Shortlisting for The Boy who Could Fly!

July 2, 2020christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

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.

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

April 15, 2020April 14, 2020christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

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!

Great review of The Boy who could Fly in Magpies Magazine

October 16, 2019christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

There’s a great review of The Boy who could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children, in the most recent issue of Magpies Magazine. Here’s a short extract:

Dubosarsky uses straight-forward, sometimes humorous language for the dialogue and episodes. The scripts are ideal for children to read or perform and can be staged simply or more extravagantly…Amy Golbach has illustrated one simple picture at the beginning of each tale to help orient children into the ancient period and characters.

The review isn’t available online, but below is the full review, as a jpeg.

The Boy who Could Fly reviewed at Read Plus

September 26, 2019christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

There’s a nice review of Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children just published at Read Plus. Here’s a short extract:

Taking ideas from ancient Greek and Roman literature and mythology, Ursula Dubosarsky has applied her deft touch to transform these ancient stories into simple play scripts suited to performance . . . or just reading for pleasure for younger readers.

You can read the whole review here.

Great review for The Boy who Could Fly in Reading Time!

August 23, 2019August 23, 2019christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

There’s a great review in Reading Time for our latest title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Boy who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for Children. Here’s a short extract:

The literary qualities of the plays are high, consistent with the quality of Dubosarsky’s novels. The language sparks, full of wit and vigour, and it is easy to visualise a performance from the text.

You can read the full review here.

Our fantastic forthcoming title and cover reveal!

March 8, 2019March 10, 2019christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

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!

Great review of This School on Book Chook blog

September 10, 2016September 9, 2016christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

There’s a great new review of This School is Driving Me Nuts just published on the respected children’s literature blog, Book Chook.

Here’s a very short extract:

So what was my reaction to This School is Driving Me Nuts? It’s a winner.

You can read the whole thing here.

Interview with Duncan Ball

March 29, 2016March 25, 2016christmaspresspicturebooks Leave a comment

Duncan Ball author pic In this interview, we talk to Duncan Ball, author of our fabulous launch title, This School is Driving Me Nuts and Other Funny Plays for Kids.

First of all, Duncan, congratulations on the publication of This School is Driving Me Nuts! We are delighted that it’s the launch title of our Second Look imprint. Can you tell us something about the process you went through, updating and revising the original plays from Comedies for Kids?

Authors rarely get to re-write their work after it’s published. It’s all set in stone once it’s a book. After Comedies for Kids was published I read and re-read the shorter plays out loud in schools. I could see that some of the jokes needed changing because either the kids didn’t get them or they just needed little changes to get bigger laughs. And when I saw some of the plays performed I could see how they could be improved. When Second Look agreed to re-publish the plays I had lots of notes about how to make the plays better and that’s exactly what I did.

You wrote a new play, ‘The Teeth of a Vampire’, for the new edition. What was that like, going back into the spirit and atmosphere of the collection to create something new?

I really enjoyed it. All I had to do was to re-read the other plays and I was back in the groove again. Writing comedy is very challenging but, when it works, it’s the best.

Class performance of Perils of Prince Percy Australia 2009

Plays suitable for children to perform–especially funny plays!–are not easy to find. Why do you think that is?

Kids love to read plays. I discovered this when I worked at the School Magazine at the NSW Department of Education. I think the reason for this is because plays don’t have all the (sometimes boring) description that other writing has. They also like the novelty of having the story all in dialogue. I think that many publishers avoid publishing plays for kids is that they’re afraid that parents won’t buy them. They’re wrong, of course.

What are your top tips for writing plays kids will enjoy?

It’s important to write what you enjoy reading. If you enjoy it there’s a good chance that others will too. When it comes to writing for kids an adult (like me) has to try to become a kid again. When I sit down to write I become the twelve year old I was many

Performance Perils of Prince Percy Canadian northern Drama Festival 2010

many years ago.

Tell us about some of your favourite anecdotes regarding these plays.

There are so many things that have happened regarding these plays. Here are a couple of them that spring to mind:

Three of these plays were performed by First Nations kids (Cree Indian high school students) in Northern Saskatchewan in Canada. They took their productions to provincial and national competitions and won themselves a number of prizes. I was sent videos of the plays but I wish I could have been there to see the actual performances.

Recently, a woman contacted me to say that when she was in primary school she and her cousin acted out one of the plays, “Yak Attack” for their grandmother. Last month her grandmother was having her 90^th birthday and said that she loved the play so much she wanted the women to act it out again—which they did.