The Bookery

New Patron: Philip Reeve

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CCB is delighted to announce a new patron, multi award winning writer Philip Reeve who trained as an illustrator, and worked for many years providing cartoons and illustrations for the Horrible Histories and Murderous Maths books. He has written several highly acclaimed books for children and his first novel, the award winning Mortal Engines, a post-apocalyptic adventure published in 2001, has been made into a film directed by Christian Rivers and due for release in December 2018. Q: What book changed your life? … Read more

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018

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Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 Shortlist

The Women’s Prize, set up in 1996, celebrates ‘excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world’. Our first ever blog at CCB was about the Women’s Prize and it holds a special place in our hearts. Like last year, we are undertaking the Women’s Prize shortlist reading challenge, aiming to read as many of the shortlist as possible before the winner is announced. On the 5th June (the day before the winner is announced on June 6th) the … Read more

UKLA Book Awards – Chosen by Teachers!

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The UKLA Book Awards are the only national book award judged by teachers. The books selected for the award will be titles that teachers can share with pupils as part of regular classroom experience and can be used as part of a read aloud programme and in creative discussions. This years shortlist reflects teachers’ preference for diversity and books from independent publishers. It includes books in translation, beautiful illustrations and information books. Following on from last year’s successful event, CCB … Read more

Review: Children of Blood and Bone

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Children of Blood and Bone Front Cover

This review first appeared in the March 2018 issue of Books for Keeps,  the UK’s leading, independent children’s book magazine. Follow them on twitter.   Feature Review by Geoff Fox In a letter to her reader, Tomi Adeyemi hopes we “see a glimpse into my Nigerian heritage and the beautiful cultures and people Africa holds”. She wrote her novel “during a time where I kept turning on the news and seeing stories of unarmed black men and children being shot by … Read more

The Independent Bookshop Alliance

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Independent Bookshop Alliance Logo

Thursday 29th March 2018 will be marked in history as the day booksellers began to change the world. Lord John Bird, founder of The Big Issue, officially launched the Alliance of Independent Bookshops, hosting a discussion between booksellers, authors, publishers, societies and other interested parties at the House of Lords, Westminster. Several bookshops, including CCB, joined the meeting to discuss the issues arising and practical options for the future of bookshops. The Indie Alliance was proposed in January this year in a blog … Read more

Interview: Sue Viccars

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Sue Viccars

Sue Viccars, Dartmoor Magazine editor and local author, worked for a London map publisher before grabbing the chance to return to Devon where she has spent 20 years commissioning walking, equestrian and countryside books for David & Charles Publishers. Since 2000 Sue has written or contributed to around 20 books (and edited dozens more) and written many magazine features, specialising in her home territory of southwest England, with particular reference to Dartmoor and Exmoor. Sue is coming to CCB in … Read more

World Book Day 2018

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Our CCB schools team has had a fantastic two weeks visiting schools across the county celebrating World Book Day. Despite the arrival of the snow, book-fairs that had to be cancelled were ingeniously rescheduled and the celebrations continued throughout the following week! We visited large schools and small schools and schools in between: from primary schools with 35 children to secondary schools with over 1,000. We bring books to children and young adults who would otherwise have no access to … Read more

Curated book table: Sally Nicholls for International Women’s Day

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From time to time at CCB we ask a guest to curate a book list, and this March, inspired by International Women’s Day, the centenary of the suffragette movement and a recent boom in positive reading matter for girls, we asked Sally Nicholls to choose some of her favourite feminist titles. Children’s Books Princess Smartypants | Babette Cole Princess Smartypants doesn’t want to get married – she wants to ride around on her motorbike doing whatever she wants and stay a … Read more

Review: The Lost Words

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The Lost Words Front Cover

In 2015, the Oxford Junior Dictionary published a new edition that saw many words from the natural world, like blackberry and acorn, omitted in favour of more technical terms, such as broadband. Dismayed at this, illustrator Jackie Morris was inspired to contact nature writer Robert Macfarlane to write The Lost Words, a beautiful book which has provoked an extraordinary reaction. Described as a book of ‘nature-summoning spells’ rather than poems, Robert Macfarlane gently restores the missing words – acorn, blackberry, … Read more

Interview: Patrick Gale

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Patrick Gale’s sixteenth novel, A Place Called Winter was a Radio 2 Book Club selection, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, the Walter Scott Prize and the Green Carnation Award and and is now being developed as a BBC serial. His two part film, Man in an Orange Shirt will be on BBC 1 this summer. He is a patron of the Charles Causley Trust and the Penzance LitFest, a director of Endelienta and artistic director of the North … Read more