Category: Books

Reading Stories Aloud

Posted on March 23, 2020 by - Books, Campaigns

It’s wonderful that so many of you want to continue reading my books out to your class online during the school closure. Normally this is more complicated than it sounds due to copyright issues (my publisher holds the audio book rights) but owing  to the exceptional circumstances we find ourselves in, Hachette Children’s Group have generously granted an open license to September 30th, and you can find the details below.

All of my titles are available as audiobooks on Audible.

And I will also be reading all of my titles out loud, daily on weekdays, at 2.30pm every day, on Instagram Live (@piers_torday), a chapter a day, beginning with The Last Wild. The chapters will be available on Instagram TV for 24 hours.

Happy Reading and Listening! #unitedinbooks

 

Hachette Children’s Group: Open Licences and Permissions for Online Story-Time and Classroom Read-Aloud Videos and Live Events – information

In order to encourage reading and classroom read-aloud experiences, and to support schools, bookshops and public libraries forced to close by the COVID-19 situation, Hachette Children’s Group is permitting authors, illustrators, teachers, librarians and booksellers to create and share story-time and read-aloud videos and live events on closed educational platforms or streamed temporarily on a live platform.

GUIDELINES FOR EVERYONE

Teachers, librarians, booksellers, authors and illustrators providing content for children during the period 19th March to 30th September 2020:

  • Should announce the title of the book and the name of the author and/or illustrator as part of each video 
  • Should notify us via email (addressed to HCG.editorial@hachettechildrens.co.uk) when they post or stream a story-time or read-aloud video or live event, providing the following information:
  1. Name and address of the library, school, or shop
  2. Title, author and ISBN of the book that is read
  3. Contact information for the individual responsible for the reading
  4. The educational or social media platform on which the video or live event is posted or held and a link to that video or live event

Financial gain

For clarity, permission is granted only for free use of the readings.  If you are planning to charge for any use of these recordings, you should contact HCG.editorial@hachettechildrens.co.uk in the first instance, seeking formal agreement, which may not be granted.

 

Guidelines for educational settings 

  • School story-time or classroom read-aloud videos in which an Hachette Children’s Group book is read aloud and the book is displayed may only be created and posted to closed educational platforms 
  • These storytime and classroom read-aloud videos may be hosted on the educational platform until the end of September 2020, after which they must be removed from the educational platform, unless this permission is extended by formal agreement

Guidelines for public libraries and bookshops

For authors, illustrators, booksellers and librarians who wish to provide a story-time reading or other read-aloud experience to young people who would otherwise visit the library or bookshop in person:

  • Story time or read-aloud live events in which an Hachette Children’s Group book is read out loud and the book is displayed may be streamed live, in real time, on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitter, and Instagram
  • These story time or read-aloud live events may not be maintained in the archive of the social media platform and appropriate measures should be taken to ensure that videos of the live events are not retained. Because these platforms automatically archive live events by default, when your event has concluded, please locate the recorded live video in your account (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and delete it. 

Our guidance on the percentage of content to be recorded for hosting on open platforms, is usually to follow standard permissions practice, specifically designed to protect IP.  However, we acknowledge that we are not operating in normal circumstances, so are happy to allow authors or illustrators, who wish to do so, to host recorded content of themselves reading their book/s on open platforms, until the 30th September.

If you are sharing your content with a third party platform, please do let us know so we can support this activity online and please do make a note to ensure the content is taken down by 30th September. Of course, no one knows how long the current situation is going to go on for, so it may be that we decide to extend this date and we will of course let you know.

 

Corona Virus – Update

Posted on March 19, 2020 by - Books, Schools

I hope everyone is keeping safe at this challenging time for us all.

Sadly all my school and public events are either cancelled or postponed, check back for details in due course.

If you want to stay entertained during the outbreak, many independent booksellers and so far most branches of Waterstones remain open, and are scaling up their delivery services.

All my titles are available as e-books from the usual online retailers, links on my book pages.

All my titles are available as audio books from Audible, links on my book pages.

I will shortly be sharing classroom resources for all my books, from this website.

And soon, I will be doing readings of my books on Facebook and Instagram, as well as creative writing tutorials to help with the home schooling, check my social media channels for details.

Stay well!

 

Piers

The Frozen Sea – cover reveal!

Posted on March 20, 2019 by - Books

I am delighted to reveal the cover and title of the next instalment in The Lost Magician series…

THE FROZEN SEA!

It is 1984 and forty years since Simon, Patricia and Evelyn and Larry first stepped through a magical library door into the enchanted world of Folio. When Patricia’s daughter, Jewel, makes a mysterious discovery in an old bookshop, she begins a quest that will make her question everything she thought she knew. Summoned to Folio, she is sent on a perilous rescue mission, helped only by her pet hamster and a malfunctioning robot.

Their mission to the Frozen Sea will bring them face-to-face with a danger both more deadly and more magnificent than they ever imagined.

What Jewel discovers will change not just who she thinks she is, but who we all think we are…

The book is due to be published on the 5th September 2019 and you can pre-order from Waterstones here

And enter a competition to win a proof giveaway here

Re-imagining Alice in Wonderland

Posted on February 20, 2019 by - Books, Short Stories

Curiouser and curiouser…announcing that I have been invited to revisit one of the great children’s books of all time, Alice in Wonderland, by Macmillan – who published the original story.

