Now that the hectic Christmas season has ended, the Publicity team here at RHCP has been thinking about what other excitement is in store – i.e. the lovely new books publishing in 2013. From quirky picture books; to fabulously funny new kids on the block in young fiction; to some super-scary happenings, here are our personal picks of some of the standout titles for the year…

Clare’s Pick: Anne Fine – BLOOD FAMILY

I was completely captivated by Anne’s THE DEVIL WALKS. Set in the past it featured a young boy Daniel who was sent to live with his uncle. In this novel, which is loosely linked to THE DEVIL WALKS, the protagonist also grows up in the shadow of his mum’s mental illness and a highly abusive father. He’s adopted into a loving family but despite their support struggles to shake off his past. How can he save himself when he goes off the rails? This is another gripping and darkly disturbing story from a master storyteller.

Charlotte’s Pick: Rebecca Patterson – MY BUSY BEING BELLA DAY

Following her first adventure in MY BIG SHOUTING DAY, Bella is back in a brand new story from award-winning author Rebecca Patterson. In MY BUSY BEING BELLA DAY, released May 2013, Bella is going to have a very busy day at nursery, but she can’t help wondering what Mummy and her brother Bob are getting up to at home. Yet Bella soon discovers that there are good things about being bigger, and maybe nursery isn’t so bad after all…

Harriet’s Pick: Laura Dockrill – DARCY BURDOCK

I am soooo excited about the launch of the fantastic DARCY BURDOCK series by the wonderfully quirky and completely cool LAURA DOCKRILL! Darcy is funny, smart and completely nuts and I couldn’t help but fall in love with her right from the first line of the book: ‘Have you ever noticed your noticing? Sometimes I notice so much that I get trapped in noticing my noticing.’ And this is Darcy down to a tee – one of life’s ‘noticers’ who sees the extraordinary in the everyday and the wonder in the world around her. Her ability to capture everyday situations and describe them in such a hilarious but completely honest way had me in stitches. But what I love most about Darcy is her passion and enthusiasm for just BEING YOURSELF! By the end, I actually shed a tear and rejoiced at the fact that we are all different and this is indeed something to be celebrated. As Darcy says, from bobbly bumps on your skin to holes in your knickers, ‘these are the things that make you special, that make you YOU.’

Lauren’s Pick: Malorie Blackman – THE NOBLE CONFLICT

The book I am most excited about this year is the brand new teen novel from Malorie Blackman. In The Noble Conflict, out this July, Malorie returns to what she does best in a dystopian futuristic thriller complete with a clever twist in the tale that she is famous for. I know fans of the Noughts & Crosses series are going to LOVE The Noble Conflict.

Alex’s Pick: Rachel Campbell-Johnson – THE CHILD’S ELEPHANT

My pick for 2013 is the beautiful The Child’s Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston.  This debut novel captured my heart and imagination with its vivid imagery and original story.  It follows the story of Bat, a young African herd boy who takes in an orphaned baby elephant.  The elephant (named Meya) becomes part of Bat’s family and his village.  Eventually, Meya is set free into the wild again.  But her and Bat are later reunited when a child army arrives in the village… Rachel Campbell-Johnston brings the African savannah to life in this poignant tale. 

Lisa’s Pick: Jonathan Stroud – LOCKWOOD & CO.

I cannot say too much about this book just yet but suffice to say Lockwood & Co is going to be HUGE! It’s the brand new series from the wonderful Jonathan Stroud, whose Bartimaeus series was a global bestseller. Featuring young operatives of a Psychic Detection agency tasked with battling an epidemic of ghosts, it is a supernatural thriller like no other. Film rights have already been hotly snapped up, everyone is clamouring to read the manuscript and there’s just no end to the anticipation and excitement for this book. I love Jonathan’s blend of humour, mystery and adventure but it’s also the fantastic characters and spooky twists and turns that really had me hooked. Coming in September…be ready for a fright!

Stephie’s Pick: CUPCAKE FAIRIES

These adorable new books will mean baking abound for the whole summer – not that the RHCP PR team ever need much encouragement to bake! Due to it’s pink and girlie perfection, it will be no surprise to the rest of the team that I have selected the Cupcake Fairies as my ‘excitable’ pick, and will probably be posing as blondie Butterfly (one of the fairies!) come July, when this series launches. All about  fairies, friendship and baking, each story also has a great message for young readers. The illustrations are fresh, modern and absolutely pitch-perfect – almost as if they had been sprinkled with picture-book pixie dust for that special magic finish!

