Book Launch: Aidan Chambers ‘The Age Between’

We have great pleasure in inviting you to join us for the launch of Aidan Chambers’ new book, The Age Between: Personal Reflections on Youth Fiction.

This event is being hosted in conjunction with Fincham Press as part of YA Studies Around the World, an online conference considering young adult literature, media, and culture.

This free-ticket event will take place online
Wednesday 4 November
18.30-19.30 GMT.

It will feature:

• An introduction by Lisa Sainsbury, Director of the NCRCL
• Aidan Chambers in conversation with his editor, Alison Waller 
• Q&A 

Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Printz Award and Hans Christian Anderson Award, Aidan Chambers is a longstanding friend of the NCRCL whose critical and creative work will be familiar to many NCRCL members and supporters. In this series of essays, Chambers explores the history and form of classic texts such as J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Anne Frank’s Diary, and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. He also examines his own fascinating experiences of reading and writing youth fiction, weaving these together with fresh insights from narrative theory, anthropology and neurology. 

To book your free place, Register Here

Roehampton Readers – New Members Welcome

The University of Roehampton’s Carnegie and Kate Greenaway award shadowing group is welcoming new members.  More information about our group is included below. If you have any questions or would like to sign up, get in touch via the contact form.

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|GUEST POST| Beginning as an MA Distance Learner

Guest post written by Hannah Louise Oldham.

I began university as an undergraduate almost exactly ten years ago. I had just turned eighteen and had really no idea what to expect when I rolled into Exeter wearing flip flops on that hot autumn day. Beginning that journey again triggers a sort of sense memory of those moments when I stepped into my student halls and onto campus for the first time, all tied up in scents and flavours and feelings. Sunshine mixed with bursts of warm rain; rustling pages, cheap wine and cheese toasties.

Beginning instead as a distance learning, part time postgraduate immediately felt quite different. I know my way around a library now, for instance, though I now have to find my own ways to access one, alongside tentatively exploring the wide world of digitised texts available from the University of Roehampton library. The balance of work and studying has swung the other way – as an undergraduate I would fit my hours working in the campus bookshop around my studies, now I squeeze studying in before I start work in the morning, or when I get home at night. When I think about my undergraduate life I marvel over how much time I seemed to have, and how I didn’t seem to realise it. Looking back, I seemed to spend an ordinate amount of time just sitting and thinking. I wondered how I was going to fit everything in now.

2020 NCRCL Scholarships

We are pleased to announce that the current round of applications for our annual scholarships in children’s literature is open (studies commencing October 2020).

 

|CONFERENCE|IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference 2019

IBBY UK/NCRCL CONFERENCE: A World of Information: Children’s Non-Fiction Books in the Digital Age

Centre for Literacy in Primary Education
London SE1 8QW

Saturday 9th NOVEMBER 2019

Booking is now open for the IBBY UK/NCRCL conference 2019! Please click here to secure your place.

Image via IBBY.

This year’s conference asks:

• How is non-fiction for children developing in response to technological, social and political change?
• Why, in the wake of Wikipedia, are children’s information books currently enjoying such a resurgence?
• How do children interact with non-fiction books?

Programme

9.00 – 9.30                  Registration and coffee

9.30 – 9.45                  Welcome and IBBY News

9.45 – 10.30                Sue Walker, Reading University
Design of children’s information books and the legacy of Marie Neurath and Isotype

10.30 – 11.15              Joe Sutliff Sanders, University of Cambridge, and Karen Bentall, Librarian, Oakridge Elementary School, Arlington, Virginia (USA)
Beauty in theory and truth: connecting academic approaches to non-fiction and school storytime

11.15 – 11.45              Coffee

11.45 – 12.45              Parallel sessions

1.00 – 2.00                  Lunch

2 – 2.30                       Nicola Davies
The world into words: writing about big things for small people

2.30 – 3.30                  A panel of publishers in conversation with writers and illustrators – Thames & Hudson with Yuval Zommer, Flying Eye, Hachette Children’s Group with Neal Layton. Chaired by Liza Miller, Hachette Children’s Group
Publishing non-fiction: challenges and successes

3.30 – 4.00                  Tea

4.00 – 4.30                  Karenanne Knight, Portsmouth University
How far is far away? Where fact and fiction meet. Cartography and the information book, a Research Project.

