The Bad Beginning is the first novel of the children's novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The novel tells the story of three children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who become orphans following a fire and are sent to live with Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance.
Anna Judith Gertrud Helene Kerr was a German-born British writer and illustrator whose books sold more than 10 million copies around the world. She created both enduring picture books such as the Mog series and The Tiger Who Came to Tea and acclaimed novels for older children such as the semi-autobiographical When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which gave a child's-eye view of escaping Hitler's persecution in the Second World War. Born in the Weimar Republic, she came to Britain with her family in 1935 to escape persecution during the rise of the Nazis.
The Gruffalo is a British children's picture book by author Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It tells the story of a mouse taking a walk in the woods and deceiving different predators, including the Gruffalo. The Gruffalo was first published in 1999 in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Children's Books. It is about 700 words long and is written in rhyming couplets featuring repetitive verse. It is an example of a trickster story and was inspired by a Chinese folk tale called "The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger". The Gruffalo has sold over 13.5 million copies and has won several prizes for children's literature including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.
Julia Catherine Donaldson 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.
Dame Lynley Stuart Dodd is a New Zealand children's book author and illustrator. She is best known for her Hairy Maclary and Friends series, and its follow-ups, all of which feature animals with rhyming names and have sold over five million copies worldwide. In 1999, Dodd received the Margaret Mahy Award.
Julia May Whelan is an American actress and author. She is best known for her role as Grace Manning on the television family drama series Once and Again (1999–2002), and her co-starring role in the 2002 Lifetime movie The Secret Life of Zoey. A noted child actor, Whelan first appeared on screen at the age of 11, and continued to take television roles until her matriculation into Middlebury College in 2004; Whelan graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury in 2008 after spending the 2006–2007 academic year as a visiting student at Lincoln College, Oxford. Whelan returned to film acting in November 2008 with a role in the fantasy thriller Fading of the Cries.
The Blue Peter Book Awards were a set of literary awards for children's books conferred by the BBC television programme Blue Peter. They were inaugurated in 2000 for books published in 1999 and 2000. The awards were managed by reading charity, BookTrust, from 2006 until the final award in 2022. From 2013 until the final award, there were two award categories: Best Story and Best Book with Facts.
BookTrust is a UK children's reading charity dedicated to getting children reading.
Holly Goldberg Sloan is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and New York Times bestselling novelist.
Adam Gidwitz is the author of the best-selling children's books A Tale Dark and Grimm (2010), In a Glass Grimmly (2012), and The Grimm Conclusion (2013), all published by Dutton Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House. He received a 2017 Newbery Honor for The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog (2016). In 2021, his book A Tale Dark and Grimm was adapted into an animated miniseries on Netflix.
Magic Light Pictures is an English London-based independent production company, which produces films and manages the children's brand The Gruffalo.
Room on the Broom is a British children's story book by writer and playwright Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which tells the story of a kind witch and her cat who invite three other animals to join them travelling on her broomstick.
Room on the Broom is a 2012 short stop motion computer animated television film based on the picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The film was nominated for the Best Animated Short Film at the 2014 Academy Awards. It also won the British Academy Children's Award for Animation in 2013.
The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
Zog is a 2010 children's picture book by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, about a young accident-prone dragon, named Zog, who wants to be the best student in dragon school.
The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog is a young adult novel written by Adam Gidwitz and illuminated by Hatem Aly, published by Dutton Children's Books in 2016. It is set in medieval France and describes how three magical children meet each other and become outlaws. It was named a Newbery Honor book in 2017.
Gay Hay is a New Zealand children's book author, based in Pukerua Bay, best known for her books Fantail's Quilt (2011) and Watch Out, Snail! (2013), both illustrated by Margaret Tolland.
Hey Grandude! is a picture book for children written by Paul McCartney and illustrated by Kathryn Durst. It was published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in September 2019. An audio version of the book with an instrumental soundtrack was also released.
Robin Miles is an American actor, casting director, audiobook narrator and audiobook director. Miles has acted in Broadway shows and on TV shows including Law & Order and Murder by Numbers. She is best known for her audiobook narrations and narration director work for which she has won numerous awards, including Audie Awards, AudioFile Golden Voice, and Earphone Awards. Miles is revered in her field and is credited as one of the audiobook narrators saving the publishing industry. In 2017, Miles was inducted into Audible's Narrator Hall of Fame. Miles also has a voice training school, VOXpertise, for aspiring narrators. She has narrated over 300 books.
The Snail and the Whale is a 2019 British-South African short computer-animated TV film, directed by Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon, and produced by Michael Rose and Martin Pope of Magic Light Pictures, in association with Triggerfish Animation Studios where the film was animated.
