Chris Haughton wins The Bisto!!!!

WOWSERS!!!! The Bisto Book of the Year Award goes to Chris Haughton’s A Bit Lost! And the Eilís Dillon award for a first children’s book goes to Chris too!!!! Huge congratulations to Chris, he is such an nice fella and its a wonderful book.

What a year for Picture Books! The Honour Award for Illustration went to Caitríona Hastings and Andrew Whitson’s Mac Rí Éireann. And The Special Judges Award to Oliver Jeffers’ Heart and the Bottle.

The Children’s Choice Award went to the lovely Sheena Wilkinson for Taking Flight.

David Maybury has all the scoop here on the new INIS site. And can I say what a delicious site it is too :)

Library Week, some doodles and The Bisto!

Happy Library week everyone! Enjoy this wonderful movie as part of the Library week celebrations.

It's been a busy few days for Books; what with World Book Day and World Book Night over the last week. Don't forget to spend your €1.50 tokens you got last Thursday. Mums and Dads they could be rolled up in a hairy ball at the bottom of the school bag! There are some wonderful videos of the authors reading on the World Book Day Site here.

Huge congrats also to my fellow Walker Books picture book makers Kevin Waldron and Chris Haughton on the Bisto Shortlist. It's great to see so many picture Books on the Bisto Shortlist. 5 out of 10 titles are Picture books!

On a sobering note, Mags Walsh of CBI in the Irish Times, calls out for the new government to reinstate the school book grant to schools and libraries. She says the abolition of the grant two years ago has "fundamentally affected access to books for kids who don't have access to books at home".