Children’s Books Ireland award winners revealed

Picturebook maker Chris Haughton has won the 27th Children's Books Ireland Book of the Year Award with his book Goodnight Everyone at a ceremony held in Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. Chris was also the recipient of the Honour Award for Illustration for the same title.

The judges said: Chris Haughton's vibrant illustrations combine perfectly with deceptively simple narrative in this mesmerising bedtime tale. Chronicling a series of animal yawns, the colour palette gradually darkens as the world of the forest is painted in sunset. Haughton's use of cut-outs is particularly effective and the star maps in the endpapers add a mystic dimension to this captivating story."

During the ceremony students from Scoil San Carlo, Leixlip and King's Hospital School, Palmerstown presented author Peadar Ó Guilín with the Children's Choice Award for his novel The Call. Voted for by young readers from across the country, this award winner is chosen by shadowing groups who read and judged the 10 shortlisted titles and voted for their favourite. The shadowing scheme was supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Unesco Dublin City of Literature.

Deirdre Sullivan won the Honour Award for Fiction for Needlework. The judges said: "Needlework by Deirdre Sullivan is a poetic and eloquent exploration of violation, abuse, neglect and advocacy of the transformative power of art. Starkly genuine and sincere, Sullivan's powerful use of the metaphor of tattooing invites reflection about identity, difference, self-protection and self-invention. This searing yet delicate representation of adolescent experience will resonate deeply with teenagers and is a story that needs to be told and needs to be read."

The Judges' Special Award went o Tadhg Mac Dhonnagaín, Jennifer Farley, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tarsila Krüse and Christina O'Donovan for Bliain na nAmhrán. The judges said: This sumptuous illustrated collection of songs in Irish invites young and old audiences to celebrate the seasons and the natural world. Accompanied by a CD and beautifully illustrated by a team of accomplished illustrators, this multimedia collection offers a special aesthetic experience. Cabhraíonn na hamhráin Ghaeilge seo le daoine, idir óg agus aosta, ceiliúradh a dhéanamh ar na séasúir agus ar an dúlra. Is eagrán maisithe é seo de na hamhráin agus tá léaráidí áille sa chnuasach seo a thugann eispéireas céadfach dúinn. Tá dlúthdhiosca ar fáil in éineacht leis an eagrán maisithe."

Paul Gamble won the Eilís Dillon award for a first children's book for The Ministry of Strange, Unusual and Impossible Things. The judges said: Get ready for a rollercoaster of zaniness, adventure and hilarity! This debut novel by Paul Gamble skilfully juxtaposes the fantastical, thoughtful, comic and mundane. The relentlessly curious Jack, on a mission to find his missing friend, is recruited into the secret Ministry of Strange and Unusual and Impossible Things (Ministry of S.U.I.T.s) which deals with all the weird creatures and objects in the world. Enhanced by witty footnotes and explanatory subsections, this deliciously imaginative and immersive novel is a joy to read."

The CBI Book of the Year Awards are a celebration of excellence in children's literature and illustration and are open to books written in English or Irish by authors and illustrators born or resident in Ireland the previous year. Previous winners include Sarah Crossan for One, John Boyne for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas; Sheena Wilkinson for Grounded, Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick for There and Hagwitch and Oliver Jeffers for Once upon an Alphabet.

Dr Patricia Kennon, chair of the judging panel, said: "It's been a personal and professional pleasure to have spent the last year with our passionate, accomplished and dedicated judging panel reading and discussing over 80 award entries. This year's winners and shortlist celebrate the impressive talent, creativity and imaginative power of the best in Irish writing and illustration for young people across two languages and a diverse and rich range of formats, audiences and genres."

Elaina Ryan, director of CBI, said: "In 2017 Children's Books Ireland is celebrating twenty years of making books a part of every child's life in Ireland. It is with great satisfaction that we celebrate the CBI Book of the Year Awards winners today, knowing that we are highlighting and appreciating the hard work of Irish authors, illustrators and publishers in creating excellent books for young readers."

New Children’s Books Explore the World in the Woods

One risk of raising bookish children: You create little shut-ins. No matter how blue the sky, how warm the day, how the susurrations of leafy trees beckon, they want to stay in the dark, cool house and read. I should know. I was one. "Put that down and go outside," I often heard, along with a lot of importuning about the benefits of fresh air.

Four new picture books bring the outside in, taking young readers on adventures in illustrated forests. Strange, inscrutable creatures live there. These are unruly tales that conjure mystery and a little fear, bringing the wildness of nature to the cozy couch.

