Childrens Books Ireland - Little Island authors

Before she was crowned Laureate na nÓg in May, Siobhán Parkinson was already making waves in 2010 by establishing a brand new Irish children's press - Little Island, an imprint of New Island.

With a number of titles already released and more to follow in the next few months, they have certainly hit the ground running and we're delighted that several of their authors have put themselves forward for involvement in festival events.

As many of these names will still be unfamiliar at this time, I thought it might be useful to give a run-down of each author and title here. For further information and booking availability, please email Elaina O'Neill <elaina(dot)oneill(at)newisland.ie> who will be happy to answer any enquiries.

Tom O’Neill is one of a very closeknit family of eleven brought up on a farm in County Carlow. Hisworking life started in science teacher training in impoverishedschools in South Africa and he is currently involved in computer basededucation and running a farm in Kilkenny. Recently restoring the ancient Killahara castle in Tipperary andhelping his father publish a social history reconnected him to storiesand beliefs that were still vibrant in his own childhood and promptedhim to pull together the Fionn Mac Cumhaill tales he had made up toentertain his own children en route to school. These stories can befound in Tom's first book, Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn MacCumhaill.

Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill (12+)
Uprooted from city life by the death of his father, Dark is beckonedinto a rath as he wanders the fields near his new home. There, he meetspeople big and small whose magnificent stories of warriors, monstersand the fairy people provide an escape from his crumbling school andhome life and take him deep into the world of Fionn Mac Cumhaill andthe Fianna. O’Neill’s powerful new tales of adventure, heroism, treachery,weakness and redemption entwine with ancient Irish folklore as Darkrealises that he, like his eccentric uncle Connie, belongs to two verydifferent worlds.

Dr Jean Flitcroft, born in 1964, lives in Dublin with herhusband and three boys. She attended Holy Child School, Killiney andstudied science in University College Dublin. On being awarded aWelcome Scholarship she went on to Magdalen College, Oxford Universitywhere she obtained her doctorate.    She started as a script writer formedical and scientific films and later became a travel writer when herobsession with travel won out. It was on these journeys around theworld that she started writing books for children. The Cryptid Files: Loch Ness is the first book of a series that covers the globe in pursuit of the weird and wonderful creatures of cryptozoology.

The Cryptid Files: Loch Ness (9+)
Vanessa’s dreams are haunted by cryptids and she longs to complete hermother’s search for Nessie, the most famous one of them all. Can shefinally solve the mystery of Loch Ness? She gets her chance on asurprise trip to Scotland, but no one could have foreseen theconsequences. Set against the eerie stillness of the loch, The CryptidFiles: Loch Ness is a magical story filled with suspense andadventure.

Renate Ahrens was born in Germany in 1955. After some years working asa teacher, she moved to Dublin in 1986 with her husband and has sinceworked as a freelance author. As well as children’s and adult novels,she has written stage and radio plays and scripts for children’stelevision programmes.

Karo’s dad is dead – orso she believes – and when a stranger comes to the door one day lookingfor her mum, Karo wants nothing to do with this man.But Karo’s motherwon’t see sense. She starts to spend more and more time with thisstrange man from her past, and can’t see how unhappy it is all makingher daughter. Karo squabbles with her friend, starts to skip school,she even runs away to her grandfather, but nothing she can do seems tohave any effect on her changing family. Set in Hamburg after the fallof the Berlin Wall, this is a story of how international events canaffect the everyday lives of ordinary families.

Kevin Stevens is a US native now living in Dublin. He is theauthor of two novels published with Simon & Schuster: Song forKatya, a love story set in the Soviet Union during the frigid years ofthe Brezhnev regime, and The Rizzoli Contract, a political thriller setin 1980s Boston. His nonfiction includes The Cops Are Robbers, anaccount of New England’s largest bank burglary, which was made into anNBC Movie of the Week starring Ed Asner and George Kennedy, and TheBird Era, a history of the Boston Celtics basketball team from 1978 to1988.This Ain't No Video Game, Kid! is his first book for young adults.

This Ain’t No Video Game, Kid! (13+)
Jack Klements lives in Seattle with his parents and is doing just fine.But when his swaggering Irish cousin Finn turns up, Jack can tell thisis not going to be a good summer. Finn is obsessed with a violentcomputer game, and when he meets a Latino gang in the inner city, hethinks he can have a slice of the action.

How can Jack reconcile the demands of his straight-lacedparents, the pressure to be loyal to his wayward cousin, and hisgrowing attraction to Carina, who hangs out with the gang? If only Finnwould disappear! But then he does just that, and Jack is more torn thanever... Kevin Stevens’s pacy debut as a writer for young adults is a tense andgritty story of home values threatened by street culture, with themenace of gang violence never far away.

SOON TO BE PUBLISHED...

DEIRDRE SULLIVAN

Deirdre Sullivan is an award winning cake eater (the reward was more cake). She is the reluctant guardian of two ungrateful guinea pigs who keep vowing to destroy her. She would like to see them try, the little fools. They have NO IDEA who they're dealing with. She enjoys acting, reading, writing and crafting. Also cake. She really really does enjoy cake. Deirdre is a teacher in Galway; Prim Improper is her debut novel.

Prim Improper (12+) (pub date Sept 2010)
Primrose Leary’s dad is ‘all angles and laptops’ whereas her mum was‘all silk scarves and environment-friendly cleaning products’. She wassad enough when her mum died and now, to make things worse, she’s stuckwith him and his all-important moustache. She has her pet rat Roderickfor company and her best friend Joel, though he has chosen to go off toboy-school and abandon her when she needs him most. Can she forgivehim? And will she ever learn to accept her dad’s new girlfriend, Hedda(Lettuce/Cabbage/Hair/the Union, as Prim cannot resist calling her)?

SHEENA WILKINSON

Belfast-born Sheena Wilkinson’s book Friends in the Fourth, based on her doctoral research into the ‘crossover’ genre of the girls’ school story, was published by Bettany Press in 2007. Her real love, however, is fiction. Her first-ever short story, ‘Amputees’, won the Brian Moore Award in 2006, and was followed by ‘Dissociation’, which won second prize in the same contest in 2009. ‘Holding On’ was a runner-up in the Sean O’Faolain Contest 2009, and ‘Local Pride’ won first prize in the Writers’ Bureau Short Story Award 2009. Sheena has recently completed an M.A. in Creative Writing (with Distinction) at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast. She teaches English at Methodist College, Belfast.

Moving from a harsh West Belfast estate to the glamour of theshowjumping ring, Taking Flight is a fast-paced story of courageovercoming jealousy. The only riding fifteen-year-old Declan has everdone is joyriding. When he’s forced to stay with his snobby cousin‘Princess’ Vicky, he’s shocked to find himself falling in love withhorses. Vicky would do anything to keep this grubby hood away from herprecious showjumper, Flight. Populated with courageous and vibrantcharacters, Taking Flight is a brilliant debut from an exciting newwriter.