Category announcements

Fabulous activities for The Sorcerer’s Tower

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We’re delighted to announce that Ian Irvine’s fabulous fantasy quartet, The Sorcerer’s Tower, published by Second Look as an omnibus in 2017, now has its own Featured Book pages on the United Publishers of Armidale website. This includes an information page about the book, the author Ian Irvine and the illustrator DM Cornish, and a link to buy the book, and also a great activities page which includes a lively video reading by Ian of a chapter from the book, and some great writing and art activities. All free to download and use in schools, libraries, and by families.

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Shortlisting for The Boy who Could Fly!

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We are delighted to announce that Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy Who Could Fly And Other Magical Plays for Children (illustrated by Amy Golbach) has been shortlisted for the 2020 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards, in the 8 to 10 year old category. Congratulations, Ursula and Amy, on this very well-deserved award for a very special book we are very proud to publish!

The Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards which are held every year, aim to promote quality Australian books that help children get the best, most literate start in life.

Books are awarded for “Best Book for Language and Literacy Development” in the following categories:

  • Birth to 3 years
  • 3 to 5 years
  • 5 to 8 years
  • 8 to 10 years
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Authored Children’s Book Award.

Each book is judged on its appeal to children, interactive quality and ability to assist speech pathologists and parents in communication and literacy development.

Some fantastic news!

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United Publishers of Armidale, a collaboration between children’s books publishers Christmas Press and Little Pink Dog Books, is delighted to announce that it is the recipient of a 2020 Resilience Fund Grant, an initiative by the Australia Council for the Arts. 

The 2020 Resilience Fund is designed to provide emergency relief to support the livelihoods, practice and operations of Australian artists, groups and organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australia Council has directed more than $5M to the Resilience Fund to provide immediate relief to the Australian arts sector.

United Publishers of Armidale was granted funds under the Adapt stream of the Resilience Fund, to create a wide range of fun new free activities and resources centred around their books, to join those already featured on their website, www.unitedpublishersofarmidale.net These are aimed at children, families and schools. Funds will also be used by the publishers to create special ‘Journey of a Book’ video presentations for adults which will look at aspects of writing, illustrating and publishing children’s books, around a focus on books produced by each publisher. These presentations, to be hosted on the UPA You Tube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCebJK9zqg1f1ROlrSrtAFuA,  and showcased on their website, will be aimed at aspiring creators as well as anyone interested in children’s books.

Christmas Press and Little Pink Dog Books, under our United Publishers of Armidale banner, wish to warmly thank the Australia Council for their generous support of our joint initiative. We look forward to creating some fantastic resources–watch this space!

(And as a Christmas Press imprint, Second Look is delighted to be part of it!)

The Boy who Could Fly a Featured Book on United Publishers of Armidale website

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We are very pleased to say that our most recent title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s wonderful collection, The Boy Who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children, (illustrated by Amy Golbach) is one of the Featured Books for the newly-launched United Publishers of Armidale website.

As well as details of the book, including buying links(just click on the book cover on the page), you will find some fabulous fun activities created by Ursula and Amy, centred around the book. We invite you to check them out!

First review for The Boy Who Could Fly!

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Illustration by Amy Golbach, from The Boy who Could Fly

There’s a nice first review for our latest title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy Who Could Fly And Other Magical Plays for Children (illustrated by Amy Golbach)at Buzz Words magazine.,

Here’s a short extract:

Each of the plays in this book have largish casts which can be performed in classrooms by all or most of the students. The dialogue is fast-paced, there’s occasional humour and plenty of action. Recommended.

You can read the whole thing here.

Our fantastic forthcoming title and cover reveal!

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We are delighted to announce our forthcoming title for 2019:

The Boy Who Could Fly And Other Magical Plays for Children, multi-award winning author Ursula Dubosarsky’s fabulous collection of short plays for children, based on Greek and Roman myth. With  illustrations by the talented Amy Golbach, it will be published in the Second Look imprint in July.

Doesn’t the cover look fantastic!

Here’s something about the book:

The Boy who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children

By Ursula Dubosarsky

Cover and internal illustrations by Amy Golbach

ISBN: 9780994528094

Have you ever wished you could fly? Well a boy called Icarus and his father built themselves wings out of feathers and wax. Up they flew into the huge blue sky. But it wasn’t as easy as it looked!

Here are eleven easy-to-read, exciting and funny plays for children, based on stories from ancient Greek and Roman myths, where all sorts of very strange things can happen! A girl becomes a spider, a statue comes to life, a couple turn into a pair of lions and that’s just a few of the startling transformations. Inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, these plays by multi award- winning author Ursula Dubosarsky, with lively illustrations by new illustrator Amy Golbach, are great fun for group performance, reading aloud, or just curling up by yourself with your eyes wide open, ready to be amazed!