CKG Day

Today I've been on a discussion day with other people from B&H Libraries and, indeed, with people from other libraries all over the south east. We got together to discuss some of children's fiction books and picture books that have been nominated for the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway awards to be awarded next year. It was a very interesting day. I've been reading like mad the past few weeks just trying to get through the six junior fiction/teenage titles and the eight picture books up for discussion. We voted on which two from each category should go through for consideration for the shortlist, which will be announced in April 2010. Some fantastic JF, but, most of all, some AMAZING picture books. I was longlisted myself for "Munch" back in 2005, so it was doubly interesting to see how the nomination process works.

I bought The Troll, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by uber-hero David Roberts a couple of months ago. I just love DR's illos; I want to be him. (In a strictly professional sense, of course.) But, the surprise love-at-first-sight moment for me today, though, was Millie's Marvellous Hat by Satoshi Kitamura.


EVERYTHING about this book is fantastic - the story, the colours, the detail, the characterisation...love, love, LOVE it. I've not really paid much attention to Satoshi Kitmura in the past, but I'm definitely going to go through his back catalogue. This one is going straight on my Amazon Wishlist for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I've just started scribbling ideas for my Christmas card. I think I'm going with "Nine Ladies Dancing" from "The Twelve Days of Christmas", with colours inspired by the lovely Ikea decorations I saw last Friday.

I've already started my Christmas catalogue collection. Sainsbury's was first off the mark this year - I picked theirs up on 1st October. I have a Waitrose one, too, which is just full of lovely, lovely things to get me in the festive mood. SUCH nice food in there.

At Crimbo you're allowed time off for good behaviour when it comes to diets, right?