When I was at school, I did maths and arts A levels. At Cambridge University, I started off studying in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and ended up in the Department of Engineering. I enjoyed analysing a poem just as much as I enjoyed doing spectrographic analyses of speech signals. And so when it came to creating my  Buzzing! book, it was entirely natural to me to mix science and amusing poetry, entomology and etymology, to create a colourful, fizzing, ‘edu-taining’ experience.

I was thrilled to discover yesterday that the Royal Society, that august scientific body founded over 350 years ago, recognised what I set out to do by shortlisting Buzzing! for this year’s Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.

Buzzing!, by Anneliese Emmans Dean

I was particularly pleased about this as I had had a hard job convincing publishers that mixing science and poetry was a good idea. But in the end I was very lucky to find Brambleby Books, who immediately  ‘got’ what I wanted to do, and who went on to produce the handsome tome that is Buzzing!

The Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize is a prestigious prize that ‘celebrates the best English-language books that communicate science to young people up to the age of fourteen’.

Buzzing! was one of six books shortlisted for the Prize by a judging panel that consisted of five eminent scientists, science communicators and educationalists. They described my book as being:

‘buzzing with interesting science facts and wonderful poetry. Each page features a different British minibeast that you might find in your back garden, with a funny poem about them.’

The Chair of the panel was Professor John Goodby FRS, who said:

‘This year’s books have shown how science can become the subject of beautiful poems, be the object of wonderful works of art, and all the time stretching minds, young and old, into the “realms of imagination” and down-to-earth “model building” … Our eclectic collection of books have been truly enthralling, and our decisions on six candidates for “book of the year” have been incredibly difficult.’

Copies of all six shortlisted books are now being sent out to groups of young people up and down the country. It is they who will be the final judges. The book they choose as the winner will be announced on 11 November …

Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, you can find out more about Buzzing! here, order your signed copy here and see where you can catch a live Buzzing! show here.

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz – Bringing poetry to life

Take a look at the review, by AES Honorary Secretary Dafydd Lewis, below, or download the review as a pdf by clicking on the following link: AES Buzzing! review

Review of Buzzing! in the Bulletin of the Amateur Entomologists’ Society

The AES have invited me to perform poems from my Buzzing! book at an event they are holding at the Natural History Museum in London on 25 May.  I look forward to meeting some keen young entomologists there!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to have a read of Buzzing! yourself, you can buy copies here.

www.theBigBuzz.biz – Anneliese Emmans Dean – Bringing poetry to life

Cover of ‘Buzzing! – Discover the Poetry in Garden Minibeasts’ by Anneliese Emmans Dean

Many thanks to Lynsey Evans of Book a Poet for her wonderful review of my Buzzing! book. The review begins:

‘Buzzing! is a brilliant book that will enthral and delight children, and it is easy to see why it has been nominated for this year’s Carnegie Medal!’

The review continues:

‘There is potential for hours of fun, whether that be reading the poems or the facts, studying the pictures or getting out into your garden or park to hunt for the wildlife depicted in the book – it offers lots of opportunities for learning and having fun as a family or with friends.’

You can read the review in full here.

And if you want ‘hours of fun’, then order your (signed) copy of Buzzing! here.

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz – Bringing poetry to life

The Carnegie Medal is one of the most prestigious prizes in writing for children. It is awarded annually by CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals for an outstanding book for children and young people.

The longlist announced today is full of Big Names I admire enormously, such as Anne Fine, David Almond and Kevin Crossley-Holland. So it’s a huge honour to find my name appearing on the same list as them.

Of course those big names are mostly published by big, mainstream publishers, so I’m doubly chuffed that my book, brought out by small, independent publisher Brambleby Books, should have made it onto the list.

Buzzing!, by Anneliese Emmans Dean, nominated for the 2013 Carnegie Medal

Thank you to everyone involved.

Find out more about my Buzzing! book, and view sample pages, here

Order your copy here

Anneliese Emmans Dean- theBigBuzz

Review of Buzzing! in Antenna by Peter Smithers

This review appeared in Antenna, the journal of the Royal Entomological Society, and was written by its editor, Peter Smithers. Now, he is a man who knows his onions when it comes to insects and spiders, so I am particularly thrilled (and relieved!) that he thinks Buzzing! hits the spot – and that it’s got the science right too!

So, that’s two wonderful reviews of Buzzing! in one week! (Read the other one here.)

If you fancy reading Buzzing! for yourself, then you can buy your copy here, or from your favourite online or local bookshop. Or if you’re in York this Saturday (6th October) you can come along to my Buzzing! show in Rowntree Park, and buy a copy from me in person! (Find out more.)