The sensory pleasures of the woods are on display in "A Walk in the Forest," a quietly beautiful book written and illustrated by Maria Dek. Simple prose describes the "wonders" and freedom that await among the trees: The chance to "find treasure," "follow footprints" and "shout as loud as you want." Dek's illustrations are warmly colored and full of movement — birds wheeling in a sun-dappled canopy; another flock flushed to the sky (possibly by that loud shouting); the hind quarters of a deer leaping out of the frame. Shifts in perspective abound. One spread shows a wooded pond from the viewpoint of a bird above. The next shows ticklish pond weeds and a blissful pair of submerged feet. These clever visual leaps show how small and how big the forest can feel, and how many different places the forest can be.

One of those places is "a little scary." As the book progresses it gets wilder and darker. Our hero encounters birds with "secrets" and an imperturbable fox, animals nestled in their woodland burrows, nightfall and the wide eyes of an owl in a dim, piney tableau. He retreats indoors and watches the night woods from the safety of his window. "You'll go there tomorrow," Dek concludes, "when you're older."

Forest animals are the main characters of "Deep in the Woods," a vibrant modern retelling of a classic Russian folk tale from Christopher Corr. Rendered in electric hues — neon coral, Starburst pink, Jolly Rancher orange — against cool, unusual grounds of lilac, aqua, violet and periwinkle, the book looks more like a delectable candy box than anything photosynthesis would produce. "Deep in the Woods" is alluringly strange. It tells the story of a white, wooden house in a forest, with "nine neat windows and a red front door." The house stands "empty, cold and sad" — until some woodland creatures happen along and make it their own.

A mouse, a fox, a lavender bunny, a swooping speckled owl: Most of the animals have eyes shaped like human ones, which make them look more sophisticated — knowing, mischievous, sometimes sad — than your average picture-book fauna. This diverse menagerie keeps house together until a big orange bear ambles along and wants in on the action, causing first strife and heartbreak and then — after some light woodworking to make a house that will fit his lumbering frame — rejoicing.

There is a lesson here — about friendship, and sharing — but the book never feels plodding or pedantic. Its rhythms are as surprising as its vivid hues, full of small but powerful subversions of kid-lit logic: The animals show up in bunches, not page by page; there are a dozen or so creatures crammed into those nine neat windows. What's more, there are no grown-ups here. The animals are peers: They create their own society, and resolve their own conflict. Which may be why the lesson just goes down like the truth.

If you were to accidentally rake "The Gold Leaf" into an autumn pile, you could be forgiven. The book, written by Kirsten Hall ("The Jacket") and illustrated by Matthew Forsythe ("Do Not Open This Book"), takes almost all its hues from nature. It is awash in wonderfully earthy yellows, greens and browns. The only surprise in this palette is gold itself. Hall's grandfather was an expert gilder who applied gold leaf to buildings across New York City, and the technique is used in the book's pages, lending a metallic glint to this tale of what happens when something covetable and shiny — a leaf made of actual gold — sprouts unexpectedly in the forest.

The animals don't handle it well. First a warbler, then a chipmunk, then a mouse, then a deer take the gold leaf because they can. A fox grabs it because "if everyone else wanted it, well then, he did too." As the leaf passes from claw to nibbling mouth, it crumbles, until "tattered and torn, it lay in pieces at the animals' feet." The shredded leaf disperses in the wind, and the animals pass the rest of the year back at their usual forest pursuits (not a bad fate, given the subdued beauty of Forsythe's richly textured murk). Then spring brings a new gold leaf — and the wisdom to leave some of nature's mysteries alone.

"Little Fox in the Forest," the authorial debut of the children's book illustrator Stephanie Graegin ("The Lost Gift"), is a wordless but action-packed adventure that uses comics-style panels to advance its narrative. It would be an intriguing title for a young reader to try on her own, although the threat at the heart of its story — a lost lovey — may evoke a primeval fear for kids and parents alike.

Our heroine brings a beloved toy fox to class for show and tell. Thanks to Graegin's nifty panels, in which an array of old photographs serves as a flashback, we can see this has been a tender companion from when she was a babe. But at the playground after school, a real fox sneaks out of the forest to snatch his stuffed doppelgänger. Despondent, the girl sprints after it, followed by a concerned pal. In the woods, the duo find a secret world: tiny doors in trees, a soda fountain just for animals —and the culprit, a young fox enjoying story time with his new toy. Our protagonist makes a surprising decision about what to do next, one that will give young readers something to ponder. After all, what the forest offers children is independence, and a sense of what it might be like to grow up. Of course, that's something reading can offer too.

