You've still got time to have your say in this year's @irishbookawards.bsky.social - and you could WIN some book tokens for your trouble! Throw us an aul vote for #ElloraMcGeeTraineeBanshee, willya? www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/

They revoked Wole Soyinka’s US visa? I keep typing reactions and deleting them. Another new low.

🎬✨ Behind the scenes at our 2025 Shortlist Launch! From laughter and interviews to stacks of incredible books, here’s a look at what made our GPO event so special. Now it’s over to you — help decide this year’s winners! 🗳️ Vote here: scxo9qtv33a.typeform.com/apiba25-vote

So grateful to Jennie Loughran, @lorimoriarty.bsky.social, @clairebyrne.bsky.social and @rteradio1.bsky.social for featuring Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee, by @unawoods.bsky.social and me. Skip to 1:47 for the books segment! @irishkidsbooks.bsky.social www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Delighted to have joined @unawoods.bsky.social at @halfwayupbooks.bsky.social yesterday for some banshee shenanigans! If you haven't voted for us in the Children's Book of the Year (Junior) Category over at @irishbookawards.bsky.social, whaddya waiting for? www.irishbookawards.ie

FABULOUS news! The Children’s Booker Prize supported by AKO Foundation will celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children aged 8-12 years old, written in or translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland #worldkidlit #UkKidLit #irishkidlit #xl8 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayTw...

It's sunday so I am finally reading the links I opened during the week. Or possibly last week. Anyway, this one is worth your time (should be a free link, it was for me at least). Katherine Rundell on reading for pleasure. #UKKidLit #KidLitUK www.thetimes.com/uk/get-brita...

@unawoods.bsky.social is up for the @irishbookawards.bsky.social! (Well, okay, with a book I did the words for.) If you'd like to vote for Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee: The New School (and thank you, if you do!) head on over to: www.irishbookawards.ie You might win yourself a Book Token!

1/ We can’t wait to welcome our good friends @sineadohart.bsky.social & @unawoods.bsky.social this coming Sat at 3pm! They will read and draw front their brilliant new book, Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee. You can order a copy to be signed here halfwayupthestairs.ie/product/9781...

RIP the legendary Drew Struzan (1947-2025) 😩 Even though we were expecting the news any day now, it makes me very sad. What an artist.

Heartbroken that, per his social media accounts, Drew Struzan has left us. His poster and album art was quite simply shorthand for imagination for countless young people.

The ancient ones performed feats of memory, as their culture required them to commit long strings of numbers to their mind palaces.

This is going to be amazing! Piu crafted such an incredibly rich story in The Secret of the Snakestone and I can't wait for the next adventure.

Hugely grateful to @tipperarylibraries.bsky.social and the brilliant Storyfinders of Cashel and Killenaule for showing me how bright and brilliant their imaginations are! We had tons of fun being Trainee Banshees and Making Mythology as part of #ChildrensBookFestival2025.

Delighted and honoured to announce that Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee: The New School is one of several BRILLIANT books chosen by @childrensbooksireland.ie and Eason as their quarterly Recommended Irish Reads. Check them out in your local branch of Eason! And keep an eye out for signed copies...

Excellent #BookPost from @theobrienpress.bsky.social today! Wonderful to revisit the world of Tom McCaughren with @erikamcgann.bsky.social and @shannonbergin.bsky.social, and it's a heartwarming tale of Flossie McFluff with Eoin O'Brien and Audrey Dowling. Out next week! #IrishKidsBooks

What a way to start the week! Our CEO Elaina Ryan visited the Ireland AM studio this morning with a selection of brilliant children's books as featured in our latest reading guide The Best Irish Books of 2025 📚 Check out the books & watch the show back: childrensbooksireland.ie/news-events/...

Huge thanks to Easons of Gorey and Rathmines, as well as @dubraybooks.bsky.social Galway, for keeping Ellora McGee on your shelves and tables! It always lifts the heart to see such support for a new book. And thanks to shops everywhere for stocking our brave little Banshee! @unawoods.bsky.social

shows.acast.com/storyshaped Excited to see that the Storyshaped episode with @darrenchetty.bsky.social is available for everyone to hear now!

The situation has caused serious traffic congestion in the surrounding area and the city centre. http://jrnl.ie/6833557

What book have you bought the most copies of in your life? I buy The Phantom Tollbooth by the case to give to children. I’ve done this for over 20 years.

“At the start of the war in #Gaza, I visited a school in Rafah, hosting thousands of displaced people. I am still haunted by the eyes of a little girl pleading for a piece of bread and a sip of water.” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini’s remarks: www.unrwa.org/newsroom/off...

“Dima, my darling…” — A heartbreaking farewell from Gaza City, where a young man lost his children, his wife, and his mother in the Israeli genocide.

