Archive for the 'Young Readers' Category

The Queen tells children to read books

Queen Elizabeth has recently celebrated her 80th Birthday. As part of the celebrations she hosted a big literature party in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. It sounds like great fun.

  • Read books, says the Queen to children A Children’s Literature Party at Buckingham Palace, a pantomime-style play featuring stars like Jerry Hall and others, and a reminder for kids to “read…wonderful books…and to discover the pleasures of reading.” That’s all part of the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations in the UK recently. Just as Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant would say, it was clear from the very start that the children’s event was going to be one “golden phizzwizard” of a dream come true. It was held in the Queen’s back garden, which has been transformed into a living treasury of tales. There, the overawed youngsters – selected by ballot – got to mingle with their favorite literary characters, including Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse. When the Queen entered the scene, she was announced as – “Her Majester, Ruler of Straight Lines” and vanquisher of bad giants. More on this at the links below.
  • Courtesy of SCBWI Australia (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators)


Children’s Book Awards

The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has recently announced the short list of books that are in the running for this year’s Book of the Year Awards. This list is eagerly awaited by authors, publishers, booksellers and librarians. Many schools and libraries puchase the books on the short list and promote them in the lead up to the announcement of the winners.

Book Week

The eventual winners are announced at the commencement of Children’s Book Week. This year Book Week is from 19th to 25th of August. Each year the CBCA chooses a different theme. This year the Children’s Book Week theme is Book Now!

My Dream

My dream for many years is to one day see one of my books listed on the shortlist – and later appear as the winner of the award!  Dare I dream even bigger and want several of my books listed as winners?

For a compete list of books on the shortlist and more details of the CBCA, click here.

Useful writer’s newsletter

I’ve just finished reading this week’s edition of “Pass It On”. This is a weekly newsletter emailed to subscribers and covers many topics relevant to writers for children. It is packed full of interesting information, hints, tips, publishing needs and current trends. There is also the opportunity to contribute ideas for other authors to read as well as being able to ask questions of other writers, making it a very worthwhile forum. It is well worth the $2 per month subscription.

“Pass It On” is edited and published by Jackie Hosking (click here for details)

Encouraging News

Writing Course

I am currently doing a writing course that concentrates on writing for children, my chosen area. After 35 years of teaching primary age children I have some insight into the types of stories children enjoy. This course is run by Adelaide author Robyn Opie who has over 60 published titles to her credit.

Mentorship

The writing course includes a series of writing exercises that are submitted to Robyn as my mentor for comment and suggestions for improvements. On Friday I received a reply from her on a manuscript I had sent to her earlier in the week. She said that my picture book manuscript was, with a few little changes, ready for submission to a publisher. Wow! That’s really encouraging.

Other Writing

I have so much writing that needs to be submitted to publishers that I will be busy in the coming months. Then I have many ideas for stories that need a great deal of planning and then hard work getting the stories written. Stay tuned for further news.

Welcome

Welcome to this web site, the home page of writer Trevor Hampel. This site needs lots of work on it so stay tuned.

Just to arouse a little curiosity here are some of the things I write:

Picture books, novels for young readers, puppet scripts, poetry – both for children and adults, devotionals, short stories and articles.