Henry Winkler of Fonz fame from the classic hit TV series Happy Days has written the Hank Zipzer books about a 10-year-old boy with dyslexia to help dyslexic children. Winkler himself a dyslexia sufferer has been in London to launch the National Year of Reading and made an appearance at the Department of Children, Schools and Families’ Teaching Awards.
“Just because we learn differently, that does not mean that we are not incredibly smart human beings. That’s something I need every child to understand.”
His books are amusingingly titled Hank Zipzer: I Got a “D” in Salami and Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls - or Does It?
…apparently these books ‘rock!’ very much like the Fonz.
Hitting Back
‘With Andy, the sky’s the limit…’ - John McEnroe. At Wimbledon in 2005, a young, brash Andy Murray came out of nowhere and thrashed star pros Georges Bastl and Radek Stepanek. His dramatic winning run came to an end against David Nalbandian, but a legend was born, and Britain had a new sporting hero. Henman Hill was renamed Murray Mound, and Henmania became Andymonium. In 2006, Murray went stellar. He won his first ATP trophy at San Jose, California, where he beat former world number 1s Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt en route to the title. In the same month he became the British Number 1. By the end of a wonderful year in which he became one of only two players to beat Roger Federer, Murray was number 17 in the world. But Murray is much more than a truly gifted tennis player and potential world champion.He has changed the face of the game, blowing away the Middle England cobwebs of the All England Club, and dividing opinion with his brash, straight-talking style, anti-establishment rhetoric and on-court anger and passion. A whole new generation of kids are now officially tennis fans. Andy has made tennis cool again, for the first time since the days of McEnroe, Borg and Nastase. Here, in his own words for the first time, Andy Murray will talk about the long, testing, and sometimes difficult path to superstardom. The boy from Dunblane will talk about having to deal with the constant limelight and attention from a media and a general public desperate for a genuine British tennis star, and he’ll give the exclusive lowdown on Wimbledon 2007 as he prepares to go all-out guns blazing for grass-court glory. Tempermental, gifted, passionate, fiery: Murray is the dazzling new face of tennis, and a role model to a whole generation. Andy’s story will enthrall and excite the entire country.
Emily Gravett according to sources at Telegraph and the Guardian has revealed that her book ‘Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears‘ was produced with the help of her rodent urine.
The book is dedicated to her rodents, Button and Mr. Moo who were called upon to urine on demand. The urine soaked pages dried to a yellowish colour giving the pages a very authentic and distinctive look.
They were also encouraged to chew the pages, which together with the urine gives the paper a real ‘ratted’ look. The ideal reference for the background illustrations she used in the book. However sometimes the urine would not be fully dry and needed to be wiped from the glass of the scanner (yuk!)
However the effort and attention to detail was worth it in the end, it helped her book ‘Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears‘ scoop the CILIP (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals) medal for book illustration (UK’s most prestigious prize for illustration). Well done to Emily, Button and Mr. Moo.
Tricia Adams the chair of the judges for the Kate Greenaway Medal, praised the “smell, texture, humor and great imagination” which bemused Emily as the printed copies shouldn’t smell anything other than paper. (perhaps the visual senses overpowered the ones of smell 
)
Intrigued? Well you know where you can acquire a copy from (ahem)
The illustration is truely outstanding
But in the meantime, I’m personally contemplating producing my own Big Elephant’s Big Book of Fears with the pee of… erm, I’ll let your imagination carry through the thought.
btw, anyone have a bucket?
I don’t know if you know, but BookRabbit also runs two wonderful bookshops, the larger is in Worthing the smaller in Chertsey (if you’re passing you’re always welcome to pop in and say, hi!).
Now in a box tucked away in a corner somewhere in a particularly dark and hidden part of one of the stores we’ve stumbled across a first edition Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, yes, hardback, in english and everything. Now we could have sneaked it away and sold it on eBay, but, we’re not going to, because, dear reader, we thought of you first.
We’re going to give this book away, free. Possibly to you. All you have to do to get it is upload a bookcase photo during June 2008, and have in your collection of books a copy of one of the Harry Potter series, and tag at least five titles on your bookcase. We’ll then randomly select someone to get the book - can’t say fairer than that can we?
See how nice we are.
*sort of small print - free prize draw open to everyone who uploads a bookcase photo and tags five actual books on it between 1st June - 30th June 2008. A winner who also owns (either in their books or on the bookcase) a Harry title, will be chosen at random. Draw is not open to employees or their families. For the real book collectors this is a First edition, Bloomsbury copy with full number line 1-10 known as 1st edition second state (JK Rowling on the title page no ads at the back). Editors decision is final
A runaway success and one of our best sellers at BookRabbit
The BBC also reports the novel has become Penguin’s fastest selling hardback fiction title, clocking up 44,093 copies in it’s first four days of publication. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7436135.stm
The 007 hardback copy from BookRabbit.com is only £9.44 and that price includes free UK delivery. If you’re quick, as mentioned before, we are currently offering a 4% discount for shoppers who choose PayPal as their payment method which brings the cost of the book to a very keen £9.08 or there abouts.
- Free UK Delivery
- Freepost UK returns
- Paypal option