The cover of Buzzing!, by Anneliese Emmans Dean

Whatever your choice on this National Poetry Day, I wish you Happy Reading!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz – Bringing poetry to life

Sir Tom Jones and me – on the same web page! (The Press, http://www.yorkpress.co.uk, 29 September 2012)

Granted, reproduced at this size it’s difficult to spot that I do actually appear on that page. (No, I’m not the blond in the pink sky-heels.) How’s about the screen grab below instead (which was from further up The Press’s home page)?

The Press home page is Buzzing! http://www.yorkpress.co.uk, 29 September 2012

The reason for my appearing there is that The Press has reviewed my Buzzing! book today. In fact, the centrefold of their printed edition is a fabulous spread devoted to the book, how I came to create it, and the photos, poems and information it includes.

This was the first print review I’d seen of Buzzing!, so I was not a little nervous. But Stephen Lewis of The Press has done me and the book proud. ‘It’s a beauty’, he writes.

You can read the whole of his article, with accompanying photos, here.

Many thanks to Stephen Lewis for his kind – and amusing – words about Buzzing!  And to Nigel Holland for his photo of me.

As the article mentions, I’ll be signing copies of Buzzing!, and performing poems from it, at Rowntree Park Reading Café next Saturday 6 October. Find out more here.

Meanwhile, the Reading Café has a copy of Buzzing! you can peruse over your coffee.

Or, of course, you can buy a copy here.

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz
Bringing poetry to life

My Buzzing! book on display in the Rowntree Park Reading Cafe, York, September 2012

The Reading Café is a City of York libraries initiative, and it only opened in July. It claims to be the first such initiative in the country – and what a great idea it is! As you can see from the photo above, it’s beautifully decked out and teeming with books for all ages. You can either read the books whilst you’re sipping your coffee and nibbling your cake, or borrow them to take home (using the self-service check-out machine in one corner).

The food is made on the premises and very delish, the staff are very friendly and helpful, there’s free wi-fi,  and the view out over the park from the terrace is gorgeous.

Rowntree Park, York, viewed from the terrace of the Reading Café

The first day I was there, a couple of weeks ago,  it was beautiful weather and the café was full of people of all ages (and lots of prams!) I was there again this week, being interviewed by The Press for an article they are writing about my Buzzing! book. This time the weather wasn’t so good. In fact, the park had to be closed whilst I was there because of rising flood waters. (You may have heard there’s been a bit of flooding here over the past few days …)

The flooding may take some time to subside, but the café will be remaining open (accessible from the Richardson Street park entrance) as it’s on high ground, way above the rest of the park.

And this is good news, as I’m scheduled to be putting on a Buzzing! event in the Reading Café (with Park Ranger Rachel Bell) very soon  – next  Saturday 6 October, in fact. So, whatever the weather that day, the Reading Café should be buzzing – with poems, projected images, music, Buzzing! book signings and minibeast craft activities.

You can find out more about the Buzzing! event here. It’s for 7-12-year-olds (accompanied by an adult/s). Tickets are free, but please book in advance, either in person at the Reading Café or by emailing rowntreepark.readingcafe@york.gov.uk

Hope to see you at the café on 6 October. And meanwhile you can check out my Buzzing! book there over a nice hot cup of tea, or a steaming bowl of soup, or whatever else takes your fancy on their menu …

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Signing my first Buzzing! books at Waterstones in York, 24 August 2012

After the months of intense work the publisher (Brambleby Books), designer and I put in to making Buzzing! the best book we could (not to mention the 8 years or so I spent writing it and taking the photos for it), it was fabulous to be able to share the book with individual children (and grown-ups).

I performed some of the poems for and with them, listened to them reading bits out to me, discussed some of the ‘Factabulous’ facts with them, and dedicated copies to them, their siblings – and even their dogs! Best of all was watching their faces light up with smiles and laughter and amazement at the book’s content.

I very much enjoy performing my poems to groups, e.g. on a school visit or at a festival, but it was very special to be able to share the book and its contents one-on-one with children in a completely unstructured setting, where we could wander from ladybirds to slugs to bees to moths entirely as the fancy took them.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the book signing – especially to Alex who so ably assisted me as a sandwich board (a role he was reprising from a couple of years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe).

Ably assisted at my book signing by sandwich-board Alex, York 24 August 2012

Wonderfully, all the books were sold bar one (which would have been bought but the lady discovered she’d left her Waterstones vouchers at home!)

Stop Press: Waterstones have  invited me back to do another signing event in their York store in the Spring!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Richard Benyon MP, Minister for the Natural Environment and Fisheries, helping to launch the BBCT’s Bees for Everyone project

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT) had commissioned me to write ‘a political poem about bumblebees’ for these launch events.  I performed the poem with the able assistance of deely-bob-clad schoolchildren. (Video to follow …)

The London launch took place at Battersea Arts Centre, whose entrance is decorated with beautiful bee mosaics!

