Ten-Minute Blog Break - 10th June

Hello Blog Breakers, I hope I'm not distracting you from the breakdancing baboons and singing goldfish that are doubtless populating your entries for our marvelous Chalkface Challenge? Remember you only have until Sunday to enter!

Richard Dawkins would probably disapprove of breakdancing baboons, since his quote (or misquote) about the dangers of telling children fairy tales generated a lot of column inches last week. K.M. Lockwood has a more measured approach, and rather than taking potshots at Dawkins, decides instead to write a post that celebrates "the love for fairy tales and fantasy I share with thousands of others." Personally, I thought the whole Dawkins furore was quite funny and wrote a story in response, which I hope to run on my blog on Friday.

Even more of a fuss was caused by the Slate article chastising adults for reading YA books. I didn't spot any SCBWI bloggers tackling the issue, but there was a very lively discussion thread over at the SCBWI-BI Facebook group.
Update - Non Pratt just had an article published on the Guardian Children's Books site responding to this controversy.

Extreme weather is a key feature of Nick Cook's Cloud Riders series, so what better way for him to research than to talk to a genuine tornado chaser? Nick's managed to get an interview with storm chaser Jesse W. Walters, who talks on Nick's blog about hair-raising escapes and the altruistic side of driving into danger rather than away from it.

The big news this week is that Sarah Broadley has decided not to eat carrots. Actually, make that metaphorical carrots. Actually, ignore those last two sentences and read Sarah's post all about how she's turning away from submission temptation and not letting her WIP (Work In Progress) escape until it's quite ready!

Finally, just a reminder that Space on the Bookshelf are continuing their Carnegie shortlist reviews - they've added three more since I mentioned them last week. Is it me, or are the Carnegie books a bit of a grim bunch this year? More singing goldfish required, I think.

Nick.

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A SCBWI member since 2009, Nick Cross is a former Undiscovered Voices winner who currently writes children's short fiction for Stew Magazine.

Nick unleashed "The Large Hadron Collider of storytelling" on his blog this week, an amazing contraption called The Massive Mash-Up Machine.