Awards, Awards and More Awards

We’re absolutely delighted to announce three Picture Book Picnic titles have been long-listed for the UKLA Book Awards 2012. A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton, A Place to Call Home by Viviane Schwarz & Alexis Deacon and Mole’s Sunrise by Jeanne Willis & Sarah Fox-Davies have all been selected in the 3-6 years category and will go on to fight it out with the other titles for the shortlist announced in March next year.



The UKLA Children’s Book Award is a national award conferred by education professionals and it is held in high esteem by teachers, who regard the shortlist as a reliable indicator of the best books of the year for inclusion in class and school collections.

We’re also proud to see A Place to Call Home has been recognised in the shortlist for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, a unique award launched to honour those books that make young people, and all of us, roar with laughter.



Concerned that the really side-splittingly funny books were being overlooked by other book awards, Michael Rosen created the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2008 with Booktrust, as part of his work as Children’s Laureate. The Prize aims to reward those authors and artists who write and illustrate their books using humour in their fiction and poetry.

Congratulations to all our wonderful authors and illustrators, it's their talent and energy that make all our books so great! We’re keeping everything crossed for all of these titles and will let you know the results as soon as we hear anything.

Have You Seen Our Hat?

 Today sees the global blog tour for I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen kick off in style. The fabulous Playing by the Book blog has interviewed Jon who shares eight books that reflect pivotal moments in his life so far, with particular reference to his journey towards becoming a published author/illustrator.



The tour will continue with stop-offs at Kids’ Book Capers, Not Just for Kids, Bringing up Charlie, My Book Corner, Wahm-Bam!, Pickle Me This, There’s a Book, My Little Bookcase, Chris Rettstatt over the next nine days. So why not sit back, relax and travel the globe from the comfort of your own home, who knows you might even find bear’s elusive hat!



We’re also delighted to be able to share with you this wonderful trailer, created by Klassen himself, for I Want My Hat Back - take a peek! And, if you like it, why not let us know with a quick tweet!



Tweet

I Want My Hat Back!

Have you seen my hat?



This is the concept behind the brilliant I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. This is coming out in October, but is already available to pre-order on Amazon.



Jon Klassen has created a great little trailer for us, which is live on the Guardian Children’s Books website now – take a peek! And, if you like it, why not let us know with a quick tweet!



Tweet



On the 19th September, we’re taking part in a GLOBAL blog tour. That’s right, GLOBAL. As you can imagine, we are pretty excited about this one… it’s going to be EPIC.



We will have stops at blogs from America, Canada, Australia and from right here in the UK. There will be exclusive interviews with Jon Klassen, reviews, competitions and more, so don’t miss it! We’ll be tweeting about the tour and all things hats on twitter on #IWantMyHatBack. So, if you have something to say about the book, or have an interesting hat tale to share with us, just send us a tweet!



We’ve also created a downloadable hat for kids – so they can download it, design it, print it… We’d love to see any designs, however wacky, so tweet us a photo @WalkerBooksUK or share on our facebook page now…