Picture Book Competition

ReadingZone has launched a World Book Day competition for children and young people aged 4 -18 to make a picture book, judged by Jacqueline Wilson’s illustrator, Nick Sharratt. They want a brilliant story, told in words and pictures in up to 24 pages! You can see tips, guidelines and a template at www.ReadingZone.com.

There are some fantastic prizes, including the chance to meet a fabulous author at school, sets of books for the school library, and you’ll receive printed copies of your own picture book!
You don’t have to be brilliant at writing or a fantastic artist to make a great picture book, anyone can have a go – you just need an idea or character to start with.

The competition launched in January 2012 and we hope that as many schools and young people as possible will be able to make picture books during World Book Day. The competition will close on 14th April and the winners will be announced on www.ReadingZone.com in May 2012.

Why not have a go?

500 Word Story Competition

It's back! On Monday 30 January 2012 Chris Evans launched the second 500 WORDS short story competition, open to anyone in the UK aged 13 and under.

Last year the competition had around 30,000 entries and this year is going to be bigger and better than ever!

To enter, your story has to be no more than 500 words, and must be an original fictional work by the entrant. The writers of the 50 best stories will be invited to join Radio 2 when they broadcast the Chris Evans Breakfast Show live from the Hay Festival on Friday 1 June!

Just like last year, they are looking for grown-ups around the UK to get involved, too! They are asking teachers and librarians to volunteer and help judge this year's stories.

So what are you waiting for?

Calling all budding scientists

The Google Science Fair has started a science fair and is calling anyone who loves sciences and finds it interesting. The idea is to come up with an exciting, interesting project. Make sure you are ready to submit your project by the 1^stApril. There is more information on the competition at the website:http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/index.html. Good Luck to anyone who takes part!

Lord of the Flies; Design a cover competition

A competition is open to design the new cover for Lord of the Flies. The competition is open to teenagers aged 13-16, and the deadline is the 20^th January 2012. Artists will need to have a read of the Illustrartion Brief but once they’ve had a read of that, pencils to the paper! The competition is being organised by Faber and Faber, an independent publishing house in London and The Guardian Children’s Books Website.

More information at: http://lordofthefliescover.com/

247tales

247tales is an online writing competition run by Bloomsbury publishers that challenges young people to write short stories using 247 words or fewer.

The prize for the winning story is £75 worth of Bloomsbury Children’s books plus a framed copy of your winning story. The winning story will appear on the home page of the 247tales website at http://247tales.wordpress.com/  and ten runners-up will receive signed copies of the guest author’s latest book and their stories will appear on the website as well. For full details on the closing date and how to enter visit the rules section of the website.
You can read the prologue of the guest author’s latest book in the downloads section as well as finding out the themes and authors for all the stories this year.

This month’s theme is THE MONEY and the closing date is 28th March. The guest author this month is Jim Carrington.

Have a go!

Chris Evans Short Story Competition

Are you 13 years old or under? Then enter the Chris Evans short story 500 Word competition today!

Further details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/chris-evans/500-words/