A truly fantastic achievement, the Mission:Explore Food crowd-funded project has reached its goal of raising £15,000 from the general public. Tonight it has been achieved, a tremendous testament to the quality and importance of this project. But just because the target of £15,000 has been reached does not mean that if you haven’t signed up to the project yet that you can’t. Mission:Explore Food won the PleaseFundUs Creative Grants Award so please join us and help develop the project further. Thank you all for your support. http://www.pleasefund.us/projects/missionexplore-food

From the Society of Authors:

Bringing the World Around Us to Life

2011 Educational Writers’ Award Shortlist Announced

The four non-fiction titles on the shortlist for the 2011 Educational Writers’ Award, announced today, all excel in bringing the natural world to life for young readers aged 5-11. They are:

MISSION: EXPLORE The Geography Collective Can of Worms Press

‘A brave book which encourages children to explore the world around them, developing their curiosity, confidence and courage along the way…’

The 2011 Award focused on books for 5-11 year olds, published in 2009 and 2010. This year’s judges were children’s  writer Nicola Davies; teacher Chris Freudenberg and librarian Fiona Kirk .

The winner of the 2011 Educational Writers’ Award will be announced at the All Party Writers Group (APWG) Winter Reception at the House of Commons on Tuesday 6^th December. The winning author will receive a cheque for £2000.

Can of Worms Kids Press (7 Peacock Yard)

will have a wonderful array of award-winning children’s books available at special prices for the Open Studios this year. There will be two new Mission:Explore titles (winner of the National Trust Outdoors Book of the Year Award), a children’s book, The Boy Who Biked the World, by serial adventurer and round the world cyclist Alastair Humphreys, Monkey Magic by Grant S Clark and many more. Treat the kid’s in your life and in you to the best in children’s publishing.

Wondering what to get this Christmas for the person who has everything? Remember the children’s classic you read a thousand times when you were young?

What if Goodnight Moon was about saying goodbye to another Moon? Say goodnight to Keith, his drumsticks, his pile of sick, and more. Goodnight Keith Moon is a hilarious parody of the Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd children’s classic Goodnight Moon, this book will appeal to fans of rock music and every parent who has read it to their children. Classic rock aficionados won’t get fooled, they’ll spot a busload of Who references, from the pinball game in the corner to the ghost of Cass Elliott.

Living up to our name at Can of Worms Goodnight Keith Moon is a Word of Mouth Press release: Books Worth Talking About – tell a Friend!

This is the word of mouth from The Huffington Press:

“Everyone’s favorite children’s book about a notorious drummer who died of a drug overdose. Wait, that’s not what it was about? eel, authors Bruce Worden and Clare Cross have updated the classic story to revolve around the death of The Who’s Keith Moon with hilarious results. Brimming with rock references.”

To order copies in time to stuff your stockings go here.

We are on a mission to Dhaka, Bangladesh. A fascinating city, yet to see much of the country.

We are approached by all manner of street people requesting money and selling all sorts of things.

There are not that many bookstores here in Bangladesh, but it would seem plenty of booksellers.

This particular bookseller doggedly tried to sell me something for about a 400 metre stretch of Gulshan Avenue. Interestingly there were no 3 for 2 offers.

The booksellers endanger their lives darting between rickshaws, CNGs, yellow taxis, buses and ex-pats to sell the latest bestsellers.

The current bestseller list in Dhaka as represented by these street booksellers are:

Perfect by Judith McNaught
Something by Daniel Steel (I believe they are all interchangeable)
Lonely Planet Bangladesh (I would recommend the Bradt guide)
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
Beast and Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Songs of Blood and Sword by Fatima Bhutto
And
Decision Points by George W. Bush

An earlier bookseller I had encountered had Dreams of my Father by Barack Obama, so there may well be a political bent (not Horace) to the sellers.

Each book comes individually wrapped in cellophane.