Greetings, dear readers, from Hoxton Square. Today marks World Book Day here in the UK and in Ireland. World Book Day encourages children to read for pleasure, and develop a love of books and reading. The charity offers every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. Over the past 26 years, World Book Day has inspired a life-long habit of reading in children in the UK and Ireland – and, indeed, around the world – a truly noble endeavour.
We know many of our readers had their own love of reading sparked in them by a parent, or other such adult of influence, and have in turn passed this on, to children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces, nephews, friends and relations. We Foxes were all lucky enough to grow up in houses full of books, and were read to and encouraged to read independently from a young age. And look where we are now!
As a small independent publisher, we aren’t quite able to reduce the price of our Slightly Foxed Cubs, charming children’s books by Rosemary Sutcliff, Ronald Welch, and BB, to £1 but for the next two weeks we are offering you the chance to pick up a number of our children’s books at a discounted rate.
Our single Ronald Welch books can be purchased in pairs with a saving of £2 per book and, to celebrate World Book Day, our ‘BB’ books, The Little Grey Men, Down the Bright Stream and Brendon Chase, can be bought for as little as £10 per book, a discount of up to 50%. We hope you will take advantage of this and give the gift of reading to young bookworm in your life, or perhaps one young at heart.
Please forgive our rather long introduction to this email and, if you’ve made it this far, do read on for more reading inspiration from the Slightly Foxed shelves and staff to take you through the weekend, including access to a charming piece by Ken Haigh from Slightly Foxed Issue 71 on the merits of reading aloud The Hobbit. We do hope you’ll enjoy it.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF office staff
Hattie, Jess & Jemima
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Denys Watkins-Pitchford, who wrote under the pseudonym ‘BB’, was both a writer and an illustrator, and his charming original illustrations decorate his books. He was a countryman, whose intimate and unsentimental knowledge of animals, birds and plants, as well as his gifts as a storyteller, make his books unique.
Single titles from £10 *Save up to £10*
Set of 3 from £30 *Save up to £30*
‘I love the nature writing of BB . . . and snap up every copy of Brendon Chase I find.’ Reverend Richard Coles, Guardian
View books
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Fast-paced and colourful, Ronald Welch’s novels join up the dots of English history in a remarkably vivid and human way. The plots are gripping, the characters believable and the research meticulous.
Single titles from £16
Full set of 14 from £278
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‘These tales of Roman Britain have yet to be surpassed for their non-patronising prose and adult dangers. Sutcliff makes Classics and archaeology uniquely thrilling for children.’
The Times
Single titles from £18
Full set of 7 from £126
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‘Marvellously decorated with characterful pen-and-ink drawings, Letters to Michael is testament to a bygone era when snow fell thick, real pennies were squirrelled in plum puddings and letter-writing sketched the true contours of a relationship.’ Telegraph
From £20
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‘The Hobbit belongs to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own. Its place is with Alice and The Wind in the Willows.’ Times Literary Supplement
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‘My own introduction to Tolkien had come in Mrs White’s grade five/six classroom. At the end of each school day, as a reward for good behaviour, Mrs White would gather her pupils in a semi-circle on the carpet and read to us. This was our favourite part of the day. Over the course of two years, she gradually worked her way through Enid Blyton’s adventure stories but then, toward the end of my final year in primary school, she announced she was going to try something new.
She gathered us together as usual and began to read. It was as if an electric current had gone through the room. We sat up straighter. We pricked up our ears. We had never heard anything like this before: trolls and dwarves, wizards and elves, magic rings and giant spiders, and not told like a fairy story, but written as if it had really happened. We loved it. Each day we rushed through our school work so that we could savour these last fifteen minutes of the school day . . . What was the appeal of The Hobbit? Oh, where to start?’
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