5 Books to Help Strengthen Your Brand

Every company, entrepreneur, small business, and even individual needs a strong brand. A brand will set your business, product, and even yourself apart from the competition, create a lasting impression with customers, and essentially help promote, market, and sell, sell, sell.

So before you launch your next business, product, or blog take a step back and a hard look at your current brand. If you feel like your brand could use some polishing, then pick from one of these five books and start reading. Each of these books delivers actionable strategies that will help you build a better brand and improve your marketing strategy.

1. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

Ever wonder why some products succeed while others fail? Are they just plain better, have attractive pricing, or come with more creative ads? Jonah Berger has spent years answering that question. His answer: Contagiousness. And by that he means likely to spread; to diffuse from person to person; to be talked about, shared, and imitated.  After analyzing hundred of messages, ideas, and products, Berger noticed six elements shared by things that caught on: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories (STEPPS). This book aims to show you how to apply the STEPPS to making your next product or service contagious.

2. The Brand Mapping Strategy by Karen Tiber Leland

This is the guide to taking control of your professional brand. Branding and marketing strategist Karen Leland shares tools, advice, and insights from her years of working with entrepreneurs to Fortune 1000 companies in 50 countries around the world. What sets this book apart? The Brand Mapping Process © . Leland has developed a branding process consisting of seven core elements you need to explore before you craft your brand strategy. Leland also shares anecdotes and marketing tactics as she helps you create a successful brand for yourself or your business.

3. Fizz by Ted Wright

Answering the question "What makes you talkable?" Ted Wright dives deep into the world of WOMM (word of mouth marketing) to help you understand how your fans and consumers can help sell more products more often and for more money. Wright teaches you how to find influencers, share your brand's story, train brand ambassadors and how to measure it all. Bonus: Wright includes a chapter on how to use Big Data and another about how you can integrate WOMM in your small business strategy.

4. What Great Brands Do by Denise Lee Yohn

Making the case that branding isn't just about logos, slogans, and ads, brand building consultant Denise Lee Yohn delivers case studies and strategies to help you create a great brand. Yohn identifies the seven key principles behind the world's top brands and shares her brand-as-business approach to help you create a leading brand. Bonus: Yohn analyzes the successes and failures of companies like Google, IBM, Patagonia, and more.

5. Purple Cow by Seth Godin

This BusinessWeek best seller calls out the boring marketing strategies that simply check off the list of P's (Product, Price, Placement, Promotion). Well, Seth Godin sees that boring strategy and raises you another P: A Purple Cow. The Purple Cow is that extraordinary, phenomenal, and exciting something everyone is talking about. In this book, Godin pushes you to change the way you market and brand your business and yourself with strategies and case studies designed to "put a Purple Cow into everything you build."

The 5 Books Bill Gates Wants You to Read This Summer

When it comes to his reading habits, Bill Gates is an open book. As he does every year around this time, the brainy billionaire Microsoft co-founder has once again released his summer reading list. Unsurprisingly, it's comprised of challenging intellectual volumes -- no easy, breezy reads for the beach.

Think nerdcore science and math. Then think harder about mitochondria and the meaning of life. Gates says he did while poring over the books on his list, usually late at night.

"The following five books are simply ones that I loved, made me think in new ways, and kept me up reading long past when I should have gone to sleep," he writes in a new post on his blog, The Gates Notes.

Here are the five books that made the cut for Gates's summer 2016 reading list: 

1. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
Why he recommends it: "The plot gets going in the first sentence, when the moon blows up. People figure out that in two years a cataclysmic meteor shower will wipe out all life on Earth, so the world unites on a plan to keep humanity going by launching as many spacecraft as possible into orbit … Seveneves inspired me to rekindle my sci-fi habit."

2. How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg
Why he recommends it: "This book has tons of good stuff in it for non-mathematicians. [Ellenberg] updates you about the world of math, what advancements have taken place. His enthusiasm comes across."

3. The Vital Question, by Nick Lane
Why he recommends it: "[Lane] argues that we can only understand how life began, and how living things got so complex, by understanding how energy works. It's not just theoretical; mitochondria (the power plants in our cells) could play a role in fighting cancer and malnutrition."

