Chronicles of the Dead - News in YA & Kids' Horror

News from the world of YA & Kids' Horror in the week ending 1/7/2011.

• A big congratulations to Jon Mayhew, whose book Mortlock has won both the Sefton Super Reads Award and the Calderdale Book Award. Two awards in two days - that has to be some sort of record! (via Jon's blog)
• Cristy Burne teaches us how to spot a Japanese iso-onna vampire. Thanks for the tips!
• Throughout July, My Favourite Books will be focussing on younger readers with their Under 14 Only Month. Wonder if some horror will sneak in there?

July Horror New Releases

These are the horror new releases for July.

What I'm Excited About:
Some excellent reads are being published this month! POD is not your typical horror - it follows the lives to two characters who are dealing with the arrival of strange UFOs in the sky who disappear anybody who sets foot outside. Chilling stuff! Witch Hunter Chronicles is the first in what will almost certainly be a brilliant series from an Australian author, super excited about that! For the younger crowd, Sophie and the Shadow Woods is such a cool series, about a girl who likes judo more than fairies, and finds out she's the Shadow Guardian. Lastly, can't wait to get my hands on Curtis Jobling's next book in the Wereworld series, Rage of Lions.

Junior & Middle 
Sophie and the Shadow Woods 1: The Goblin King, Linda Chapman & Lee Weatherly (Harper).
Night on Terror Island, Philip Caveney (Random).
Death and the Underworld, Anthony Horowitz (Macmillan).
Night of the Werecat, R.L. Stine (Simon & Schuster).

Young Adult
Witch Hunter Chronicles 1: The Scourge of Jericho, Stuart Daly (Random).
POD , Steven Wallenfels (A&U).
Crowfield Demon, Pat Walsh (Scholastic).
Wereworld 2: Rage of Lions, Curtis Jobling (Penguin).
Born at Midnight, C.C. Hunter (Macmillan).
Kill Fish Jones, Caro King (Macmillan).
Changeling 5: Zombie Dawn, Steve Feasey (Macmillan).
The Dead, Charlie Higson [New Format] (Penguin).
Alone: Survivor, James Phelan (Hachette).
Thirteen Days to Midnight, Patrick Carman (Hachette).
Mashups: Blackbeard's Pirates vs. The Evil Mummies, James Black (Hachette).

If I’ve missed something out, let me know in the comments! But remember, these are Australian release dates only.

Chronicles of the Dead - News in YA & Kids' Horror

News from the world of kids' and YA horror in the week ending 24/6/11:

• Some authors are so talented they don't just confine themselves to the written page, they dabble in other fields too - for example, Alexander Gordon Smith is making his own zombie movie called Sola Gratia, and from the pics so far it looks terrific!
• And speaking of multi-talented authors, Barry Hutchison has been hard at work on his graphic novel Gangrene. Check out a few of the supremely cool pages over at Barry's site.
• A good book needs conflict, lots of it! Sarwat Chadda has written an excellent post on the different kinds of conflict, and even better, he's related it back to X-Men First Class.
• What's the biggest crowd you've ever spoken in front of? Well Tommy Donbavand is going to read in front of a million kids through a new project from Renaissance Learning. Register now and submit a question for Tommy to answer on camera.

Chronicles of the Dead - News in YA & Kids' Horror

News from the world of YA and Kids' Horror in the week ending 17/6/11.

• David Gatward, author of The Dead, The Dark and The Damned has launched a phenomenal new series of e-books called Book Surfers, where the main characters are forced to jump into classic novels to save the day. Out now are Treasure Island and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
• Arthur Slade's The Hunchback Assignments has won the 2011 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire: Roman jeunesse étranger, which for those who don't speak French (definitely me) means the Grand Prize of the Imagination, Youth foreign. Congrats Arthur! 
• While not strictly horror-related, this blog post from Meg Harper about teaching game programmers good story techniques had me fascinated. I love my gaming, but I know it often falls short in the story department, so I'm really pleased to see that companies are taking steps to improve in this area.
• Chris Priestley talks about how being an author also means being a location scout, and the potential for places visited to pop up in stories. Some beautiful pics here!
• And speaking of excellent pictures, check out this very awesome fanart of Tommy Donbavand's Scream Street 9: Terror of the Nightwatchman.
• I was already excited about Curtis Jobling's upcoming Wereworlds: Rage of Lions, but this excellent new trailer has sent me into a frenzy! (via Curtis's blog)

Chronicles of the Dead - News in YA & Kids' Horror

News from the world of YA and kids' horror in the week ending 10/6/11.

•  Well, the big kerfuffle this week has been over an article in Wall Street Journal condemning YA lit for being 'too dark'. But perhaps even more astonishing than the article itself (and a lot more heartening) is the outpouring of support for so-called 'dark themes' from the YA community, including authors, reviewers, publishers and others. #yasaves was even a trending topic on Twitter. Many, many blogposts have been written, but so far this one is my particular favourite: http://www.foreveryoungadult.com/2011/06/06/in-soviet-russia-books-censor-you/ (Thanks to Hold Me Closer Necromancer author Lish McBride for posting the link on her Facebook)
• Figment is holding a writing competition which requires you to write about the underbelly of a society. They're doing it to celebrate the release of the third book in Darren Shan's City Trilogy, City of the Snakes. The winner wins all three books in the trilogy and gets his or her story judged by the Shanster himself, so get your entries in because it closes at midnight tonight!
• Arthur Slade discusses some of the stranger questions he's been asked by students over on his blog. My favourite - 'are you evil?'
• Steve Feasey talks about taking the leap with a new series, and whether or not twelve is too many.