CHILDREN'S BOOKS: Fun, facts and hands-on learning with Nosy Crow

Nosy Crow is delivering books that offer both education and entertainment for young readers through its productive, creative and innovative collaboration with the National Trust and The British Museum, and as autumn and a new school term arrive, there is a sparkling selection of fun and fact books to choose from

Age 6 plus
Beneath the Waves
Lauren Fairgrieve
and Kate Read

GET creative… and discover amazing facts about your own very special shoal of fish! Published in collaboration with the National Trust, Beneath the Waves is a joyful, beautifully created and interactive gift book introduction to a variety of colourful European fish. Youngsters will love getting their hands busy, and their imaginations fired up, as they create their own 3D fish before discovering fascinating facts about each species in the back section of the book. Press out the pieces and slot them together to create twenty stunningly scaled fish and after finishing the 3D shoal, either hang up the gorgeous decorations or press them back into the sturdy board page. Youngsters will love poring over the 22 richly illustrated information pages full of dazzling full-colour nature scenes and fascinating facts. Covering everything from habitats and diets to myths and legends, this is a stylish introduction to the undersea world of fish and with its hardback binding, and press-out pieces, can to be used and enjoyed time and time again.
(Nosy Crow, board book, £12.99)

Age 7 plus
Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses
Tegen Evans and Tom Froese

HAVE you ever wondered how Zeus became king of the gods? Find the answer and lots more exciting information about the fascinating world of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses in a beautifully illustrated book from Nosy Crow and the British Museum. This brilliant guide – written by Tegen Evans and lavishly illustrated by Tom Froese – is filled with exciting stories and surprising facts. Which goddess drew the Moon across the sky each night? Who had the strength to start earthquakes and whirlpools? And was there really a god of parties and theatre? Discover who gave Athens its name, meet Artemis, a protector of young girls, and find out why Hera turned a princess into a cow! With award-winning illustrator Froese’s vibrant, stylish artwork on every page and printed on high-quality paper, with gold foil on the cover, this is the perfect, easy-to-read first introduction to the Greek myths for any child.
(Nosy Crow, paperback, £8.99)

Age 4 plus
My Little Museum: Ancient Greece
Illustrated by Sophie Beer

CREATE your own little museum and discover the wonders of Ancient Greece with the new title in an exciting, hands-on sticker book series published by Nosy Crow in collaboration with the British Museum. Simply fold out the illustrated scenes illustrated by Sophie Beer and explore four different areas of ancient Greek history, from life at home to the Olympic Games. Then use real-life photographic object stickers to curate your own multi-room museum, filled with all sorts of amazing artefacts. The book includes a sturdy but flexible paperback binding with fold-out pages. Enjoy exploring the four illustrated scenes from ancient Greek history, presented alongside a friendly and fascinating non-fiction text. And the five colourful rooms in your very own museum are ready for youngsters to decorate and explore. The 100 stickers to play with are enclosed in a pocket at the end of the book and feature real historical objects. So travel back in time, get creative and learn all about Ancient Greece!
(Nosy Crow, paperback, £9.99)

Age 4 plus
Wonder World: Earth
Ben Lerwill and Xuan Le

YOUNGSTERS will never look at soil in the same way again when they dig into the first book of a gorgeously illustrated natural science series for children, produced in collaboration with the National Trust. So what’s the point of soil? What has it ever done for us? From hosting billions of wriggling worms to minibeasts and microbes, to being the home of fungi that could allow trees to talk and providing enough nutrients to feed a planet, soil is a muddy, magical, marvellous, life-giving miracle! This new National Trust: Wonder World series will cover different components of the wonderful, life-giving, miraculous stuff that everything on our planet needs to survive… earth, water, air and the sun. Written by Ben Lerwill and colourfully illustrated by Xuan Le, these books offer a gentle, accessible blend of science and nature writing aiming to inspire awe, wonder and curiosity about the natural world. Created in a picture book format, with clever, diagrammatic illustrations to help younger children visualise big concepts by breaking down the text into easy-to-follow, digestible information, there could be no better early introduction to natural science.
(Nosy Crow, paperback, £7.99)

Age 4 plus
Around the World Colouring Book: London Through the Ages
Illustrated by Andy Passchier

BRING London to life and explore the history of the city with twenty brilliantly busy scenes and patterns to colour in this super colouring and sticker book created in consultation with expert curators from the British Museum. There’s a whole world to explore, and with this beautiful book, readers can take a tour around London, colour the pages and then add fun photographic object stickers from the British Museum’s collection. Discover information about different London landmarks like London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, the Globe Theatre and Westminster Abbey, and get creative at the same time! Aspiring artists can pick up their colouring pencils and bring the scenes and objects to life, while learning about the iconic landmarks through different eras. The book includes more than 70 colourful stickers of objects from London’s history, from a Bronze Age shield and Roman mosaic to a Viking sword and Tudor toy horse.
(Nosy Crow, paperback, £6.99)

