Showing posts with label Blog Tour 2016. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Tour 2016. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 April 2016
Joining in the super-awesome "Create your Own Spy Mission" Blog Tour. Our review of this fab and original book!
Wednesday, 6 April 2016
A guest post to celebrate the launch of "Can I Eat That?" Here's author Joshua David Stein on 'how to become a food critic'
There’s an insidious demonization, at least in the United States, by the professional class of food critics of sites like Yelp, which open criticism to the unskilled hoi polloi. Fooey on that. The more voices the better as far as I’m concerned.
This knee jerk revulsion gets at the heart of what it means to be a food critic and common misperceptions felt, even by my colleagues.
Critics have no special knowledge, other than the knowledge borne from thinking about food on a sustained basis, eating it, and researching it.
This might be difficult for some critics to stomach -- that they are not Divine Critics as Louis TK was the Diving Ruler -- but it is good news for those aspiring to be a food critic.
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| Author and restaurant critic Joshua David Stein |
But this creative nonfiction with actual repercussions (that is, if one is a food writer whose word is valued) and the thing one is critiquing is the sum of many thousands of hours of effort and many thousands of dollars of investment. The restaurant industry is a brutal one where a spate of bad reviews can doom an infant venture. So one must always balance voice with responsibly. There’s a tendency to be flip but it should be avoided.
No critic should have or claim to have a monopoly on opinion. A food critic is just a voice with a particularly powerful microphone. But that also doesn’t mean one must be anodyne or tentative in asserting ones opinion. One needn’t please everyone, certainly not the object of ones criticism. But a critic should be cognizant of tendencies -- such as those I possess -- to be viciously witty (or so I think) at the expense of incisively accurate.
So I suppose my advice to aspiring food critics is that to become one, just start writing. The only thing standing between you and a professional food critic is the writing about food and that can be easily remedied. But once you become a restaurant critic, be a kind, fair and compassionate one. And one hell of a writer.
"Can I Eat that?" is out now from Phaidon.
Joining in with a blog tour that will make your tummy rumble? Celebrate the launch of "Can I eat that?" by Joshua David Stein and Julia Rothman (Phaidon Publishing)
Thursday, 10 March 2016
A very special guest post to celebrate the "Violet and the Smugglers" Blog Tour. Over to you, Harriet Whitehorn!
Labels:
Becka Moor,
Blog Tour 2016,
Harriet Whitehorn,
Simon and Schuster Children's Books,
Special Guest Blog,
vio,
Violet and the Smugglers
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| Harriet Whitehorn, author of the awesome "Violet" series including the latest book "Violet and the Smugglers" |
Today we're handing over the keys to the blog to a very special guest. Joining us today is Harriet Whitehorn, author of "Violet and the Pearl of the Orient", "Violet and the Hidden Treasure" and the latest amazing book "Violet and the Smugglers". You've read our review, now Harriet's here to tell us all about her favourite children's books! Take it away Harriet!
My Favourite Children’s Picture Books by Harriet Whitehorn
Like many children, I learnt to read with Dr. Seuss. Even now, when I re-read certain pages I have a strong, small-child memory of the look of the page, and the smell of old library books comes wafting back through the years to me. I also loved my mother’s collection of Beatrix Potter books - as you can see she was a great believer in mending books with sellotape - and I still get a little frisson of fear looking at the pictures of sinister Mr. Tod.
The wonderful Babar was another favourite, along with Richard Scarry’s What do People Do All Day? and Robert the Rose Horse by Joan
Heilbroner.
I was particularly obsessed with Robert, the unfortunate horse who can’t stop sneezing whenever a rose is near. I’m not quite sure why it inspired such fervent devotion but it did, and my original copy was destroyed beyond even my mother’s abilities with sellotape.
Years later, I had my own children, and, as many parents will tell you, one of the joys of parenthood is that you get to revisit your old favourite children’s books and to discover so many more fantastic new ones.
And I really do have so many favourites; The Jolly Postman, Each Peach Pear Plum, The Tiger who Came to Tea Hairy Maclary, Orlando (the Marmalade Cat), Madeline and the Mog books.
I could go on and on but I just wanted to focus on two books which I think are particularly brilliant. The first is the eccentric tale of The Elephant and the Bad Baby.
