Nosy Crow launches fiction audio list

Nosy Crow has unveiled its first fiction audiobooks as the market grows.

The independent children’s publisher has produced a launch list of 12 audiobooks, making many of its most successful titles available in audio format for the first time. The books are now available to download from Audible, Amazon and iTunes.

Titles available to buy as audiobooks include My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons, winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Industry Awards Children’s Book of the Year prize, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners by Pamela Butchart, winner of the Blue Peter Book Award, and The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Wiliams, the first title in a new series of Nosy Crow classics.

Five titles in Pamela Butchart’s award-winning Baby Aliens series have been narrated by Susan Calman, a star of “Strictly Come Dancing”. David Solomons’ award-winning My Brother is a Superhero, and its sequel My Gym Teacher is an Alien Overlord, have been read by comedian Joe Thomas, star of “The Inbetweeners” and “Fresh Meat”, while BAFTA-nominated actor Juliet Stevenson reads The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

Other titles in the list include My Headteacher is a Vampire Rat, Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies and To Wee or Not to Wee by Butchart and read by Calman. Little Bits of Sky by S E Durrant is read by Adjoa Andoh and Evie’s Ghost by Helen Peters read by Louiza Patikas, the voice of “The Archers’” Helen Archer. The Many Worlds of Albie Bright and The Jamie Drake Equation by Christopher Edge is read by theatre, TV and voice actor Ewan Goddard.

Kate Wilson, Nosy Crow’s m.d, said: “We’re fantastically proud of the quality of this audio list – the brilliant books themselves, the production values, and, of course calibre of the readers, which is basically our voice wish-list realised. Over the years, with our apps and our picture book Stories Aloud initiative, we’ve learned so much about what makes audio compelling to children, and so much about making good audio.

She added: “As the audiobook market for children grows and evolves, now feels like the perfect time to branch out into paid-for audio of longer works.”

Butchart added: “It means the world to me that the adventures of Izzy and her friends are now accessible to blind and visually impaired children.  The very funny Susan Calman (comedian and Dancing Queen!) is utterly brilliant as the voice of Izzy.”