‘This is a riveting adventure of three boys who have nothing, attempting to fulfill a dead man’s last altruistic wish. Their success rides on their ability to outsmart and out run the police. With the odds against them they band together forging a future from the trash.’  (Cecie O’Bryon England’s review of TRASH  for The Washington Times)

If you haven’t yet read TRASH  – get to it!!

 TRASH  is reverberating around the globe at the moment, and it’s music to our ears listening to all the fantastic reviews and nominations the book has received! Here are just a few tit bits from our TRASH stash :

For starters, check out Andy Mulligan’s brilliant new website – click here to have a look! 

• Winners, with the best Independant Booksellers’ window display of TRASH - ‘THE BOOK NOOK’ in Hove!!

• An interview with Andy Mulligan from Alex Riley’s ‘Lit Blog’

• TRASH  has been chosen for the Winter 2010-2011 Kids’ Indie Next List (“Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers”) – woohoo!

• TRASH  has it’s very own – become a fan!

• TRASH  has been included in the School Library Journal “Best Books of the Year” list (check out their review here).

Have a brilliant weekend!

Congrats to D.M. Cornish, whose final instalment of the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy is published this month. 

And don’t they make a handsome trio?

D.M is the ultimate world-maker, and children, and adults too, will find themselves completely immersed in his Half-Continent, a land that bears the scars of centuries of conflict between monsters and men. Here monsters of every variety roam, and even the smallest can kill a human quicker than thought.

This breathtaking final volume has everything D.M’s fans have come to expect – action, adventure, incredible creatures and fascinating characters. And if you haven’t read the first two, then you should! Enter the world of the Half-Continent, and don’t forget your hat…

Last week we celebrated the publication of Sarah McIntyre’s brilliant comic book, Vern & Lettuce. And because Vern is a woolly sheep, Lettuce loves to knit and Sarah shares her studio with one of the founders of Stitch London, the evening had a knitting theme.

All guests were challenged to knit a sheep, with prizes awarded for the Most Splendid Sheep. It was a great night, bringing together lots of top knitters and comic-creators. Fuelled with cupcakes, brownies and glasses of fizz and armed with wool and knitting needles, the Stamford Arms was soon full of people stitching little sheeps.

Here’s Kate Brown, author of Spider Moon, getting stuck in:

And here’s me and David, failing to submit to the knit but having fun nonetheless:

Sarah looked fantastic in a sparkly party dress and spent much of the evening signing copies of her gorgeous book, which is out now!

We are so pleased to be publishing the Canadian author Ken Oppel’s latest book,  HALF BROTHER, in January 2011. It has just had the most fantastic preview in the Bookseller – Lindsay Stainer from Blackwell’s calls it ‘compulsively readable, extraordinarily gripping and moving’  and ‘a triumph’ – and she’s absolutely right. The novel tells the story of a boy whose parents adopt a chimpanzee in order to teach it language (based on true experiments conducted in the 1970s) - and the heartbreak that ensues after the experiment comes to an end.  When I was a young teenager, there were two novels which affected me enormously: PLAYING BEATTIE BOW by Ruth Park, and SUMMER OF MY GERMAN SOLDIER by Bette Green. I guarantee that HALF BROTHER will inspire a similar passion in readers that these two remarkable books did in me - this is a book that readers balancing precariously between childhood and adulthood will never forget. If anyone would like a proof copy, let me know – i have five to give away, so first-come, first-served!

If, like me, you missed the launch party for Monkey Nuts by Robin and Lawrence Etherington  last Thursday, it sounds like you missed a treat!

The party took place at the lovely Kew Bookshop in London, where the owners, Mark and Isla, had created the most amazing window display:

Publisher, David Fickling, and author, Robin, both gave energetic speeches, glasses were raised and co-creators Robin and Lawrence were kept busy signing books for the rest of the evening.

The brothers had bowls of actual monkey nuts to help them keep their strength up, although, as anyone who’s ever met them will know, they’re never short of get-up-and-go! Everyone in the signing queue was asked “monkey or robot?” so that Lorenzo could doodle a pic of their chosen character. And some lucky people got both!

Check out the Etheringtons’ blog for more info, pics and a video of the speeches.

John’s new book, NOAH BARLEYWATER RUNS AWAY, is already looking like it’s going to be a huge book for this autumn – and we’re thrilled. John is on his UK tour this week, after a fabulous launch in Dublin last week with 200 people squeezed into the wonderful Gutter bookshop. After some emotional speeches, John’s extensive family and friends enjoyed some true Irish hospitality late into the night – and although the event was slightly marred by David being nearly stranded in Dublin, a very good time was had by all.

To read all about Andy Mulligan’s TRASH tour, check out Carli Bennett’s brilliant blog, Writing from the Tub. Andy wrote his own blog while on tour, which Carli kindly hosted.

We met Carli at the Trash dinner and she clearly knows her stuff, so do browse her reviews of the latest YA fiction while you’re there. Meanwhile, we’ll keep aspiring to blog as regularly as the experts do!

This week we celebrated the publication of TRASH with a dinner at the very trendy E&O Restaurant in London. Before dinner there were the usual speeches and toasts, and then Andy Mulligan did something we’ve never heard an author do – instead of talking about his own book, the book we were all there to celebrate, he spent several minutes telling everyone about someone else’s book!

Andy had just finished a proof copy of Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel, which we’re publishing in January next year. He’d been so completely swept away by the story of Ben, a teenage boy, and the baby chimp his parents adopt, that he couldn’t stop telling people about it, and urging them to read it. The thrilling thing for Andy was that his own book shares the same list as a book of such a high calibre.

Of course, we’re very proud to have both Trash and Half Brother on our list – they might be worlds apart, but they’re both cracking stories, stories that move you, stories that make you want to talk about them to anyone who’ll listen.

Andy behind piles of TRASH

We were very excited to see that our local Blackwells has a brilliant display for TRASH in their window:

Andy will be there doing an informal stock signing on 21^st September, so if you’re in Oxford, pop in and grab yourself a signed copy!

TRASH has been garnering some great reviews – Bookbag loved it: “Trash comes highly recommended by me, and I don’t have time to say any more about it because I’m off to read it again. And after that, I might read it again. And then again. You read it too.”

Julia Eccleshare reviewed it for Love Reading 4 Kids: ‘Headlong and heart-stopping, this is an adventure you just can’t put down.’

And in the Times Amanda Craig called it an ‘outstanding, hotly anticipated thriller’, and goes on to say that the setting, ‘has the reader rooting for the kids through every twist of an exceptionally satisfying plot.”

Andy will be touring the country over the next two weeks, doing a whole host of interviews, school events and signings, so look out for him!

This is Morris, star of the most disgusting picture book we have ever published, MORRIS THE MANKIEST MONSTER:

And this is Sarah, the talented illustrator of MORRIS, reading the text aloud at Edinburgh Festival: http://bit.ly/bkzpQu

Written by Giles Andreae, the brilliantly repulsive rhyming text was rejected by five different editors before DFB dared to take it on. Needless to say, children love it! Out now in hardback, and coming later this month in paperback, the surprise ending will definitely make you squirm…

“…must be the most revolting picture book of the year!…This book needs a warning to parents – they’re going to have to read it over and over again – children will absolutely love it.” The Bookseller

“Treading the tightrope between revolting and sweet is hard but Morris does it.  What a gem!” Books for Keeps

Check out Sarah’s blog, where there are always lots of lovely things to look at, and find out more about her brand new book for the DFC Library, Vern & Lettuce.