I love the subversiveness of the name ‘Bad Baby’, in our world where you must never label children as ‘bad’. The unlikely pair go on a shoplifting spree, chased by all the shopkeeper’s, until the Elephant has suddenly had ENOUGH of the Bad Baby’s lack of manners.
It’s a bit like a parent who has not had very much sleep and has been pushed a little too far. It has the dreaminess of repetition and rhyme which children love and the quirkiness of the tale is perfectly contrasted with Raymond Brigg’s beautiful illustrations. Rumpeta Rumpeta Rumpeta!
My second favourite book is Julia Donaldson’s A Squash and A Squeeze. All of her books are amazing, and I have spent many happy hours reading The Grufffalo, The Magic Paintbrush and Room on the Broom.But I think that A Squash and a Squeeze is a perfectly succinct study of human nature and its foibles, and I would urge you to read it if you haven’t.
It might just change your life.
Thank you SO MUCH Harriet for sharing some of your favourite childhood and children's books with us. We love your choices (and there are some new to us that we'll definitely be checking out!)
Don't miss the other stops on the "Violet" Blog tour, and definitely do not miss Harriet's awesome book "Violet and the Smugglers" with illustrations by Becka Moor, out now from Simon and Schuster Children's Books.
Saturday, 6 February 2016
Joining in an everso brilliant Blog Tour for a very special porky pal, we celebrate Emer Stamp's utterly awesome new book "The Seriously Extraordinary Diary of Pig"
Labels:
Blog Tour 2016,
Emer Stamp,
Scholastic Children's Books,
The Seriously Extraordinary Diary of Pig,
The Super Amazing Adventures of Me Pig,
The Top Secret Diary of Pig
Pig is getting a bit of an old hand (or should that be old ham? Oh you bet we're going to be wheeling out every piggy pun we can think of!) at keeping a diary of his rather amazing adventures. Who'd think that a fairly ordinary porker could lead such a frantic and adventure-filled life?
Back in the mists of time, I read "The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig" to Charlotte, and it was such a huge hit that she's read it many, many times since. In the first book, Pig falls foul of some rather horrible chickens who seem intent on ridding the farm of pig for good. If you're new to Emer's Pig stories you really should dig, the first book is pigging brilliant!
In the mists of time, we seem to have lost touch with our favourite porcine but his adventures continued and Book 2, "The Super Amazing Adventures of Me, Pig" introduces a new friend for Pig to go on crazy adventures with. Kitty is a vegetarian cat, and the two become firm friends while living on Pig's new farm (with two vegetarian farmers who aren't in danger of fancying a round of bacon, very luckily for Pig!)
However, not everything on the farm is rosy. Duck warns Pig that Kitty may not be the perfect purring feline she seems, and may have her own sneaky plans in hand - for getting pig into some SERIOUS trouble!
I've often said that any book series that can make Charlotte genuinely cackle with glee is always going to be a huge win and Emer Stamp's fabulous characterisations are fab to read aloud (though nowadays, Charlotte is more likely to snatch the books out of my hand with a whoop of glee, and closet herself away until she's voraciously read through the lot!).
"The Top Secret Diary of Pig", "The Super Amazing Adventures of Me, Pig" and the latest fabulous book "The Seriously Extraordinary Diary of Pig" are available from Scholastic Publishing with the third book just released (4th February). Go geddem, piggy fans!
Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Welcome to our stop on the "Stanley the Amazing Knitting Cat" Blog Tour and a fab guest post from Emily Mackenzie!
Without further ado, we'll hand over to Stanley's awesome "Mum" with a lovely article about her influences and favourite childhood books.
Over to you Emily and thanks for stopping by ReadItDaddy!
MY FAVOURITE BOOKS FROM MY CHILDHOOD
It's not too difficult to choose some of my favourite books from my childhood as lucky for me, my mum kept most of those that filled the shelves of my old bedroom so that I still have them now!
I grew up in the countryside in Northumberland next to a pine forest where I would go for a lot of walks with my family, whizz about on my BMX and use it as a gigantic set with tree stumps and squashy moss for my Sylvanian Families to play in. I loved watching the seasons change, the giant pines would of course look pretty much the same all year round but the hedgerows around the fields near our house would look different throughout the year and I enjoyed picking flowers, eating berries straight from the hedge, filling pockets with rose hips and acorns to take home and looking for hedgehogs and rabbits when exploring.
