We have a lovely, independent children's bookshop in Sheffield, called Rhyme and Reason. It's a pretty bijou space, but is stocked to the gills like an Aladdin's cave.
When I do school or festival events on my home turf, the owner, Richard Welsh, often supports me with a bookstall.
Yesterday, since we're in the run up to World Book Day, Richard arranged for me to visit Emmaus Primary School, where I spent the day telling stories and drawing on the flipchart for all the Y1 and Y2 children. They did some great drawings too!
At the end of the day, Richard set up a bookstall and I signed books and chatted to parents.
While I was there, a teacher from one of the morning's sessions brought me a lovely 'thank you' letter, signed by all the children. There was also a surprise package of drawings: portraits of me! You can see some here.
I'm mainly using this week to catch up on boring admin stuff again. Yaaaaawn...
One interesting thing though - I spent quite a while yesterday building my page on the brand new Author Hotline website, to be launched for World Book Day on March 4th.
It's aimed at kids, so I had fun answering lots of questions like: 'What were you like at school?' and 'What strange habits do you have?'. There are serious questions too, like: 'What are the best and worst things about being an author?'
The idea is that, either before or after a school visit, children can look up authors or illustrators and find out more about them. They can show their parents who they met at school and generally add value to the experience of the visit.
If you do school visits and want to register, it's all free, so get on over there...
This morning parents all over the land were slapping their heads with annoyance at having forgotten about World Book Day until being reminded that a costume would be needed five minutes before setting off to take their children to school. Or maybe that was just me.
Lack of preparation necessitated a fudge - a Nemo mask instead of a proper costume - but once inside the school gates there was little need to be embarrased. Sure, some
parents (who are these people?) had really gone to town - I saw a passable Oliver Twist, what could have been a Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island and what looked like a refugee from Les Miserables. But these literary pretenders were seriously outnumbered by the Spidermen, Sportacuses and Disney Princesses, which I did feel was a little bit of a sad indictment of what our 4-6 year olds consider as characters from books.
Still, World Book Day cannot be a bad thing - children will spend the day listening to, reading and talking about books which is a cause for celebration. And, speaking personally, to make up for forgetting a costume and thinking that Nemo is a literary character, tonights' bedtime story will be a scene from Crime and Punishment.
Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher
PS Over the next few days I'll be at the annual SXSW interactive festival. If you happen to find yourself in Austin, Texas on Sunday, come watch me try to sound intelligent talking about Stories, Games and Your Brand.
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Lots of lovely letters from people about where and how they found authors for free whose work they then went on to buy, although I was vaguely hoping someone would write a letter saying, "If you're so fond of Free, then why don't you write a book for free, that you don't get any royalties on, that could be given away or sold incredibly cheaply, just to encourage people to read? Yeah, what about that then, smartarse?" But nobody has.
Which is actually a pity, because if they did I could point out that I did just that -- the writing the book bit anyway -- last year. It's a short book called Odd and the Frost Giants, and it's published by Bloomsbury Books in the UK and Ireland for the 2008 World Book Day, which is this coming Thursday, the 6th of March.
And I wasn't the only one.
"13 million school children in the UK will receive a World Book Day £1 Book
Token which can be exchanged for a World Book Day £1 Book, throughout March,
from over 3,000 participating bookshops and book retailers across the UK and
Republic of Ireland. The £1 Token can also be put towards any book or
audio book costing £2.99 or more. The World Book Day £1 Book Token is sponsored
by National Book Tokens and redemptions are funded by bookshops across the
country."
Again, it's books as dandelion seeds, and not all of them are going to find soil. Some of those 13 million kids will destroy their books, some leave them behind, some not even care enough to participate. But some of the kids will go and choose a book of their own, find something they wouldn't have discovered otherwise, maybe find out that reading and owning books of your own is something you can do for pleasure, and... maybe... it'll help ensure that there are still readers of books -- and bookshops -- a hundred years from now.
(I just googled to see if there were any reviews of Odd yet. None from newspapers that I could see, but
...
Lots of people wrote to tell me that the chest X-Ray was needed for the Tuberculosis test. Nobody explained why the chest X-Ray has to be carried to the US in hand-baggage (it's one of the rules, or it was in 1992). I asked at immigration when I arrived in the US if anyone was going to look at it, and was told that no, nobody ever ever looked at the chest X-rays in hand-baggage. Ever? Ever, said the man.
...
If your dog suddenly discovers and goes for a cat (no longer in a tree) when you're standing on a sheet of what was ice-melt that has just refrozen into sheet ice, and you make a sudden and ill-advised move in an attempt to stop the cat being chased (and to stop the dog losing an eye -- Princess takes her fights seriously) and go down rather heavily on your ankle, you wind up oddly happy if an hour or so later you're just limping and icing it. It could have been a hundred times worse, as my doctor (who happened to be nearby) pointed out.
Princess is back inside the house, Cabal has a scratch under his eye.
And Dave McKean sent over nine sketches for nine different covers to The Graveyard Book -- all of them really impressive. I'll find out from him if he minds me putting them up here (once the final one has been decided upon, anyway). It would be interesting to show people how a book cover gets decided on. (I was also thrilled that Dave wrote after finishing it and said he thought it was a much stronger book than Coraline.)
(Click on event name for more information)
Shanghai International Literacy Festival~ Mar 1 - 15, Shanghai, China
The Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival~ Mar 2 - 12, Hong Kong
Adelaide Festival Awards For Literature Winners Announced~ Mar 2, Adelaide, Australia
Growing Up Asian in America Art & Essay Contest for Youth~ entry deadline Mar 6, San Francisco, CA, USA
World Book Day~ Mar 6, United Kingdom and Ireland
The 12th Annual Charlotte S. Huck Children’s Literature Festival~ Mar 7 - 8, Redlands, CA, USA
Masak-Masak: A Potluck of Delectable Stories from Around the World~ Mar 8, Singapore
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Winner Announced~ Mar 12, Vimmerby, Sweden
World Storytelling Day~ Mar 20
World Poetry Day~ Mar 21
Harmony Day~ Mar 21, Australia
Bangkok International Book Fair~ Mar 26 - Apr 7, Bangkok, Thailand
The Toronto Festival of Storytelling~ Mar 28 - Apr 6, Toronto, ON, Canada
Storylines Margaret Mahy Award Lecture~ Mar 29, Pakuranga, New Zealand
Tom Fitzgibbon Award and Joy Cowley Award Winners Announced~ Mar 29, Pakuranga, New Zealand
Bologna Children’s Book Fair~ Mar 31 - Apr 3, Bologna, Italy
Hans Christian Anderson Awards Announced~ Mar 31, Bologna, Italy
At the end of the day, Richard set up a bookstall and I signed books and chatted to parents.
The 'thank you' note is rather lovely - it is good to be appreciated.
everytime i see a post like this it makes me wish i had had something like this at school!
Just to let you know I have given you an award! However please dont feel obligated to accept it x
Take care