Happy Birthday Big Book Little Book!

Today marks a whole year of blogging! I can’t quite believe it.
Having been brought together through mutual motherhood we found that more often than not the conversation drifted away from child related topics, into the domain of book discussions and recommendations. Wanting to further share our passion for books and the joy of reading with our children, we decided to create Big Book Little Book.
Big Book Little Book has seen quite a few changes over the year.
While we were all sad when Jane had to step down from the blog, we were blessed when the fabulous Alison agreed to step in her stead. Alison quickly proved herself to be an invaluable member of the team, devising and executing our Carnegie and Greenaway Awards feature.
We are very excited with the addition of both Izzy (9) and Daisy (11) to the junior team; I can’t wait to see what books capture their attention.
One of the biggest and challenging changes has been our move to this gorgeous, new purpose built WordPress site. Although the hard graft of the big move is complete it may take a couple of weeks for us to unpack all of the boxes and arrange the furniture! A massive thanks goes out to Webmaster Ed and Graphic designer Emma for all of your hard work. I promise that we will take good care of your baby!
Our passion for young adult books has been truly indulged by the wealth of wonderful YA titles on the market today. Unfortunately this has come at the expense in our Adult book reviews. Wishing to address this neglect we have decided to commit to an additional review each week. Henceforth we will post three reviews each week: a children’s book review (Monday), a YA book review (Wednesdays) and an Adult book review (Fridays).
While we will continue to post our ad hock features including, Love Books Will Travel event reports and our foodie Novel Nibbles posts we look forward to introducing you to our new feature: Self Published Sunday.
Having been lucky enough to work with some fantastic publishers, we have enjoyed the privilege of reading some awesome books ahead of their release dates. It has been particularly exciting to read and promote the work of some amazing debut authors.
We were very excited to have the opportunity to team up with so many dedicated UK bloggers for the Insurgent launch and we are looking forward to taking part in future blog tours.
For me personally it’s been an absolutely fantastic but busy year. When we first agreed to start this blog as a team I completely underestimated the amount of time I would spend formatting and publicizing reviews and not forgetting the time suck of social networking! My hat goes off to those bloggers working alone or in smaller teams. I really don’t know how you manage it. I am in awe!
Hands down the most exciting part of book blogging has been the wonderfully inclusive UK book blogging community. I have met some amazingly talented and wonderfully friendly bloggers. There is nothing quite like connecting with your own people and I feel like I have made some really genuine friendships.
I’ve had the (overexcited) honor of meeting some fantastically talented, warm and personable authors. Who have not only shared the inspiration behind their published work but also their writing methods and writing advice. I would recommend attendance at author events to any aspiring writers.
Although I attended book events prior to blogging, the highlight of my blogging year, having brunch with my favorite YA author Maggie Stiefvater, was only possible through book blogging.
Last and no means least, I have had the opportunity to share my passion for books, for reading and for reading with children, with all of you.
Thank you for taking the time to visit our site and comment on our reviews.
Photo: Caroline’s towering TBR pile!
Post by Caroline