4.30 – 5.00                  Chris Routh, Librarian, Leighton Park School
Celebrating the best non-fiction for children: SLA Information Book Awards and National Non-fiction November

 

Information via IBBY.

|*UPDATED* PROGRAMME|4th Annual NCRCL Conference

In Crusoe’s Footsteps: Robinson Crusoe and the Robinsonade – A Tercentenary Appraisal

NCRCL Conference
Friday, 6^th September 2019
Digby Stuart College, University of Roehampton
Bookings via:https://estore.roehampton.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/conferences/robinson-crusoe/in-crusoes-footsteps-robinson-crusoe-and-the-robinsonade-a-tercentenary-appraisal

Programme

|EVENT REVIEW| ‘Building New Communities in UK Children’s Literature Research’

Review written by Emily Corbett.

Two PhD students embark on a field trip to Newcastle to talk all things children’s and YA literature

‘Building New Communities in UK Children’s Literature Research: A Colloquium for Contemporary Issues in the Field’ was organised by Cambridge doctoral student, Andy McCormack, to bring together PhD students and academics from Roehampton, Newcastle, Glasgow and Cambridge universities. It was hosted by Newcastle University and Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, and so fellow PhD student Harriet Salisbury and I ventured north to meet new people, share our research and enjoy all that the colloquium had to offer. As it turns out, the colloquium had plenty to offer!

|EVENT REVIEW| ‘Being Human’ & MA Open Day from a Distance Learner’s Perspective

Review written by Marcia Kean

A Distance Learner Finds Her Way to Roehampton At Last!

One of the most delightful aspects of the Roehampton Distance Learning program is the opportunity to chat with our tutors on the phone during the semester. Now, double that pleasure for an actual onsite visit, which I did last month for the ‘Being Human in YA Literatures’ symposium and the MA Open Day. I used these events as my ‘excuse’ and Virgin Atlantic was happy to carry me across the Pond from Boston. Here, I share my experiences of both events.

|EVENT REVIEW| NCRCL MA Open Morning

Review written by Charlotte Taylor.

On Saturday May 18th 2019, members of the NCRCL gathered at the gleaming Duchesne building at the University of Roehampton for their annual MA Open Morning. After informally gathering over tea, coffee and pastries amidst a colourful display of vintage and contemporary children’s books, the members headed to the lecture theatre where the director of the NCRCL, Lisa Sainsbury, welcomed the group and began the morning’s programme. The group comprised of potential and current MA students as well as some distinguished alumni, and so Lisa explained about the different modules available to those starting the course in September. In addition, Nicki Humble and Alison Waller also spoke about their courses and their respective current research projects: Nicki on the presentation of craft and hobbies in 20^th Century Children’s Literature, and Alison on her recent book Rereading Childhood Books: A Poetics.

Lisa Sainsbury

Nicki Humble

Alison Waller

|UPDATE| Prison Reading Groups

“Prison Reading Groups was set up in 1999 to help start, fund and support reading groups in prisons. Since 2017 it has been part of registered charity Give a Book. We now run groups in over 35 prisons nationwide and supply more than 3000 books a year to support them. We also support Family Days and family reading initiatives in more than 50 prisons across the country.”

The NCRCL has a longstanding relationship with Prison Reading Groups. In 2015 volunteers from the NCRCL created a database of age-appropriate books and continue to volunteer with the scheme.

We are pleased to share their new website with you. Head to http://prisonreadinggroups.org.uk/ for information about PRG, including how you can support their work!