Author and BBC Broadcaster Simon Mayo opened the new Bristol Grammar library in 2012, and is to return to the school for more element hunting with ITCH ROCKS this March. Students at the school share how much they enjoyed the book, and Simon’s visit.Reader Daisy Kilbey was not only hooked in by the plot and  villainous teacher, but is now ‘much more informed about science than I ever was’! A snapshot of her review is as follows:

‘ITCH is a great debut book by Simon Mayo. It is absolutely brilliant. It is all about a 14 year old boy called Itchingham Lofte, who has an incredible hobby to collect all the elements in the periodic table. Simon Mayo has described everything amazingly. He seems to have written it like he had been there. ITCH is a book which normally I wouldn’t read as it is a book about lots of science and about the periodic table. I never knew about lots about the periodic table, but now I am . I would rate this book 11 out of 10 because it is absolutely astonishing that this boy goes on such an adventure against such an unimaginable villain and with such ordinary companions. I would read this book so many times and still be amazed by every chapter.’

Rosie Owen also found it a great experience to meet the author of ITCH:

‘I really enjoyed this experience meeting Simon Mayo and having my book signed. It is brilliant being able to meet an author and it makes the book come alive in a different light. So far I have read the first three chapters of Itch and am looking forward to reading more!’

ITCH ROCKS by Simon Mayo, out on 28 Feb 2013

Alfie Small, The True Adventures Of A Brave Explorer!

As Custodian of The Charlie Small Journals, imagine how delighted I was to discover that his young cousin, Alfie, has been having adventures of his own. They are every bit as exciting as Charlie’s, and they are ALL TRUE!

My job was to sort through the notes and sketches Alfie had hurriedly made on his swash-buckling voyages and turn them into full-colour, easy to read books. I had a huge amount of fun doing it!

Alfie Small is a young explorer who discovers a special place at the bottom of the garden, behind the shed and through the long weeds, that leads him on incredible journeys of excitement and danger. Two of his escapades have just been published, and more are coming in the summer!

In the first book, Pirates And Dragons, Alfie is rescued from the ocean’s depths by a friendly Sea Serpent; he fights a despicable old pirate in hand-to-hand combat and becomes captain of a band of unruly brigands. Here is Captain Bonedust, the terrifying old pirate Alfie encounters on a desert island:

The second book, Ug And The Dinosaurs, sees Alfie attacked by a terrible T. Rex, befriended by a stone-age girl and captured by a tribe of pea-brained ogres.

But, however dangerous or incredible the adventure, Alfie always manages to get back home in time for his tea! Here, Alfie’s hot air balloon is swept inside the grinning mouth of an ogre-shaped cloud that propels him into another, crazy world:

I hope Alfie Small is pleased with how I’ve turned his sketches into full, bone-crunching colour illustrations and, with the help of reading consultant Prue Goodwin, his notes into terrifically exciting stories that are dead easy reads for all young adventurers!

 So, keep your eyes peeled for these adventure-filled stories and, if you like the sound of them, why not visit the website of his older cousin Charlie (www.charliesmall.co.uk), who is an eight-year-old boy who has lived for four hundred years. Don’t believe it? I can assure you, everything in his and Alfie’s journals is true!

…it’s of course time to tuck in with a gorgeous, sumptuous snowy story. Which is what we did on Sunday afternoon when author and illustrator Richard Collingridge read from his beautiful new book and held a Christmas drawing workshop. Yes, it’s not quite snowing in town yet, but there’s a nip in the air and a definite feeling of festivity at lovely Clapham store Under the Greenwood Tree.

For his first ever author event, Richard read to an enthusiastic audience of children and then took suggestions for various Christmas-themed pictures. All the children we soon keen to have a turn at a reindeer, a Christmas Tree, and various ‘snow shapes’. Richard then signed books with a beautiful bespoke sketch in each one.

Wednesday 7^th November

Woke to discover Barak Obama has been elected US President for another 4 years – awesome! Then to Nottingham to Waterstones for a great event with the Annie Holgate School and Cotmanhay Junior School and a sampling of Lincolnshire Poacher cheese provided by Amy in Waterstones. Awesome and more awesome!

John signing at Waterstones Nottingham

Lincolnshire Poacher is the cream coloured cheese...

Tuesday 6^th November 

Election Day in the US. I talked to students at St John’s on the Hill in Chepstow and walked through the ruins of Tintern Abbey, which is reputed to have been the inspiration for the Great Hall in Hogwarts as JK Rowling grew up nearby. 

John Stephens at St John's School, Chepstow

Autumnal leaves blowing through Tintern Abbey

In the evening we drove out of Birmingham to the Earls High School in Halesowen where I did an event last year for The Emerald Atlas. I saw many familiar faces and received another warm welcome from Ros Bartlett and the Dudley Children’s Book Group team, and a young man named Peter whom I met last year. This time he won a free copy of the book in the raffle.

John at Earls High School, Birmingham

US screenwriter and producer John Stephens is not only one of the great minds behind amazing shows like Gossip Girl and The OC; he is also the author of the best-selling children’s hardback debut of 2011 – The Emerald Atlas. His stunning series, The Books of Beginning, continues this Autumn with The Fire Chronicle – and we are privileged to have John over in the UK this week on a packed schools and events tour with this fantastic book. Join John on tour as he sends postcards from around the country….