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

Irish Examiner children's book reviews: Magical urchins, a fearful fur ball, and a pubescent trainee banshee: www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ar... @puffinbooksuk.bsky.social @sineadohart.bsky.social @unawoods.bsky.social @theobrienpress.bsky.social

More bookish goodness! The super-sweet Puffling and the Stormy Sea by @erikamcgann.bsky.social and @gerrydalyart.bsky.social; games and mystery are afoot in Blowing the Whistle by Gerard Siggins, and it's creepytimes at sea with Amy Clerkin and Where the Shadows Hide. #OBrienPress

Oi. BBC. Many experts are not skeptical. It is utter bullshit and you should call it out as such. This is the MMR bollocks x 1 million

Can you help Soad today? Everything is so hard in Gaza right now, she's constantly on the move. She needs money for meds and food and survival in general. @mommunism.bsky.social

Decided not to stay open late for Culture Night cause we had no customers and no sales all afternoon. ACK But hopefully tonight everyone will get so cultured up that tomorrow they’ll be running into the closest bookshop! Back open 10:30-4 on Saturday and all night long at littledeercomics.ie

I'm in the Bookseller being interviewed about disability and werewolves! ⤵️

Me and @unawrites.bsky.social off on our signing tour of Dublin! Bookshops beware - we're coming at ya! 📚📚📚 #ElloraMcGeeTraineeBanshee Thanks to Eason's and @chaptersbookstore.bsky.social for the warm welcome... Off to @gutterbookshop.bsky.social next!

Massively grateful to @elainaryan.bsky.social, @childrensbooksireland.ie and @irishtimes.com for including Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee: The New School (by me and @unawoods.bsky.social) on this Best New Children's Books roundup! #GillBooks

Huge thanks to @sineadohart.bsky.social @evemcdonnell.bsky.social and @nicolapenfold.bsky.social for these AMAZING quotes for THE CHANGELING CHILD. I love this graphic by @pushkinchildrens.bsky.social , featuring the despicable & deceitful pixies: Little Mother and Little Father. 💚🧚💙 #ukkidlit

We've got a new Storyshaped podcast episode for you - and it's a banger! We recorded this chat with @kieranlarwood.bsky.social at @ilfdublin.bsky.social earlier this year, and now you can check it out wherever you get your podcasts! @susancahill.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/68Fz...

Support to civil society in Israel must also stop, with tighter economic (#OTB bill, looking at you Irish government!) and cultural sanctions (no Israel at the #Eurovision, looking at you @ebu.ch). Sanctions should also relate to the illegally occupied Palestinian Territories and the West Bank

The Overton Window has moved so far to the right it has fallen off the house.

After 47 years, Jerry has made the difficult decision to step down from the company we built together. I’m sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerry’s. His legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced by @magnumicecreamco.bsky.social #FreeBenAndJerrys

Grateful to @dubraybooks.bsky.social Mary Street, Easons of Dun Laoghaire and Easons in Navan for these displays of Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee: The New School. Gorgeous to see my (and @unawoods.bsky.social's) little banshee out and about, rocking her hair (and vocals!) Grab your copy today!

Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee's first adventure, The New School, is out NOW and available wherever you get your books (inc @dubraybooks.bsky.social @halfwayupbooks.bsky.social and @gutterbookshop.bsky.social)! If you've met Ellora and friends, PLEASE leave a review somewhere - it all helps! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This is possibly the weirdest "I've gone viral" plot twist. GARBAGE are posting it now! Actual Garbage! The queerest of the queer!

Fantastic to see a leabhar gaeilge plus three Irish authors☘

the thing that Granny and Vimes have in common is that they are people who know, at their core, what is right and what is wrong and have consciously chosen to do what is right and the worst villains, on the Disc and in real life, are those who know the difference and choose to go the other way

Been saying this for years. It’s important that it would be part of the main news, not sectioned off in its own little slot at a different time.

So grateful to Ruth Concannon from @childrensbooksireland.ie and @irishexaminer.bsky.social for including Ellora McGee, Trainee Banshee: The New School in this roundup of best new children's books! Words by me, art by @unawoods.bsky.social, pub Gill Books, and available now!

The Lonely Only Dinosaur by @oliviahopewriter.bsky.social and @annasuessbauer.bsky.social I'm just on the way back from the lovely launch of this book at Dubray Grafton (at which I took exactly zero photos oops)

Good.

Knowing what is going on in Gaza just now makes the exhibition on the beautiful traditions of Palestinian embroidery @VADundee all the more poignant and moving. When will the great wrongs inflicted on the Palestinian people be righted?

Congratulations to my lovely friend @oliviahopewriter.bsky.social and her illustrator Anna Sussbauer on publication of the GORGEOUS The Lonely Only Dinosaur! I love this book - Olivia is a picturebook master. It's being launched this evening in @dubraybooks.bsky.social Grafton St - yahoo!

There's a lot of pressure for authors not to say this but I'm going to say it: please do NOT buy my books from Amazon. Buy them from indie bookshops. Buy them from @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social. Buy them from @blackwells.bsky.social. Buy them from @waterstones.bsky.social. Do not buy them from Satan.

Voting is open for this year's Lollies. Grown ups can vote on behalf of children, or because they love kids books. I'm so happy to have The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat shortlisted! shop.scholastic.co.uk/lollies #kidlituk #picturebooks #primaryteachers #reception #nursery