Age 2 plus
My Very First Spotter’s Guide: I Spot A Fish
Illustrated by Kay Vincent

LET little ones get in the swim with this colourful, clever and educational board book full of spotting fun and fascinating fish facts! I Spot A Fish is the latest title in Nosy Crow’s My Very First Spotter’s Guide series which is published in collaboration with the National Trust, an eye-catching nature novelty series. Discover how even babies can be wildlife explorers! We all know that babies love noticing all kinds of animals out and about, and this brilliant board book builds on that enjoyment with easy-to-lift flaps and a stimulating question-and-answer text. Where do crabs live? How many legs does an octopus have? What is a group of dolphins called? Little ones will love joining in with the answers while recognising five different sea creatures and lifting the flaps to find more hiding in the scenes. Featuring Kay Vincent’s playful artwork packed with personality and tactile embossed covers, this is a series perfectly created for little nature lovers and don’t forget to scan the Stories Aloud QR code on the back cover to read along with the story!
(Nosy Crow, board book, £7.99)

The Forest Hideaway

Sharon Gosling

ARCHITECT Saskia Tilbury-Martin is building the dream. She’s converting the crumbling ruins and fairytale tower of an old castle - tucked away in a spectacular forest on the wild edge of Cumbria - into what she hopes will be her forever home.

For troubled Saskia, this is the start of a ‘new chapter in a new place,’ but like the TV shows that are a perennial hit with TV viewers, her path to this daring and groundbreaking build is destined to be littered with trials and tribulations which will test both her resilience and her heart.

Well-known children’s author Sharon Gosling (pictured below), who harnessed her love for a historic village in Scotland for her spellbinding adult debut novel, The House Beneath the Cliffs, and found inspiration from the bookshop that she and her husband run in the Cumbrian market town of Penrith for her second heartwarming novel, The Lighthouse Bookshop, returns to home territory for this remote and romantic autumn escape. Set amidst an ancient, dense and tangled forest, surrounded by a patchwork of rising and falling fields, and with a mighty and magical oak tree standing proudly at the centre of the story, The Forest Hideaway explores not just one woman’s determination to create a new future for herself, but also a contemplation of mankind’s eternal relationship with the natural world.

Saskia is building a home that she has personally designed out of the ruins of an old castle at Gair Forest in a remote corner of Cumbria, close to the Scottish border. Although she lives in London, she  has always dreamt of building a home there. Surrounded by trees, hidden away from everyone and everything, Gair has ‘that peculiar kind of magic’ that few places possess and it is the only connection she has left to her father.

A large and ancient oak tree is growing in the centre of the crumbling building, adding to the mysterious atmosphere conjured up by this beautiful spot, and she has no plans to chop it down. She wants to preserve the castle ‘with all the decay intact, but made liveable,’ viewing the whole project as a hard-won chance to escape from her difficult past and create a new future.

But even through Saskia has spent her whole life trying to find a way to make this project work and despite having a large trust fund at her disposal, finding someone to help her realise her dream – with its inherent difficulties – has been almost impossible.

And when local builder Owen Elliot meets up with Saskia at Gair to discuss managing the construction, things get off to a very bad start. Living in a tiny flat with his wife Tasha and seven-year-old daughter Hannah, and in a marriage that is now filled with little more than bitterness, Owen resents Saskia’s late arrival, her ‘glossy image,’ swanky BMW convertible, and her ability to buy outright a castle and its extensive land.

But Owen needs the money and Saskia needs a builder, and forced to find a way to work together, both begin to realise that first impressions aren’t always the right ones. Even before the project begins, they face animosity from angry locals who claim that the build is ‘destroying history.’ And when Owen discovers the forest is hiding a secret that could bring work to a halt, he realises that he’s much more invested in the project – and Saskia – than he ever thought possible.

Written with Gosling’s trademark warmth and empathy, and her gift for portraying the drama and delights of a rural landscape, this visit to a wild and wonderful corner of Cumbria is steeped in the ethereal mysteries and legends of forest folklore but cleverly juxtaposed against more earthbound and human topics like broken relationships and dysfunctional families.

As Saskia’s castle home starts to take shape, her chequered past unwinds in a series of twists, turns and revelations which shine a light on her unflagging desire to build a new future, heal festering wounds, and pay an important and lasting tribute to her beloved father.

Sharing her emotional rollercoaster journey through triumph and disaster is down-to-earth builder Owen who is desperate to save both his work and family lives. Fighting the inner pain of his marriage break-up, and the problems that beset such a monumental building project, he learns that love, hope, happiness and a new beginning can be found in the most unexpected places.

With the atmospherics set at top dial, a story filled with enchantment and intrigue, a beautifully drawn cast of characters, and a golden retriever puppy called Brodie who threatens to steal the limelight, The Forest Hideaway is the perfect destination for autumn reading!
(Simon & Schuster, paperback, £9.99)