Monday, 9 December 2013

Day 9 of the Magical Christmas with Helen & Thomas Docherty and Bill Cotter + 2 Print Copies Giveaway


We are going to celebrate day 9 of the Magical Christmas with Helen & Thomas Docherty and Bill Cotter.  Don't miss the previous giveaways!


And Sourcebooks is giving away a print copy of Docherty's novel "THE SNATCHABOOK" and Bill Cotter's novel "DON'T PUSH THE BUTTON" for the winners of today's giveaway.  The giveaway will run till December 31st, 2013 and the winners will be announced on January 1st, 2014!  Before that, both of the authors have amazing guest post to you and don't forget to read them.



Original Title: The Snatchabook
Author: Helen Docherty, Thomas Docherty
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Release Date: October 1st 2013
Genre: Children's

Where have all the bedtime stories gone?

One dark, dark night in Burrow Down, a rabbit named Eliza Brown found a book and settled down...when a Snatchabook flew into town.

It's bedtime in the woods of Burrow Down, and all the animals are ready for their bedtime story. But books are mysteriously disappearing. Eliza Brown decides to stay awake and catch the book thief. It turns out to be a little creature called the Snatchabook who has no one to read him a bedtime story. All turns out well when the books are returned and the animals take turns reading bedtime stories to the Snatchabook.


Original Title: Don't Push the Button
Author: Bill Cotter
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Release Date: November 1st 2013
Genre: Children's

There's only one rule in Larry's book: don't push the button.

(Seriously, don't even think about it!)

Even if it does look kind of nice, you must never push the button. Who knows what would happen?

Okay, quick. No one is looking... push the button.

Uh, oh.
What are your favorite Christmas books

 - Guest Post by Bill Cotter

I loved a few Christmas books when I was growing up, but my favorite by far was "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg. My family loved that book so much that it became a sacred tradition to read it along side "The Night Before Christmas" every Christmas Eve. The perfect marriage of Van Allsburg's wonderful writing and drawing totally transported me to such a believable world. I thought there was a real world kind of magic in the idea of being able to completely conjure a character or a setting just by rubbing charcoal on a piece of paper. All of Van Allsburg's work is inspirational to me, but my earliest memory of wanting to grow up to be an illustrator stemmed from reading The Polar Express by the fire in my childhood home in Ohio. 

I was able to meet Mr. Van Allsburg just a few years ago at a Barnes & Noble in Tribeca where he was signing copies of a 25th anniversary edition of The Polar Express. At that point I very much a starving artist trying to make it in NYC. He was extremely kind and offered some encouraging words. A big moment came for me a few weeks ago when I had my first book signing at the exact same store. I can only hope that my work can be an inspiration to a young artist just like his work inspired me.

What books will we be reading to the Snatchabook this Christmas? 

- Guest Post by Helen Docherty

Well, apart from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (an obvious choice, even if it is a little too close to home for the Snatchabook), it would have to be A Child’s Christmas in Wales – after all, we do live just along the bay from the house and the streets where Dylan Thomas spent his childhood Christmases.  The image of Mrs Prothero asking the ‘three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs … “Would you like anything to read?”’ has remained with me since my Dad first read the story to me, when I was a child myself. 


Our own family Christmas in Wales this year will hopefully not involve any house fires*, but it will involve plenty of Christmas traditions; some of them handed down from our own families and some picked up along the way. There will be advent calendars for our girls to open and an advent candle to burn each evening (see above*). There will be home-made Christmas cards that leave a trail of glitter behind them. There will be a Christmas tree covered with an eclectic assortment of decorations that we’ve collected over the years. There will – of course – be stockings hung up on Christmas Eve, and two mince pies and a glass of sherry left out for Father Christmas (or Sion Corn, as he’s known in Welsh), who gets quite peckish on his rounds. There will also be a generous dusting of glitter on the doorstep to help guide him to the right address, in case visibility is poor (we got that tip from a Santa we visited in his grotto a few years ago). And, unless there is a driving blizzard or similar, there will be a walk on the beach on Christmas day. How could we live in Swansea and not go down to greet Dylan’s ‘carol-singing sea’ at Christmas?
GIVEAWAY

That was a great post, Helen and Bill!

Thanks to Sourcebooks, today, I have a print copy of "THE SNATCHABOOK" and a print copy of "DON'T PUSH THE BUTTON" to give away.

Just enter the giveaway through the Rafflecopter below and please share it to your friends.  Giveaway open to U.S./Canada residents only.

Come back tomorrow for more giveaways!  And did you enter the previous giveaways?

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