4. The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani
Why he recommends it: "To me, Japan's fascinating. In the 1980s and '90s, the Japanese were just turning out engineering and doing great stuff. How did they lose their way? Why haven't these companies not been more innovative?"

5. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari
Why he recommends it: "There's a lot of things about early human history that a lot of people haven't been exposed to and [Harari] is good and succinct on that. He goes off in many directions, like ‘Are we happier than we've ever been?' and a lot about robots. It's got the broad framework. It's a great book."

The Entrepreneur's Ultimate List of 8 Must-Read Books

You've probably heard all the worn-out expressions:

Readers are leaders.

You've got to be reading more!

Man, you really have to read this book.

Let me recommend a book to you.

You mean you haven't read this book yet?

Entrepreneurs and business leaders know that they need to be reading. And, yes, most of us probably should be reading more than we do. But here's the question that we need to answer: What books to do we read?

Selecting and absorbing the right books is the first thing we have to do. As it turns out, that's not easy to do. Given the vast number of self-published books, there aren't any specific numbers on how many books are published each year, let alone business books intended for entrepreneurs. We can safely say, however, that every year there are hundreds of thousands of English language books published: Amazon's "entrepreneurship" bookstore provides a list of 37,976 books, which would require a few lifetimes to read them all.

My shortlist is a bit briefer. Here are eight of the very best books on entrepreneurship I've read. Any book's status as very best is, admittedly, an individualistic judgment call. But I know that these have helped me -- and thousands of other entrepreneurs. So, from one developing entrepreneur to another, here they are:

1. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About It by Michael Gerber
The "E-myth" of the title, or "entrepreneurial myth," goes like this: Someone who starts a business is probably qualified to manage and grow that business. In reality, most people who start a business don't have a clue what they're doing. They become frustrated. They fail.

Gerber points out that most entrepreneurs are actually technicians -- people who know how to make stuff or fix stuff. But when it comes to building a business, the "entrepreneur" part fails. And so does the small business. The E-Myth Revisited uses the structure of a story to set forth powerful business-building information -- how to work in your business, not on it, how to hire the right people and how to build a strong foundation for a business that will ultimately thrive.

2. Zero To One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is eminently qualified to write a book on startups. He co-founded PayPal, Palantir, Mithril Capital Management and Valar Ventures. Zero to One explains that breakthrough businesses can and should be built. A true breakthrough business doesn't just add more of the same, but builds something truly new; that's the "zero to one" that an entrepreneur should pursue.

Thiel explains how it's done.

3. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland
Every business needs a methodology for getting stuff done, for successful collaboration and scalable management techniques. Scrum is the answer; it describes a simple methodology for breaking down problems into manageable chunks, getting those chunks completed in a timely way and reviewing the work that has been completed.

Scrum is offered as a "how-to" book, but there's a lot of great data and tantalizing storytelling here which makes it the perfect business book.

4. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
If there's one thing that entrepreneurs need more of, it's sleep. Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post Media Group, explains that sleep is part of the third metric of success, which includes: total well-being, wisdom, intuition, wonder and compassion.

Too often, entrepreneurs are focused on acquiring money or building power. Thrive is a call to focus on the things that really matter. This book will help any entrepreneur develop a balanced view of building a business, and ensure that she doesn't burn out along the way.

5. The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
The One Thing explains how entrepreneurs can dial back the busy clutter in their lives in order to focus on their business. Creating a laser-like focus on a business goal doesn't mean denying yourself family, friends or a full life. Instead, it means articulating your vision for success and your method of attaining it. Keller draws on his own success and experience to explain exactly how to do this.

6. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy
Entrepreneurs aren't beyond being helped by motivational shticks. Eat That Frog! is certainly motivational, but it's also extremely tactical -- providing a numbered list of actual methods for getting stuff done. It's settled fact that you'll emerge from reading this book with a renewed sense of passion and vigor for your business, and the ability to absolutely nail it.

7. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
It behooves every entrepreneur to accomplish enormous amounts of stuff. The vast majority of people don't accomplish enormous amounts of stuff. Why not? Lack of action. Cardone's premise is that the only successful level of action is 10x -- massive action.

This book explains how you can throw more energy, focus, determination, willpower and resolve into your calling and, ultimately, your success.

8. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Many entrepreneurs succumb to the myth that they can somehow do everything. Unfortunately, this is neither realistic nor healthy. Furthermore, it's not the way to build a successful business.

McKeown's point is this: "Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it's about how to get the right things done. It doesn't mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential."