children whose parents spend time using apps with them know how to keep themselves safer online later on in life. With these finding in mind Oxford has created the Little Oxford app, which uses augmented and virtual reality technology to create a fun, collaborative learning experience for young learners and their parents or carers.
One of the few apps to offer educational content for pre-schoolers, Little Oxford was developed with Early Years specialist Sue Cowley, and aligns with the UK curriculum. It’s one of the few apps to provide activities to guide children through all the seven key areas of Foundation Stage and Oxford International Early Years Curriculum: communication and language; literacy; mathematics; physical development; personal, social and emotional development; understanding the world; and expressive arts and design.
Available on all major app stores, including the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, a limited version of the Little Oxford app is free to download and trial, with the full app available with a subscription of £15 for three months or £30 for the year. There are no in-app purchase options, ensuring parents can be reassured that young children can enjoy the app safely. Brave new world? Let’s wait for the next research findings.
And now we hand over to Jon Appleton to introduce his new children’s lit fan zine, the gab …
If you’re like me, news of an exciting book will send you scurrying to the phenomenal resource that is the BFK website. Didn’t that illustrator cut their teeth on a novel back in …? X says Y is an influence … That’s not surprising, and I want to know more about them both. Practically every time the answer is available at the click of your fingertips. For 44 years, BfK has faithfully, lovingly, perceptively recorded the history of children’s books.
But no magazine is an island, and I’m all too aware that other sources exist that can corroborate and challenge, provide contrast and contradiction and fill in gaps, too. But unlike BfK, there’s no dedicated website to archive these resources. They exist only in paper form and when the paper perishes … how will they be preserved?
That’s why I’ve begun bringing voices together in a new quarterly fan zine called the gab – short for The Golden Age Bulletin, because my starting point is the second golden age of children’s books which thrived in the 1950s and informed writers of the 60s, 70s, 80s and on to today. It was a collegiate time, long before social media provided a platform to unite colleagues and still everyone found a way to know each other, and talk about books they loved for the sake of their love of these books, and the burgeoning industry as a whole. These endeavours are too important to be forgotten and should, I hope, provide encouragement to our industry today. Quite a few initiatives in the 2020s feel maverick and new but it’s salutory to know that activism in children’s books is far from new – but it needs to be championed, or else gains may be lost once more …
The gab introduces you to wonderful pieces from decades past which might not otherwise be readily available. But there are new features, too, including a series of interviews I conducted with many of the leading movers and shakers of the children’s book world – including former BfK editors Chris Powling and Rosemary Stones, authors Jill Paton Walsh and Gillian Cross, and editors Judith Elliott and Jane Nissen.
The tone of the gab is breezy and bright – I want people to feel as if they’re in a massive room with change-makers of the children’s book world, circa 1966 or 1976 or 1986. A kind of big party with all the energy and conflict and agreeability of any such event. A sense of working together, of sharing enthusiasm, of encouragement.
Will you join in? It’s free to subscribe – just email me at jon@lettersfromrobin.com, and the pdf will be emailed to you quarterly. I hope you might like to contribute. Wouldn’t that add to the fun?
And finally,
As always, if you appreciate Books for Keeps, do please make a contribution via PayPal or our Givey fundraising page – work to transfer 40 years of our archive to the website continues and all donations, small or large, are very welcome.
