Barbara Throws a Wobbler

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From the creator of Barbara Throws a Wobbler - the ultimate story to chase (and laugh) your worries away Nadia Shireen enjoyed making homemade magazines and comics as a child, and during her time studying law at university and her subsequent career in journalism, she started to sketch again. Her debut book Good Little Wolf received a mention in the Bologna Ragazzi Opera Prima Award, and went on to win the UKLA Book Award. Nadia’s subsequent books have since been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, The Sainsbury’s Book Award and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. The 7-10+ category features no less than four exciting debut authors and for the very first time a graphic novel. When Stars are Scattered written and illustrated by Victoria Jamieson with Omar Mohamed, tells the story of Omar and his brother Hassan and topically depicts the harsh reality faced by refugees. When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten , a stunning debut from Pushkin, tells an evocative tale of memory loss, family and friendships. Bloomsbury have two titles on the list. Lesley Parr’s debut novel, The Valley of Lost Secrets, a powerful story of wartime evacuation to Wales, and the Carnegie shortlisted October October by Katya Balen. Knights Of also have two books in this category. Front Desk the debut novel from Kelly Yang which draws on her own experiences of moving from China to America, and the Blue Peter and Waterstones award winning debut from Elle McNicholl, A Kind of Spark. You could also retell the story from the point of view of one of Barbara’s friends. How did they feel when they saw that Barbara was upset? These are the most brilliant, beautiful and silly picture-books out there at the moment. Little doorways of joy." Caitlin Moran

Elle McNicholl is an important writer. Her events are both fun and powerful and she shares her experience of being autistic wisely and inspiringly. Her books are superb and should be in every home and school library. In Show Us Who You Are the main character is Cora, who is autistic. She gets involved in the dubious futuristic Pomegranate Institute, and is confronted by momentous ethical questions: – what is perfection? Are all humans valued equally? The passionate conclusion affirms the right of everyone to Nadia was always destined for a career in illustration—as a child, she would doodle on her exercise books, while as a student she would doodle on her law degree notes. Then, when working as a journalist in London for pop music bible Smash Hits, she would doodle all the time on anything. The good people at Smash Hits didn’t fire her for doodling furry animals - instead they let her leave early to go to evening classes in illustration. UKLA is a registered charity, which has as its sole object the advancement of education in literacy. Through a laugh-out-loud story and loveable character, Nadia Shireen shows how to understand and dispel anxieties, one jitter at a time.Picture books that can bring tears to the eyes even after repeated reads are few and far between. John Burningham mastered the skill with Granpa, as did Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb with The Paper Dolls. But it’s particularly impressive that debut author Lauren Ace and illustrator Jenny Løvlie achieved the feat while fresh to the game with The Girls, about four schoolgirls whose friendship and lives blossom under an old apple tree. The tale won the illustrated book category of the 2019 Waterstones children’s book prize, and the pair have since received messages from readers worldwide thanking them for reflecting their own friendships and inspiring the next generation. This was followed by a MA at the prestigious Anglia Ruskin University. Drawing and writing for a living is very much Nadia’s dream come true and we expect great things from this promising new author and illustrator. Nadia now writes and draws full time, and dedicates her spare moments to tweeting about pop music and championing diversity and tolerance, values that are powerfully depicted in all her books. In 2017, she collaborated with Book Trust to promote their Time To Read campaign, sending 700,000 copies of The Bumblebear to school children all across the UK. Nadia joined forces with Book Trust once more, as their official Writer and Illustrator In Residence for 2018. In addition, Nadia is an official friend of the Ministry of Stories, and supports the Penguin’s Write Now initiative for discovering under-represented voices. She lives in London with her son. Billy and the Beast was recently shortlisted for the inaugural Booktrust Story Time Prize. Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks. Home > Shortlisted for the Books for Younger Children category, Children's Book Awards 2022 | Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Award ages 3-6

Yet more fun comes in the form of Mammoth, by Anna Kemp and Adam Beer (Simon & Schuster, 27 May), a fish-out-of-water tale about a woolly mammoth who, having overslept somewhat, finds himself in New York mistaking cars for beetles, skyscrapers for trees and some furry boots for his missing herd.

