Books to cherish every day
In our tenth year, it’s wonderful both to look forward and back to our beautiful range of books, by wonderful Australian writers and illustrators–and how better to do that than through our fabulous new catalogue, which highlights this year’s books, looks forward to next year’s, and looks back at our fantastic backlist!
We hope you enjoy looking through it!
As part of our anniversary year, our talented intern Ash Taylor has been hard at work creating some wonderful activities centred around our classic Two Tales series of illustrated storybooks. Today we are publishing the first of the activity packs he’s created, centred around Kate Forsyth and Fiona McDonald’s popular Two Selkie Stories from Scotland. The pack, which is free to download and print out for use by kids, families, schools and libraries, includes a word search, colouring pages, and research and creative writing activities. Lots of fun! Download from the link below.
This time, it’s the fabulous Jenny Blackford who’s penned some lovely words from our anniversary. Jenny’s published two fantastic books with us: The Girl in the Mirror (2019), a middle-grade mystery novel which won the Davitt Award for Best Crime Novel in the Children’s Category in 2020; and Fil and Harry (2021, illustrated by Kristin Devine), a lively, engaging fantasy novel for junior readers. As well as writing fiction, Jenny is an award-winning poet who has had two books of poetry published plus numerous others in anthologies and journals.
Small presses are beautiful things, and Christmas Press is a particularly beautiful small press, creating gorgeous packages. I am so grateful that they published my spooky middle grade novel The Girl in the Mirror, which won the Davitt Award for Best Children’s Crime Novel, and my junior novel Fil and Harry, complete with snarky talking cat. Thank you, Christmas Press, and happy anniversary!
We were delighted to receive these lovely words of anniversary congratulations from the wonderful Ursula Dubosarsky, multi-award-winning author and former Australian Children’s Laureate (in 2020 and 2021). Ursula has published two gorgeous books with us: Two Tales of Twins from Ancient Greece and Rome (illustrated by David Allan, 2014) and The Boy Who Could Fly and Other Magical Plays for children (illustrated by Amy Golbach, 2019).
Wonderful congratulations to Christmas Press on the anniversary – such a tremendous, rich achievement – for literature, for children and indeed for Armidale. Sophie Masson is such a creative. generous and imaginative publisher – she seeks stories with resonances deep in cultural history and brings their special and sometimes hidden beauty to children through the many remarkable books published by Christmas Press. Writers, illustrators – and most especially readers – are all in her debt. (Ursula Dubosarsky, 2023)
We really are so lucky to be working with such wonderful authors! In this lovely pair of posts, author Michael Grey , author of Children of the Wild as well as several short stories, writes about how he first came in touch with us and what happened next. Design of both posts by Yasmin Paige. The first one has the shorter version of Michael’s words, the second one the full version.
Some lovely words for our tenth anniversary, from the wonderful Kristin Devine, illustrator of Jenny Blackford’s junior novel, Fil and Harry.
Post designed by Yasmin Paige.
Christmas Press 