The Children’s Book Award is the only national award for children’s books that is voted for entirely by children. It is owned and coordinated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups and is highly respected by teachers, parents and librarians. It has brought acclaim and strong sales to past winners such as J.K. Rowling, Patrick Ness, Andy Stanton, Malorie Blackman, Anthony Horowitz and Michael Morpurgo, who has won a record four times. The award has often been the first to recognise the future stars of children’s fiction and has the ability to turn popular authors into bestsellers.
Adventuremice: Otter Chaos – Inspiration right around you!
with co-authors Philip Reeve & Sarah McIntyre
Hello! I’m Philip Reeve, and I’m Sarah McIntyre, and we’re thrilled that young readers have voted the first book in our new series – Adventuremice: Otter Chaos – as one of their top favourites! Thank you, book judges!
So how did our Adventuremice series begin? It all started when Sarah was messing around with her toys. Do you ever draw pictures of your toys, and add characters? Well, that’s exactly what happened. Sarah used to live next to a market where she could buy model ships and bath toys for very little money, and she amassed quite a collection! Here’s one of them, in her studio right now:
She and Philip had worked together on nine books together, but when Covid Lockdown struck, they couldn’t meet up except online, or go to book events, or go anywhere at all! Since she was stuck at home, Sarah started painting pictures of the ships she had collected, and she started adding little mouse characters as their crews, like the ones in this picture:
These pictures cheered her up immensely: she couldn’t go on adventures, but these mice were setting off on whole big epic journeys of their own. She liked the idea that, since mice are so tiny, even something like crossing a puddle could be quite nerve-wracking, and it made her time stuck at home and the nearby park feel less dull, like she was having tiny adventures, too.
But the mice didn’t have individual personalities yet. It was only when Sarah asked Philip to come on board with her to make books, that they thought up the characters you can read about now. The characters really came about because they needed mice to pilot the various modes of transport that a Mousebase might command. Sarah had drawn a picture of a mouse piloting a seaplane:
It was based roughly on this toy she owned!
And Philip decided that the name ‘Fledermaus’ would be perfect: in German it’s the word for ‘bat’, but the actual word means ‘flying mouse’, and Fledermaus is cool both like Batman and early wartime pilots with their leather jackets and goggles.
Then Philip worked out that they needed a very small, inexperienced character, who could meet the rest of the Adventuremice team for the first time, along with the reader, and Pedro appeared.
The Adventuremice needed a ship, so the Daring Dormouse – piloted by Bosun – appeared, based on this model:
And then, of course, the Adventuremice needed PERIL, so Pedro could prove that he was brave enough to join the team, and that’s how Mortlake the otter came into being! Otters are very cute if you’re a human (and you’ve never been bit by one – they’re very bitey!). But if you’re the size of a mouse, otters are absolutely TERRIFYING and a team of mice need every last scrap of their courage to be able to outwit it. If you’re read, Adventuremice: Otter Chaos, you’ll know just what they do!
And now Philip and Sarah have four Advenuremicebooks available for you to read. If you visit Adventuremice.com, there are lots of fun activities and guides for drawing their characters. And they challenge you to get out your toys, draw them, and turn them into stories!
Who Will Win?? FCBG groups are voting within their group and non-members can vote online via the link at https://fcbg.org.uk/cba-2024/. The deadline for voting is Friday 18th May. The category winners and the author of the best children’s book published in 2024 will be announced at a ceremony in Birmingham on 8th June, attended by representatives from all our local groups.
My Shelves Are Full 