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Children’s Publishing With Nosy Crow’s Kate Wilson
22 Mar 2023
When curating books for the very youngest readers to enjoy, whether at home or on holiday, the Ultimate Library team lean on close network of publishers for their invaluable insight into what children are reading and what we can expect to see on bookshelves in the future. One such person is Kate Wilson. Born in Edinburgh, she has worked as a publisher since 1986 and has been responsible for some of Britain’s (arguably the world’s) best-loved children’s books, including
The Grufallo, The Hunger Games
, and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Winner Open Very Carefully, Kate and her husband Adrian Soar co-founded Nosy Crow, an award-winning children’s publishing house in 2011, focussing on fiction and non-fiction titles for children aged 0 to 12. We had the joy of talking to Kate to learn more about the importance of early years reading, how publishing is a collaborative experience, and which books have had the most impact on her life. To discuss curating your own children’s library, get in touch with our book experts today.
Q: Have you always had a keen interest in books?
~~
I have loved books for as long as I can remember, though I didn’t come from a particularly bookish household. I remember reading Enid Blyton’s adventures and having to stop to run over to the door to do handstands against it because the stories were so exciting. I also remember receiving books for birthdays that I read again and again – a poetry collection that I tried to recapture and improve on when we published the award-winning
I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree
, and the
Hamlyn Encyclopaedia of Animals in Colour
that inspired books like our
Everything You Know About Minibeasts is Wrong
. I grew up and studied English Literature at University, and my love of books survived even the pain of having to learn Old English!
~~
Q: What is it about children's books particularly that interests you?
~~
I think that children’s books have the power to change children’s lives. We know from studies conducted by the brilliant charity, The National Literacy Trust, among others, that the advantages of reading for pleasure go beyond academic achievement. It is an activity that has emotional and social consequences. Other benefits include an increased breadth of vocabulary, pleasure in reading in later life, a better understanding of other cultures, better general knowledge and even greater insight into human nature. It’s a huge responsibility because we are shaping young minds, but who wouldn’t want to get up every morning to make things that could make a child’s life better?
Nosy Crow is all about children reading for pleasure – we want children to choose to read our books. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t think hard every day about what’s age appropriate and what our messaging should be. We profoundly believe that fiction and non-fiction both have their place in children’s reading. It’s easier to “see” the educational content in non-fiction, perhaps – you’re obviously learning about trees when you read
The Tree Book
by Hannah Alice – but you learn through fiction too. You learn about other lives, about other ways of thinking and feeling, about empathy, about the impacts of individuals’ actions on others, about the power of words. And you also have the opportunity to recognise and understand yourself. Alan Bennett writes in
The History Boys
, “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” That image of a book as a hand, guiding you through parts of the emotions and events of childhood, is a powerful one for me.
Q: Have you always had a keen interest in books?
~~
I have loved books for as long as I can remember, though I didn’t come from a particularly bookish household. I remember reading Enid Blyton’s adventures and having to stop to run over to the door to do handstands against it because the stories were so exciting. I also remember receiving books for birthdays that I read again and again – a poetry collection that I tried to recapture and improve on when we published the award-winning
I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree
, and the Hamlyn
Encyclopaedia of Animals in Colour
that inspired books like our
Everything You Know About Minibeasts is Wrong.
I grew up and studied English Literature at University, and my love of books survived even the pain of having to learn Old English!
~~
Q: What is it about children's books particularly that interests you?
~~
I think that children’s books have the power to change children’s lives. We know from studies conducted by the brilliant charity, The National Literacy Trust, among others, that the advantages of reading for pleasure go beyond academic achievement. It is an activity that has emotional and social consequences. Other benefits include an increased breadth of vocabulary, pleasure in reading in later life, a better understanding of other cultures, better general knowledge and even greater insight into human nature. It’s a huge responsibility because we are shaping young minds, but who wouldn’t want to get up every morning to make things that could make a child’s life better?
Q: As a busy CEO, how do you maintain a work-life balance and prioritize self-care?
~~
Not very well! But I swim in open water several times a week. I attend a weekly yoga class. I cycle everywhere I can. We have a dog that doesn’t care whether I am working or not, and needs to be walked and played with and loved regardless. I have family and friends with whom I eat and drink and talk about things other than work. I absolutely love sleeping! And, of course, I read every day. On holiday and around Christmas, catching up on the piles of books for grown-ups that collect around my bedside table is my greatest luxury.
~~
Q: Which books have had the biggest impact on you personally, and why?
~~
I can’t do this! Don’t make me do this! The title of Frances Spufford’s memoir,
The Child that Books Built,
resonates for me: I am the person that books built – thousands of them over my lifetime, professionally and personally.
by Francis Spufford
How can I choose between the wide-angled sweep of history in Yuval Harari’s
Sapiens
and the emotional heft of the horrifying and redemptive details of Celie’s life in Alice Walker’s
The Colour Purple
?
by Susan Cooper
How can I choose between my own childhood favourite,
The Dark is Rising
by Susan Cooper and books like Eric Carle’s
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
that I read to my own children day after day and night after night and still find a joy and an inspiration?
by Simon Fox
And anyway, I find reading a wholly immersive experience, so I can only really think about the books that I am reading at any given time. I am currently reading
Running Out of Time
by Simon Fox – an unexpectedly timely (because you decide to publish a book years before it’s published) adventure story about a refugee boy trying to get to the UK who has the power to see a short distance into the future. I read it in manuscript, but I wanted to see how the final book, which I didn’t edit – I am not an editor – turned out
by Nora Ephron
I am also rereading – again! – Nora Ephron’s last collection of essays,
I Remember Nothing
… poignant, joyful, funny, sad… a comfort read with a bit of an edge. In her brilliant list in the essay,
What I Will Miss,
written when she knew she was dying, Nora includes “Reading in bed”. She is so right: it’s one of the things I will miss too.
We want to thank Kate once again for agreeing to be our expert this month, you can find out even more about her on the
Meet the Crows
at Nosy Crow. For more information on books published by Nosy Crow head over to their
website
and follow them on
social media
.~~
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