Felice Arena’s exciting new series Andy Roid has found it’s very own high-tech HQ online.

Head over to Andy Roid HQ to test your skills as a bionic super agent (and get a secret agent ID card if you qualify!), learn about Andy’s robotically enhanced skills and his friends and enemies, and check how long you have to wait for the next book to come out!

The website contains an exclusive story presented in a dynamic animated comic strip — super high tech!

Sometimes seen as a best kept secret, a cult favourite, Melbourne International Animation Festival flies under the radar of many. Word to the wise: there is something for everyone in this festival; and for anyone interested in the art of storytelling, animation has a lot to tell you. There is no better place to check it out than MIAF, one of the world’s premier animation festivals, that runs out of ACMI in Federation Square, Melbourne.

We love animation here at Booked Out. We love the wacky story-telling, the suspension of disbelief, the fact that the audience needs to add their imagination to what they see. We love being surprised by the breadth and emotional range of the stories told.

Studying the unique blend of skills necessary to tell a story in animation can do for students: working with multiple skills makes animation creation a gold mine for education. You can run screenwriting workshops with two of Australia’s most esteemed contributors to children’s cartoons: Robert Greenberg and Doug MacLeod. HaveSerena Geddes (former Disney animator) or Leo Baker (who brought Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing to the screen to great acclaim) give a talk on career paths. Have the globe trotting Tim Bain tailor one of his animation workshops for hands on fun with claymation, storyboarding and video editing skills.Or if you have a major event, consider our home grown Academy Award winning Adam Elliot.

MIAF is on now and runs until June 30. There are special children’s programs on 29 June, with the rest of the festival being a 15+ affair (due to classification issues with independent film making). The best of the festival will be screened on Sunday 30 June. Book early because this session is so popular they play it twice and both sell out!

(We may be a little more enthusiastic about MIAF than most years because one of our staff members secretly moonlights as an animator outside office hours, and is on the judging panel for MIAF this year—but we can’t tell you who!).

Yesterday evening Booked Out went along to see beloved illustratorsCraig Smith and Terry Denton talk about their new books, Some Secrets Should Never be Kept and Jandamarra.

The theme of the night was the serious side of illustration. Do children’s illustrators have a duty to tackle serious themes in their work? How should those topics be approached? And how can publishers be convinced to take a chance on picture books that tread on more controversial territory than bunnies and bears?

It was a great, eye-opening night and fascinating to see just how much work goes into seemingly simple illustrations. It was also an important reminder that Craig, Terry and their colleagues are not just casual cartoonists, they are artists.

Where Are You, Banana? is a new picture book written by Sofie Laguna and illustrated by Craig Smith, published by Allen & Unwin.

Here in the Booked Out office we are pretty excited to see Craig & Sofie work together: this could be a contender for cutest book of the year! Sofie’s wacky humour is matched well to Craig’s exuberant watercolours.

There is a book launch at Readings St Kilda on Saturday July 6 at 10:30am. Craig Smith will draw the characters live in store while Sofie Laguna and actor Erick Mitsak will narrate the story. RSVP to Readings St Kilda: events@readings.com.au or 03 9525 3852.

You can listen to audio recordings of the story at the Allen & Unwin site. They were recorded by our very own Michael Wagner!

The Children’s Picture Book Illustrators’ Initiative Winners 2013 were recently announced. Funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, and managed by the CBCA, this Initiative provides grants to support the development of new children’s picture books, including graphic novels and comics.

We were very proud to see many of our creatives shortlisted: Marc Martin, Kylie Dunstan, Anne Spudvilas and Anna Walker. Even more exciting: we are please to see that both Kylie Dunstan (with Puddles Are For Jumping) and Anna Walker (with Mr Huff) received grants for the program.

Congratulations to all our creatives involved!

The lovely collage to the right is a sample image from Kylie’s projectPuddles Are For Jumping.

2013 is the 20th annual Reading Matters conference. Programmed and run by the Centre for Youth Literature, and held at the State Library of Victoria, the conference is a major event for students and librarians alike.

Yesterday was the student day at the Centre for Youth Literature’s 2013 Reading Matters Conference. The student sessions featured a few Booked Outers: Myke Bartlett, Fiona Wood and Morris Gleitzman.

Today is the first of two days of the professional program, which adds a few more of our speakers: Gabrielle Williams and Paul Callaghan. Our Director Lauris Pandolfini is on the scene to follow the progress of the conference.

The tech savvy among you can follow the conference on Twitter with the hashtag #yamatters. Follow the feed here.

Felice Arena recently made a guest appearance on Brownlow MedallistShane Crawford’s Crawf TV.

Crawf TV is part of Shane’s website and is designed to encourage health, reading, and activity for kids. Felice, famous for the Specky books, and now his exciting Andy Roid series, made the perfect guest.

You can watch the video here.

It will be Refugee Week in late June, giving us a chance to reflect on the contributions that refugees make and have made to Australian society. Each year, the refugee council selects a handful of ambassadors who embody this spirit of generosity and this year we are proud to say that Booked Out’s own Abdi Aden has been selected for the honour. Abdi is a worthy recipient of this honour, having spent the past 13 years devoting himself to youth work.

You might have seen Abdi reflect on his amazing life on the ABC seriesGo Back to Where You Came From. If you haven’t, Abdi is available to give talks to schools, libraries and councils. It’s a heartbreaking but hopeful story, and the refugee council couldn’t have found a more inspirational figure to be their ambassador.

Congratulations Abdi, from the Booked Out team.

To coincide with the 30 city tour of Still Awake Still!, a play based on her hit picture book I’m Still Awake, Still!, and Book Week, Elizabeth Honey will be available for school visits in Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, and Newcastle in August and September 2014.

Elizabeth can give interactive talks to large groups, smaller talks for students from P – Year 8, poetry workshops and illustration workshops.

Contact us to secure a date with Elizabeth!

The SWF is now less than a month away, and we’re sure that many of our New South Readers have already checked out the lineup. If you haven’t had a chance, though, have a look now. Booked Out favoritesDavid Astle, Jane Caro, Sophie Cunningham, Mary Delahunty,Catherine Deveny, Nick Earls, Amy Espeseth, Jackie French, Anna Goldsworthy, Dave Graney, Danny Katz, Cate Kennedy, Anna Krien,Ben Law, Emily Maguire, Oliver Phommavanh, Sally Rippin and R A Spratt will all be there. Get involved!