Once again the wonderful @janefallon.bsky.social is supporting Children in Read. If you are an author or Illustrator and would like to take part in this year's event simply reply to this post for further details. We go live online 5th Oct. All proceeds are in aid of B.B.C. Children in Need

The Stroll by Gertrude Abercrombie #Caturday

A very happy 80th birthday to the incredible Michael Rosen! 🥳 Thank you for everything you've done over the years to champion the joy of reading. We're celebrating with this wonderful clip from our wellbeing assembly for students that sums up just so perfectly the power of stories.

‘The fair maid who, the first of May, Goes to the fields at the break of day, And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree, Will ever after handsome be.’ — from The Old Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867–1939). #MayDay #Folklore

Delighted to have a poem on the @poetrylondon.bsky.social website ✨ The poem is from my debut collection, ‘Midnight at the Saltmarsh’, @thegallerypress.bsky.social Launching on 7th May 🌕 🌊 Huge thanks to Editor Niall Campbell 🙏 poetrylondon.co.uk/bee-orchids-...

‘This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.’ ~ Mervyn Peake. #BookWormSat

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay by author/illustrator Marie Dorleans from her picturebook The Blanket, translated by Katy Lockwood-Holmes. About a boy afraid of everything without his blanket. Hand-drawn with graphite pencil & watercolour & finished digitally. Floris Bks 23 April. @florisbooks.bsky.social

There is no stability in this world. Who is to say what meaning there is in anything? Who is to foretell the flight of a word? Virginia Woolf

Tháinig mé abhaile bomaite ó shin agus bhí bronntanas sa phost ó Ghabriel. Just got home a few minutes ago to find this present in the post from Gabriel.

Gabriel Rosenstock was a great man for writing letters to the Irish Times on all manner of subjects. Always sharp, always witty. A good few of them at this link, check them out.

The late Gabriel Rosenstock wrote Letters to the Editor for 50 years. Here are just a few

The Irish language poet, haikuist, translator and author wrote dozens of Letters to the Editor from 1974-2025

irishtimes.com

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay by Lucy Ruth Cummins from her picturebook Dalmartian, about a green-spotted dog who is an alien from outer space, with human habits. Drawn with clarity, warmth, simplicity, and a big, soft line. Published in paperback, Simon & Schuster 9 April. @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Gabriel Rosenstock imithe ar shlí na fírinne. Laoch ar lár. Croíbhriste. My dear friend and wonderful poet Gabriel Rosenstock has left us. He was one of a kind.

My debut poetry collection, ‘Midnight at the Saltmarsh’, will be published in May by @thegallerypress.bsky.social To have this beautiful Paul Henry painting, ‘Incoming Tide, Achill’, as the cover is beyond my wildest dreams! 🌕 🌊 Available to pre-order ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ gallerypress.com/product/midn...

Illustration from Tove Jansson's book 'The Moomins and the Great Flood' (1945) #Womensart

One of the things I loved about Hamnet was that a 17th-century woman's life was at the centre of it. Now, thanks to the Voicesproject.ie we can walk beside the Irishwomen alive at the same time. Meet the Dung Queen of Ireland, and so many others... www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/colu...

Clodagh Finn: The dung queen of Ireland — and other Irish women alive in the time of Hamnet

Voices is using AI and Knowledge Graph technologies to bring together myriad sources so historians and computer scientists can recover the lives of ordinary Irish early modern women

irishexaminer.com

Fairies travelling in style for today's #OwlishMonday The artist is Amelia Jane Murray (1800-1896)

Today we're celebrating #EllenHutchins, Ireland's first female field botanist, for Intl Day of Women & Girls in Science! She began to study plants in her early 20s, gathering more than 1,100 plant specimens over several years before passing away age 29. #CrawfordArtGallery #WomenInSTEM #GirlsInSTEM

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay by Lydia Corry. Detail of a spread from A Little Slice of Sky, about a boy who grows a tree from seed in a city & a community that comes together to defend it when it’s threatened. A retro look in a pleasingly composed scene. Bloomsbury 12 Feb @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social

”It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...” Charles Dickens, Victorian novelist born #OTD 1812; George Orwell noted “no English writer has written better about childhood...” Portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1839, National Portrait Gallery, London | Cartoon Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay unveiled yesterday. Axel Scheffler’s green-eyed, grey-furred, blunt-toothed character Gruffalo Granny, with her notebook, pencil, bag and walking stick, from the third Gruffalo collaboration with Julia Donaldson, to be published on 10 September. @panmacmillan.bsky.social

To hear, one must be silent. Ursula Le Guin

I’m supporting #ReadItForward2026! If you buy my books Black Gables, The Midnight House or Welcome to Dead Town Raven McKay during February bookshop.org will donate 10% to @booktrust.org.uk and @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social #KidLitUk #supportindiebookshops

In honour of #HolocaustMemorialDay here is an extract from "A Sofa in the Forties" which Heaney read at a memorial service on this day in 2008. The poem is set during WW2 when Heaney and his siblings are playing, and imagining their sofa is a train. Original Post: Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again

I’m supporting #ReadItForward2026! Buy Inspire Me! (by me, from @nosycrow) during February and @bookshop_org_uk will donate 10% to @BookTrust & @scottishbktrust to fund early reading support for disadvantaged UK families. And every sale benefits independent bookshops. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/insp...

Remembering Ann Lovett who tragically died 42 years ago today after giving birth alone in a grotto in Granard. The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks -Paula Meehan "and though she cried out to me in extremis I did not move, I didn’t lift a finger to help her, I didn’t intercede with heaven

Lovely #kidlituk #ukkidlit review roundup to brighten up your January! #yearofreading #kidlit www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Children and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

Caring canines; daring donuts; a golden monkey; a boy from another planet; a dark take on Little Women and more

theguardian.com

'My childhood from my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew The garden is deserted.' ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning 🎨Eugène Grasset #BookWormSat

'The old church tower and garden wall Are black with autumn rain, And dreary winds foreboding call The darkness down again.' -Emily Brontë 🎨Júlia Sardà #BookWormSat

Out now, middle grade The Night I Borrowed Time by @ihussainwriter.bsky.social is a brilliant time-travel adventure that also looks at the effects of parental separation and Partition. @puffinbooksuk.bsky.social #KidlitUK #UKKidlit worldssmallestlibrary.wordpress.com/2026/01/18/t...

The Night I Borrowed Time by Iqbal Hussain

Cover illustration copyright © Hazem Asif, 2026 In one of those bizarre coincidences that happen from time to time, a review copy of this new title arrived in the post less than an hour after I had…

worldssmallestlibrary.wordpress.com

#NewIllustrationOfTheDay by Cambridge-based Peruvian illustrator Fatima Ordinola from her picturebook Our Dreams. A cosy bedtime book about sleeping animals. The images, such as these pandas made with chalk pastels, ink & watercolour, induce relaxation. Post Wave 29 Jan @postwavebooks.bsky.social