Jeannette Rowe’s popular YoYo books have made the jump from print to pad – iPad. You can now find four interactive books / games available for iPad on the App store, and soon for other mobile devices.

Another Booked Out illustrator to be found on iTunes is Lucia Masciullo. Her beautiful illustrations are featured in the multi-lingual Mr Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes.

Learn a little more about what’s on offer over at I Heart This App (and vote for it if you try it and like it), and see what other games are available here.

Booked Out author Tim Pegler brought these to our attention and even calls himself an e-book evangelist.

A couple that are very much worth checking out include:

• The Heart and The Bottle, by Oliver Jeffers (Developed by Harper Collins)
• Alice for the iPad, by Lewis Carroll (Developed by Atomic Antelope)
• The Cat In The Hat, by Dr. Seuss (Developed by Oceanhouse Media)

We’ve had a lovely break of summer reading and catching some rays, but now we’re back and well and truly into the swing of things. So email or call us to get your booking enquiries happening before our busy February period.

Hear from you soon!

• The Booked Out Team

Author John Danalis has just returned from a tour of Asia taking in schools in Jakarta and Hong Kong. As always John was a hit with students and staff alike and we received gushing feedback:

Just wanted to say thanks for guiding me through the process of securing Mr. Danalis for the benefit of our students and teachers. I just finished a debriefing with my teachers and each one praised the opportunity and the Mr. Danalis’ message for the kids.

I also had the incredible opportunity to have dinner with Mr. Danalis as well as explored a small bit of HK with him Friday evening. The conversation and the company was AWESOME!

John returns to Jakarta in January 2012.

Booked Out is very proud of Craig Smith! He has been awarded the 2011 Euphemia Tanner Award. It is a biennial award presented by La Trobe University to recognise distinguished services to Children’s Literature and the encouragement of the joys of reading in children.

From the award: “Craig’s generosity to and humility around his fellow creators in the publishing industry is heartwarming and humbling. Children and teachers all around Australia have been lucky enough to work with Craig as he passes on a lifetime of knowledge about translating ideas into lively and engaging images.”

And we at Booked Out are lucky to have such a talented and gracious illustrator on our books.

In 2011 the Australian Book Review launched the [to be] annualElizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded to an author (emerging or established) for outstanding pieces of fiction.

In 2011 the prize was jointly awarded to Carrie Tiffany, author ofMateship with Birds, and Booked Out’s own Gregory Day. Gregory will go on to be one of the judges in the 2012 prize. Gregory’s story, The Neighbour’s Beans was published in the October 2011 edition of ABR and is still available for purchase via their website.

In 2012, Booked Out is pleased to present a schedule of ground-breaking multi-presenter professional development days for teachers and those working with young people.

Featuring

• Steve Biddulph
• Dr Michael Carr-Gregg
• Maggie Hamilton

For full information go to:

bookedout.com.au/events

Register before December 21 to qualify for the Early Bird rate (1 day/2 days = $200/$300). Please note, payment can be made in the new year if accounts have already been closed.

We hope to see you at one of our events in 2012!

The Extinction Gambit, book one of The Extraordinaires, kick starts the next series by fantasy / sci-fi author Michael Pryor. Michael has published more than 25 fantasy books, including the Laws of Magic series, The Chronicles of Krangor and several of the Quentaris Chronicles.

Equal parts adventure, mystery and witty repartee, The Extinction Gambit is the intriguing beginning of a brilliant new fantasy trilogy. Kingsley Ward’s dream is to be a famous magician and escapologist but it all goes horribly wrong in front of a packed theatre when Kingsley’s hidden wolfish nature bursts free…

Michael will launch the novel at Northcote Library on December 7th. Find the details, and book a place, at the Darebin Libraries websitehere.

Michael has also recently overhauled his website (which has always been the place to find an overflow of fascinating ideas and reflections). Fans of Michael’s will know he is fairly keen on posting videos and his latest is a blast — Michael Pryor as interviewed by Michael Pryor!

Congratulations to James Moloney for taking out the 2011 Gold Inky award for Silvermay.

Run via The Centre for Youth Literature and insideadog.com.au, theInky Awards are voted on by young people aged 12-20. The Gold Inky is awarded to the most popular novel by an Australian writer with the Silver going to the most popular international title – this year Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Angel.

The end of the year is fast approaching. Year 12 students are beginning to chew their nails with the thought of exams and I’m counting the days until Christmas (we’re under the 100-day-mark, it’s not unreasonable).

One of my favourite things about the end of the year when I was at school was the end of year activities – letters to Santa, macaroni Christmas ornaments and those paper lanterns with cellophane panes. Now that I’m older and have run out of room on the tree for macaroni decorations, I have a new Christmas tradition, which is a 12 days of Christmas movies countdown, ranging from the whimsical (Home Alone) to unusual (Nightmare Before Christmas).

Had my high school teacher booked Tim Bain to run a horror themed filmmaking workshop I may have beaten Tim Burton to the post and created the Nightmare Before Christmas myself. Tim (Bain not Burton) is available now to run filmmaking workshops with secondary students (and specialises in spooky).

If you’re a teacher looking for a fun way to end the year, an unusual workshop is it (and will potentially encourage students to buy you a lovely Christmas present). Anthony Lawrence (of plasmotv fame) can make an animated short in a workshop with students. If you’re not convinced, check out his works here.

Or HJ Harper, one of Booked Out’s latest additions turns book trailers into something else with her haunted horror puppet theatre. These handmade creations are given plenty of stagetime as they act out shorts from all the latest releases in scary fiction. To make your own haunted theatre and book trailer contact us for more info on booking HJ.

• Bec Kavanagh, Booked Out.

Steven Amsterdam, whose fantastic Things We Didn’t See Coming is going strong on the VCE English reading list, has an article in today’sThe Age Education Supplement.

Steven discusses his experience of school visits, and muses over the two-way street that is education. He explains why talking to students has taught him as much as it has taught them, and more importantly, why this is a good thing.

“So what do I say to 10 rows of keen students, looking to me for comprehension? I start out by telling them that a book is a dream and I don’t have all the answers. I only wrote the thing. They’re the ones who’ve read the book, so they have a certain authority on it, too.

This probably agitates the more concrete thinkers in the crowd, but I like to think it starts to explain the strange co-operative work that is fiction. Then I trace the various strands from outside and inside my head that led me to write the book. These titbits may not be so useful for those cramming for an exam, but again, I hope they provide more insight into the creative process and ease the way towards understanding the book.“

You can read the full piece online at The Age.

Steven’s latest novel, What The Family Needed, will be released bySleepers Publishing with a launch at Trades Hall on November 3.