Monday 5th November
I began my UK tour for The Fire Chronicle at Ilford County Grammar School. It’s a great boys’ school and there were some terrific questions – and then there was time for champagne and photos at the Random House offices in Ealing before heading to Wales in the evening.

Andy McNab’s currently on his biggest ever tour, he’s visiting schools and colleges across the country to promote his new YA book THE NEW RECRUIT, which we’re publishing in digital extracts. You can download the first extract for free here: http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/the-new-recruit-episode-1/9781448120710#popup-back

Here he is from the tour:

Hi it’s Andy here, 2 fantastic school events yesterday, with the morning at Christopher Whiteheads in Worcester and afternoon at Wreake Valley Academy in Leicester. Julie and the team at Christopher Whiteheads had made a cake and chocolates with The New Recruit book jacket on, and were all wearing New Recruit t shirts. A great great effort. One question to really get me thinking was who would I most like to collaborate with on a book. My answer was Muhammad Ali. I would love to write his life story (with his blessing). Then on to Leicester, an event organised by my mates at West Yorkshire Police. The kids at Wreake Valley were brilliant, loads of questions and they all stayed on after the bell went at the end of the day! Not sure I would have done the same when I was that age! Couldn’t resist sharing these photos. These are the chocolates from Christopher Whiteheads (didn’t last long once the kids arrived!) and the cake they made for me. Great cake, ate it all the way to Birmingham where I was for a dinner last night.

When I was briefed to create a cover for Candace Fleming’s On The Day I Died, I knew that Dominic Harman was the illustrator to approach. With his wealth of experience of creating atmospheric and haunting images for among others, His Dark Materials trilogy, he was the perfect choice!

To Learn a little bit more about Dominic please see below to read our Q&A, or visit his website: www.bleedingdreams.com

You have created smashing covers for many children’s books – have you any favourites?

Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, I have created covers for acclaimed authors such as Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett, Michael Morpurgo but that’s a tough one, I like all the ones I have illustrated:)

What drew you to becoming a children’s Illustrator?

Well I started out doing Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror book covers but the market was changing and there was an explosion of Y/A titles coming out, a lot of fantastic and intriguing book covers which really caught my eye so it was a easy cross over for me to make.

What’s your favourite children’s book?

Harry Potter off the top of my head, I had to see what all the fuss was about but I really enjoyed it. Terry Pratchett’s Death, Would you say J.R.R Tolken’s Lord of the Rings is a children’s book?

If you could be any children’s book character who would you be?

Voldemort! Sometimes its good to be bad:)

Who or what inspires you?

Anything really, When I first got into art when I was young I was inspired by the old masters like Velazquez, Michelangelo, Caravaggio then Boris Vallejo and Derek Riggs. Watching the Paralympics was a great source of inspiration to see people achieve so much after coming through terrible adversities in life. It’s great to get inspired but also to try and inspire, it feels like you are making a positive difference to people even in a small way.

If you had to do another job what would it be?

I would love to be a sculptor, or doing special effects for movies, that looks like a lot of fun and very imaginative. If none of those work out, maybe work in a bakers because I love the smell of fresh bread:)

What’s your favourite medium to use?

When I was younger, I absolutely loved using oil paint and graphite and set out to make a living from it but when digital/ computers came in and started to dominate the book cover market I made the decision to use computers exclusively as my main medium to create my work commercially and keep oils/ pencils to my personal projects.

Would you ever collaborate with another illustrator?

Yes definitely, I think that would a great experiment, I suppose the best way is to get artists that compliment each other. I think one could even create something digitally then print it out then work on it to create something physical. Sounds very exciting to me:)

Do you prefer digital or the physical book?

The book! I loved going into old book shops when I was kid and buying the old fantasy and SF novels and the books had the old paper smell and the way every crease, every line on the cover told a story in itself of its age, its authenticity, I can understand that going on holiday for instance having a Kindle is a great idea as it can hold so many books without taking up any more space. But if it’s  a choice between old or new, I am definitely old school in the respect:)

Random fact about you…

I always wanted to sky dive and haven’t yet so I might a find an excuse like doing it for charity so I can do it! If not I will just jump off the end of the pier:)

All aboard! RHCP has created a brand new app from the best-selling Little Red Train stories by Benedict Blathwayt. Available to buy for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch from today, this interactive app combines classic picture book charm from the much-loved series with innovative features to provide hours of enjoyment for children. They can read-along, with or without audio; record their own narration; discover sounds within the pages; explore some fantastic animation; and enjoy a brilliant narration by the fantastic Richard Briers.

The app contains an initial story, The Little Red Train, with two further stories, To the Rescue! and Race to the Finish available via in-app purchase, enabling children to build their own bookshelf of classic Little Red Train picture books. Every book read gains a special postcard from Driver Duffy at the end, celebrating the achievement for young readers of finishing a story.

Discover the Little Red Train in a brand-new way:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/little-red-train-picture-books/id546653847?mt=8&ls=1 

For more info:

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/lp/little-red-train