The Last Gift: LSUP Online Author Series

 I gave a talk about The Last Gift for LSUP's Online Author Series - video below!

A Juvenile Miscellany: An Anthology of Lydia Maria Child's Writing for Children

Coming in November! Edited with my colleague Hilary Emmett, this is the latest collaboration between us, the UEA Publishing Project and the brilliant final-year students on our children's literature module at UEA (see also What Katy Did and Five Little Peppers). The official website is here and it's available for pre-order now. This is the first ever collection of Child's deeply influential writing for children, and I'm delighted to say that it has already received some very kind words of praise from some of the most significant Child scholars around:

"This splendid anthology of Lydia Maria Child’s writings for juveniles is a major publishing event that represents American Studies at its best. The product of an inspiring collaboration between the scholarly editors and their students in the field, the book reprints for the first time a wide range of texts covering all the subjects about which Child sought to educate her youthful readers—relations between indigenous peoples and white settlers; race, enslavement, and abolition; history and revolution; the natural world; and work, wealth, and poverty. The anthology’s superb introduction not only highlights Child‘s role in creating an American children’s literature and influencing later practitioners of the genre but offers insightful interpretations of key texts. Altogether a remarkable achievement."
Carolyn L. Karcher, author The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child

"A Juvenile Miscellany, a beautifully edited collection of Lydia Maria Child's children's literature, is a joy to read. The selected stories are lively and evocative; together, they provide irrefutable evidence of Child's genius as a pioneering American children's author. The editors' introduction contextualizes the stories in Child's wider career as a radical abolitionist and reformer, confirming her status as a major nineteenth-century intellectual with much still to teach us today. "
Lydia Moland, author of Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life

"A Juvenile Miscellany: An Anthology of Lydia Maria Child’s Writing for Children is a milestone in the author’s recovery. Offering an abundant selection of the author’s work on various social justice causes, as well as key texts on the natural world, this generous collection represents Child brilliantly as an activist and a citizen. It is exactly the book I have been wanting."
Karen Kilcup, Elizabeth Rosenthal Excellence Professor at UNC Greensboro and author of Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children's Writing, Nature, and the Environment

And we were interviewed for the Lydia Maria Child Newsletter - some screenshots here!

Full description below!

Five Little Peppers: Launch Event

This Wednesday we officially launched Five Little Peppers at the wonderful Norwich bookshop Bookbugs and Dragon Tales. It was great to introduce the book the staff and pupils from Queen's Hill Primary. Get your own copy here.

What Katy Did: Launch Video

Watch here.

What Katy Did: Book Launch

Over the past year I've been working on a very special book project: along with my colleague Hilary Emmett, students from our final year module on nineteenth century children's literature, designer Emily Benton, and UEA's Boiler House Press we've been busy producing a new edition of Susan Coolidge's beloved book for children, What Katy Did. 2022 is its 150th anniversary, so this is timely on a number of levels! Working collaboratively on this new critical edition - the first of its kind - has been a wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to talking more about the genesis and development of the project at our book launch on November 30th at 5pm. You can register for the event, for free, here. And you pre-order your copy here (or here on amazon).