Bee mosaic at Battersea Arts Centre

The children assisting me were from Stoneydown Park Primary School – all prize-winners from the BBCT’s bumblebee art competition. Their prize included copies of my newly published Buzzing! book – with a Foreword by the BBCT’s CEO Dr Ben Darvill – for their school library. (The copies kindly donated by my publisher, Brambleby Books.)

Me with one of the prize-winning children and his copy of my Buzzing! book

Take a look at some of the children’s wonderful bee pictures:

Prize-winning bumblebee pictures

The Edinburgh launch was at the stunning (and gorgeously sunny) Royal Botanic Garden (where I had performed my Buzzing! show a couple of years back as part of the Edinburgh Fringe).  The children at this launch were from Duddingston Primary School in Edinburgh, and they had also taken part in a bumblebee art competition:

Edinburgh prize-winning bumblebee pictures, by Duddingston Primary School pupils

These children were also presented with a copy of my Buzzing! book - by the Scottish Environment Minister …

With Scottish Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson MSP, presenting a copy of my Buzzing! book to a young bumblebee artist

… and Scottish tv’s Beechgrove Garden presenter, George Anderson.

Scottish Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson and tv’s George Anderson presenting my Buzzing! book to Duddingston Primary pupils

The Edinburgh launch also featured rather fabulous bee cakes and buns, created and donated by Edinburgh Cakes.

Fabulous bumblebee cake and buns

The great and the good were at both these launches, during which the Bumblebee Conservation Trust introduced their new ‘Bee Kind’ app. Go take a look – it’s a great way of making sure you have the very best selection of flowers in your garden to attract bumblebees through the year.

Professor Michael Usher OBE, FRSE, Chair of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, launching the Bees for Everyone project

And in case you were wondering why you should bother about bumblebee numbers – bear in mind that 84% of our crops are pollinated by insects, including bumblebees. (A point I made in a slightly more entertaining way in my poem. Watch out for the video …)

Many thanks to everyone from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust for inviting me to be part of their launch events, especially to CEO Dr Ben Darvill for commissioning  a poem from me and seeing its potential, to Gill Perkins who organised the London launch, and to Linda Evans who organised the Edinburgh launch. Thank you too to all the schoolchildren who joined in my poem with such gusto – and to the staff who chaperoned them.

I wish the BBCT the very best of luck with their vitally important Bees for Everyone campaign.

With Gill Perkins, who organised the London launch of Bees for Everyone

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Order your copy here

Read Buzzing! book reviews here

The cover of Buzzing!, by Anneliese Emmans Dean

The book  has a fab Foreword by Dr Ben Darvill, CEO of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust:

Buzzing! Foreword, by Dr Ben Darvill of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

And a sub-title chosen by the pupils of Le Cateau Primary School:

Buzzing! Discover the poetry in garden minibeasts. By Anneliese Emmans Dean

160 full colour pages, over 170 close-up photos of garden minibeasts (that it took me around 8 years to take), 67 edu-taining minibeast poems and oodles of factabulous minibeast facts. For children aged 6-12, and for all grown-ups who are young at heart!

Find out more and read a sample  here

And, importantly, it’s printed in the UK on FSC paper by an environmentally responsible printer.

And … stop press: it’s just been selected as a National Insect Week recommended teacher’s resource and book for children.

Another Stop Press: Buzzing! has now been nominated for the Carnegie Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in children’s publishing!

Order your copy here

Many thanks to Nicola and Hugh Loxdale of Brambleby Books and to Tanya Warren and Sara Fautley of Creatix Design for making the book happen. And to Ben Darvill of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust for his enthusiastic support.

So now, it’s over to you. I hope that, as Ben Darvill says in his Foreword,
‘You’ll be edu-entertain-amazed.
Spending time in your garden will never be the same again!’

Read Buzzing! book reviews here

Order your copy here

Anneliese Emmans Dean – theBigBuzz – Bringing Poetry to Life

Firstly for welcoming me so warmly to their school on World Book Day this year. I greatly enjoyed performing my Buzzing! poetry show for them and then putting on poetry workshops with them afterwards.

World Book Day logo

Secondly for writing me such wonderful, beautifully illustrated, letters after my visit.

An excerpt from a Le Cateau pupil ‘Thank You’ letter

Read more Le Cateau pupil ‘Thank You’ letters to Anneliese Emmans Dean of theBigBuzz (pdf)

And last, but by no means least, for solving the conundrum of  my Buzzing! book subtitle.

You see, when I went to Le Cateau School, everything was ready for my book – except the subtitle. You can find out more about the hunt for the Buzzing! subtitle here. As you’ll hear in the audio clip in that blogpost, the pupils of Le Cateau voted overwhelmingly for ‘Discover the Poetry in Garden Minibeasts’ as the best subtitle for Buzzing! And so … that is the subtitle the publishers and I decided on.