Joining other authors including Robin Stevens and Swapna Haddow, we have all have written stories based on Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland for Return to Wonderland,  published in June, Peter Bunzl, Pamela Butchart, Maz Evans, Patrice Lawrence, Chris Smith, Lauren St John, Lisa Thompson and Amy Wilson have also contributed and each story re-imagines Wonderland from the viewpoint of one of Carroll’s original characters.

My story is about the Cheshire Cat, and how he got his smile….

Return to Wonderland will be illustrated by Laura Barrett and published in hardback on 27th June, ahead of Alice Day on 4th July.

Alexander Macmillan, co-founder of Macmillan Publishers, met Lewis Carroll in 1863 and published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. He published nine different editions in the subsequent 35 years until his death, including French, German and Italian translations.

The Lost Magician shortlisted for Alexandra Palace Book Award 2019

Posted on January 10, 2019 by - Awards, Books

The Lost Magician is shortlisted for the inaugural Biblio-Buzz Alexandra Palace Book Awards, formerly Haringey Children’s Book Awards.

Chosen by librarians in my local borough of Haringey, the full shortlist in alphabetic order, is:

Child I  Tasane, Steve

Kat Wolfe Investigates  St John, Lauren

Kick Johnson, Mitch

The Lost Magician Torday, Piers

Tin Kenny, Padraig

Will You Catch Me? Elson, Jane

Schools and groups of children across the borough will now read and discuss these 6 books, culminating in the participating children voting for their favourite at the ceremony on Tuesday 2nd April at Alexandra Palace.

Congratulations all my fellow nominees and thank you once more, the librarians of Haringey.

The Lost Magician is a ‘Book of the Year’…

Posted on December 23, 2018 by - Books

…in an astonishing number of publications. The response to this book is overwhelming. I’m so happy that so many have taken the story and its message to their hearts.

As well as featuring in many end of year /Christmas round ups in by numerous children’s book, teacher and literacy blogs, The Lost Magician is a Children’s Book of the Year in:

  • The Observer – ‘In recent years, Piers Torday has emerged as a major new voice’
  • The Times –‘Piers Torday has an unrelenting imagination, cleverly mixing nostalgia and modernity. After reading this you will never look at a bookmark n the same way.’
  • The Sunday Times – ‘The first in a trilogy, this is masterly storytelling, both entertaining and profound’
  • i newspaper – ‘A  wonderful story, if any book has the power to separate children from their screens, it’s this.’
  • Sunday Express – ‘A wonderful tribute to Narnia, CS Lewis and the magic of books and reading’
  • New Statesman –’Artistically daring…it is as much about storytelling as about creating an enjoyable story’

There May Be A Castle longlisted for People’s Book Prize

Posted on November 6, 2018 by - Awards, Books

Completely delighted to learn that There May Be A Castle has been longlisted for The People’s Book Prize 2018 (Children’s)

The People’s Book Prize is a literary competition aimed at finding, supporting and promoting new and undiscovered works – decided exclusively by you, the public.

And you can vote here – it only takes seconds and no need to register

There May Be A Castle paperback

New series – coming this September

Posted on April 18, 2018 by - Books

The Lost Magician by Piers Torday

I’m delighted to announce that my publishers, Hachette Children’s Group (HCG) imprint Quercus Children’s has bought a new fantasy series.

The first book will be The Lost Magician, set in 1945, about four children who step through a mysterious library door into the world of Folio, where an enchanted kingdom of fairy knights, bears and tree gods is under threat from a sinister robot army. The many stories of the library are locked in eternal war, and the children’s only hope is to find their creator – a magician who has been lost for centuries.

Sarah Lambert, editorial director for HCG, secured UK & Commonwealth rights in a three book deal from Clare Conville at C + W.

“Piers Torday is without doubt a master storyteller for children, and we couldn’t be more delighted to launch his eagerly awaited new series,” said Lambert. “Thrilling adventure, unforgettable characters and Piers’ trademark humour are wrapped up in a rich, exciting world. We can’t wait for readers to step through the library door and discover what lies beyond.

The Lost Magician will be published in hardback in September 2018, with two more titles to follow at a later date.

I can now also reveal the spectacular and magic artwork for the cover by the super talented Ben Mantle – more to come soon…

Leading writers join Alt-Write

Posted on November 21, 2017 by - Books, Short Stories

I am delighted to join Ben Okri, Carol Ann Duffy and Frank Cottrell Boyce as contributors to Alt-Write, a new collection of writing from major authors intended to “debunk xenophobic myths and … help [readers] discover the natural human quality of empathy”.

Okri is contributing his poem Grenfell Tower, June 2017, written after the disaster, Cottrell Boyce has written a “fable about the lost”, The Burning Bush, and Duffy is donating her poem History to the anthology. Aimed at young adults, with all profits to go to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the anthology, subtitled “Creative reactions to uncertain times”, will feature work from 50 authors and illustrators who also include Benjamin Zephaniah,Michael Rosen, Chris Riddell, Sarah McIntyre, Celia Rees, Philip Ardagh, Alex Wheatle and Jackie Kay.

The past year has delivered a tumultuous series of world events that has left people reeling. Authors and illustrators asked themselves what they could do to help and the answer was to do what we do best, to write and draw and create. When you don’t like the story the world is telling, tell a different story,” said editors Mary Hoffman and Rhiannon Lassiter, who are looking to crowdfund publication of the anthology on IndieGogo. “This collection, to be published in spring 2018, is an outpouring of those emotions, an appeal to reason and a way for us to contribute to those in need of help.”

To help crowdfund the book, please click here.