Read for Empathy

Nadia Shireen enjoyed making homemade magazines and comics as a child. She studied law at university and then worked in magazine journalism; it was during this time that she started to draw again. After a lifetime of doodling in the sidelines, Nadia decided to pay some attention to drawing and in 2007 was accepted onto an MA course in children’s book illustration at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Her debut book, Good Little Wolf, received a mention in the Bologna Ragazzi Opera Prima Award and won the UKLA Book Award. Nadia has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. She lives in London. The books are a brilliant resource to use as part of Empathy Day on 9 June, and any time afterwards too. This year’s Empathy Day theme is empathy, our human superpower and to help everyone build that power there’s a special challenge with nine very practical, creative activities. You can do these at any time, and on 9 June watch an amazing array of authors and illustrators model the same activities, as part of Empathy Day Live! Sona’s family are expecting a new baby and her feelings are all mixed up. It helps to talk to a best friend, her toy Elephant. As Sona takes part in the naming ceremony, choosing one of her baby sister’s new names, things start to fall into place. A warm, gentle book which helps explore the universal experience of first-born children, with fascinating insights into life and cultural traditions in India.

Winner of the UKLA Award and shortlisted for the Oscar's Book Prize and the FCBG Children's Book Award, Barbara Throws A Wobbler is a brilliantly funny and sensitive way to understand and deal with tantrums. Barbara isn’t having a great day as little things not going right build up into a big wobbler. It’s particularly lovely at the end where other children are having similar wobblers in the playground as they’ve fallen off a swing, etc., and a little Who’s Who with the sulk, the grump, etc, line-up. Barbara’s wobbler grows and grows and grows, until it is the only thing that she can see or feel. Think of strategies that you can use to calm down when you are feeling upset.Design a game in which a person has to catch a ‘wobbler’ and un-make it, like Barbara does in the story. Thankfully Nadia Shireen isn’t giving us a ‘fix’ for wobblers, she is giving children a way to manage them when they appear - poor Barbara looks like she has a few more lurking wobblers to deal with going forward, just like every little Barbara out there. The teachers we work with stress how important it is for children to be able to recognise and name their feelings. If you can’t understand and articulate your own emotions, it’s hard to share and understand someone else’s . Barbara Throws a Wobbler is a brilliant example of how books can help, as it explores the range of emotions involved in feeling angry. Barbara is furious, ready to explode and doesn’t really understand her feelings until she meets her “wobbler” and realises she can take charge of it. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing -

But thanks to Nadia Shireen, who has hilariously normalised a wobbler, we can now all help the ‘Barbara’s’ in our lives and classes SQUISH theirs and encourage a healthy understanding of emotions, feelings and acceptance. Scientific research shows that empathy is learnable and that books are a powerful empathy-building tool. The world so badly needs more empathy, and non-profit EmpathyLab aims to raise an empathy-educated generation, to build a more caring and less divided world. The judging criteria call for the selection to be from a “wide and inclusive range” of publishers and for books which “recognise a broad range of perspectives, experiences and voices” and this range is certainly demonstrated in all four categories. It is notable that once again it is small publishers such as Andersen Press, Flying Eye, Knights Of, Guppy Books, Pushkin, Faber and Thames & Hudson who dominate the lists. In the 3-6 age category we have this year’s one and only author to have been a previous winner. Nadia Shireen won with her debut picturebook, Good Little Wolfin 2013 and now appears again with Barbara Throws a Wobbler, an empathetic tale which helps us to reflect on the universal impact of a bad day. Anna Milbourne’s I’m (Almost) Always Kindfollows immediately upon her 2021shortlisting success with I am not (very) afraid of the Darkand similarly successfully relays an important message to young readers. In this case about the necessity to see things from another’s perspective which is a strong theme across this list. In Tom Percival’s haunting tale, The Invisible,he sensitively confronts the issue of being excluded by poverty, while James Catchpole and Karen George’s What Happened to You?gives us the positive viewpoint of a child with a missing limb but no shortage of imagination. Alex Latimer and David Litchfield’s Pip and Eggis a gentlestory of friendship, nature and the circle of life and the final book in this group is the inspiring Freedom we Singby Amyra and Molly Mendoza, published by Flying Eye, which poetically explores what freedom really means and looks like. The Free Dictionary tells me that to throw a wobbler means "to suddenly become very upset or intensely angry and make a big display of it. Primarily heard in UK, Australia."

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Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments Rewrite the story (or part of it) in the form or a play script. Could you perform this to an audience? teachers nominated from the 85 involved in the shortlistingwill now form the final judging panel and have the challenging task of reading all the shortlisted books in all categories. The winner’s announcement will take place at the UKLA International Conference in Birmingham on July 1 st A perfect empathy-building book, with a joyful ending which brings a lump to the throat. A totally silent little boy is nurtured by empathetic teacher Miss Flotsam who builds his confidence to realise his voice is beautiful, until he finally uses it, very movingly. Every child deserves the chance to have an empathetic adult in their lives, and Miss Flotsam shows how powerfully transformative this can be.