My Buzzing! book has just been published, so I can now reveal to you the title page – complete with subtitle (as chosen by Le Cateau pupils):

Title page of ‘Buzzing! – Discover the Poetry in Garden Minibeasts’, by Anneliese Emmans Dean

You can order your copy of my Buzzing! book here.

Cover of ‘Buzzing! – Discover the Poetry in Garden Minibeasts’ by Anneliese Emmans Dean

I’d like to thank Sheila Silvester of North Yorkshire County Council and Mrs Cafferty of Le Cateau Primary School for organising my visit. Thank you also to all the other Le Cateau teachers and teaching assistants for making me so welcome. Thank you too to Nicola Loxdale of Brambleby Books.

If you’d like your primary school to be Buzzing! for a day, contact me!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – Bringing Poetry to Life – www.theBigBuzz.biz

There’s great excitement here as my Buzzing! book is due to be published next month (April 2012).

My Buzzing! book, due to be published in April 2012, with around 180 colour photos and 67 edu-taining minibeast poems!

It’s in full colour,  includes eight years’ worth of my photos, 160 pages, loads and loads and loads of my poems and plenty of factabulous facts.

But there’s just one thing we’ve yet to decide on: the subtitle!

My publishers, Brambleby Books, and I have come up with three subtitle options:

1. ‘A bug book with a difference’

2. ‘Discover the poetry in garden minibeasts’

3. ‘Minibeast verse, visuals and vital statistics’.

But we haven’t been able to decide which of these is best.

So, I decided to ask the people who really count: children! And I’ve had some great feedback and ideas from them. As you’re about to see (and hear) …

On World Book Day I was performing my Buzzing! show at Le Cateau Primary School in North Yorkshire. So, I decided to ask the children there what they thought my subtitle should be:

A pretty categorical result for subtitle number 2 there, from an audience of primary children who’d just watched my live Buzzing! show.

However, not everyone I asked agreed.

Freddy and Henry in York, for example, preferred ‘Minibeast verse, visuals and vital statistics’.  But Katharine in York said this was too wordy. She preferred ‘A bug book with a difference’.

When Mrs Bryant asked her pupils at Hornby St Margaret’s CE Primary School in Lancashire, they didn’t like any of the three subtitles my publishers and I had come up with. Instead, the pupils  suggested some fabulous subtitles of their own, which they then voted on. The subtitle the boys liked best was:

‘Minibeasts and much more …’

Whereas the girls’ favourite one was:

‘Step into the garden of twisting and twirling creatures’ (which I personally think is fab!)

Mrs Bryant’s favourite was:

‘The book of poems buzzing with bugs’.

Grown-ups I asked were equally divided – and inspired. Catherine in York categorically ruled out ‘Minibeast verse, visuals and vital statistics’, and suggested instead:

‘Bugs in their own words‘.

Charles in foreign parts suggested:

‘Chapter and verse on (small) animals with (big) attitude’.

Bob and Jenny sugested a whole raft of options, including:

‘Who lives in your garden?’

and ‘ ‘Discover the secrets in your garden’.

Their suggestions were very similar to Debra’s niece’s suggestions from over the Pennines in Lancashire. She is a big fan of my Buzzing! CD, and she  suggested:

‘What’s lurking in your garden?’

and  ‘Discover the secret world of minibeasts’.

So, what have I learnt from this extensive consultation exercise? Simple: that the more people you ask, the more different (and imaginative) answers you get!!

A very big Thank You to everyone who took part and put their very creative thinking caps on to help me come up with the perfect subtitle to my Buzzing! book. All your input was very much appreciated!

Now all I’ve got to do is make a decision! (Unless anyone else out there has any more suggestions …)

Anneliese Emmans Dean – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Since I handed the manuscript to the publisher (Brambleby Books), I’ve been on a hunt for the last two photos for the book: a honeybee hive, and a wasps’ nest.

In October, friends of mine let me take photos of their hive – as you can see here. So that just left me with a wasps’ nest to locate and photograph.

I put out an SOS on Twitter and Facebook and was thrilled to get replies from two local organisations that each had a wasps’ nest I could photograph.

First of all I went off to York Environment Centre/St Nicholas Fields, where I often put on shows and workshops (like this one and this one), to take a photo of their wasps’ nest:

Anneliese holding the St Nicholas Fields' wasps' nest, Winter 2011

A few days later I went  round the corner to the University of York, where the good people of OPAL had another wasps’ nest for me to photograph:

Anneliese with OPAL's wasps' nest, Winter 2011

I took lots and lots of photos of each of these nests. Then – after much agonising – I chose one photo to send to the publishers. Just in time!

Which nest did I choose to include in the book? Well, you’ll have to have a look and see!

Anneliese's Buzzing! book

Many thanks to Ivana at St Nick’s, to Sarah at OPAL and to Andreas at the University of York for their assistance in this important photographic mission!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Bringing poetry to life