It's not too difficult to choose some of my favourite books from my childhood as lucky for me, my mum kept most of those that filled the shelves of my old bedroom so that I still have them now!
I grew up in the countryside in Northumberland next to a pine forest where I would go for a lot of walks with my family, whizz about on my BMX and use it as a gigantic set with tree stumps and squashy moss for my Sylvanian Families to play in. I loved watching the seasons change, the giant pines would of course look pretty much the same all year round but the hedgerows around the fields near our house would look different throughout the year and I enjoyed picking flowers, eating berries straight from the hedge, filling pockets with rose hips and acorns to take home and looking for hedgehogs and rabbits when exploring.
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| Otto the Bear by Ivan Gantschev |
I love different things about all the seasons but I think with being a January baby and having the excitement of the odd day off school because it was too snowy, Winter was my favourite then. With all these factors in mind I think it's easy to single out Otto the Bear by Ivan Gantschev and The Winter Bear by Ruth Craft and Erik Blegvad as being my favourites. There were of course, plenty other books I loved as a kid and still enjoy now including Dogger by Shirley Hughes and the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem, but there was something I particularly loved about bear books! There were definitely no bears in Slaley Forest but I think I wished there were!
Otto the Bear is full of delicious blotchy inky watercolour marks that are full of texture and still inspire me now to want to experiment more with my inks to create interesting feathering and new colours by letting them naturally flow into each other. The book is about an old forester who lived on the edge of the wood and would happily let a bear named Otto pilfer the apples and pears from his orchard until a new forester replaces him who isn't quite so understanding and builds a fence to keep him out. I'll not spoil it for you by giving away too much more but I think the wooded landscapes and winter scenes really appealed to me as a child because the situation of the cottage on the edge of the woodland was so familiar to me. It's a beautiful book and it'll always be my favourite because it reminds me so much of home. I think I'll have to get the table salt out tonight and scatter it on my wet ink drawings for a bit of fun now!
The other book I mentioned that I loved as a child and still treasure just as much now is The Winter Bear. Yes, another book about a bear but this time it's a lost soft toy bear stuck in a tree! Again, I think my reasons for loving this as a kid were much the same as before – It was comforting to read something that I could relate to. I hoped that I would find a bear like that in a tree near me with my brothers one snowy day and the illustrations and activities that the kids get up to were very similar to things I liked to do. I loved my teddies as a little girl and used to give them regular baths, dress them in old baby clothes and remember sewing poor Koala's arm back on when it fell off one day. I love the way the kids look after the bear in the book and think the illustrations are so warm and comforting and there's always something magical about a book with a snowy blizzard I think!
When I write and illustrate my own books I think about my 5 year old self as my audience and if I'm stuck for an idea I find it a great starting point to draw from my own childhood interests. I love referring back to these two particularly because they help get me back in that head space and I know I'll always feel like that about them. They definitely make me want to write my own bear book... maybe that's what I should do next!
The other book I mentioned that I loved as a child and still treasure just as much now is The Winter Bear. Yes, another book about a bear but this time it's a lost soft toy bear stuck in a tree! Again, I think my reasons for loving this as a kid were much the same as before – It was comforting to read something that I could relate to. I hoped that I would find a bear like that in a tree near me with my brothers one snowy day and the illustrations and activities that the kids get up to were very similar to things I liked to do. I loved my teddies as a little girl and used to give them regular baths, dress them in old baby clothes and remember sewing poor Koala's arm back on when it fell off one day. I love the way the kids look after the bear in the book and think the illustrations are so warm and comforting and there's always something magical about a book with a snowy blizzard I think!
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| "The Winter Bear" by Ruth Craft and Erik Blegvad |
When I write and illustrate my own books I think about my 5 year old self as my audience and if I'm stuck for an idea I find it a great starting point to draw from my own childhood interests. I love referring back to these two particularly because they help get me back in that head space and I know I'll always feel like that about them. They definitely make me want to write my own bear book... maybe that's what I should do next!
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| Emily Mackenzie (Photo © Diana Pappas) |
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