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This weekend I was in heaven. 48 hours of being surrounded by articulate, engaging, thought provoking, charming, and downright inspirational people does a lot towards making the world seem a good place.

Here are just a few of said people:

Cressida Cowell was on a high from having come pretty much straight from being present at the recording of the film score for ‘How to train your Dragon 2′. Always enthusiastic, my favourite line from her was, “Writing picture books is like writing haikus for aliens.”

Sarah McIntyre and Philip Reeve need to put on a West End/Broadway Show; they have it all in terms of panache, fun, costumes and great song. We also got a sneak peek of their next book, ‘Cakes in Space’. Wow.

Meg Rosoff bravely shared pictures of her brain with us (yep, the slide above shows her brain when she sits down to try and write a new book). If ever you have the opportunity to listen to Meg talk, seize it with both hands. She was incredibly engaging, witty and clever. I sound a bit like a fawning teenager, but seriously, she was incredible.

Two people I met this weekend made me cry with their beauty and thoughtfulness, and one of them was Ruta Sepetys. As you can see, Ruta also made me BEAM. If you haven’t read her books, you have such a treat ahead of you, and when you learn some of the stories behind the books your heart will break and then be made whole again.

Lyn Gardner spoke with such infection enthusiasm for her Olivia I found myself wanting to run off to stage school.

Anthony Browne (centre) terrified all of us present with stories about how a gorilla once took a chunk out of his leg, and the TV crew filming insisted on carrying on! Helen Oxenbury sparkled with charm and mischief. It was especially interesting to hear how even though both illustrators use a lot of watercolour in their work, they approach it in such different ways.

There were very many more treasured moments this weekend, but I was too busy listening or deep in conversation to take photos! On a very personal note, I had enormous fun interviewing Damian Kelleher, Cate Cain, Sarah Crossan, Anne Cassidy and Ian Beck. It was simply an honour to share a stage with them.

So the folk around were pretty amazing (slight understatement there!), and the setting was beautiful:

Over the next couple of days, more photos of all the authors and illustrators I shared my weekend with will be up here. But now I’m off to do a little bit of reading (I returned this weekend with 63 books….)

Happy Reading to you all!

The last couple of weeks haven’t seen much action from me here on Playing by the book, but that’s not because I haven’t been busy with books. On the contrary, I’ve been busy interviewing:-

…as well as preparing to interview Cate Cain, Damian Kelleher, Anne Cassidy, and Ian Beck face to fact next week …in front of an audience …of librarians, school teachers and other adults passionate about books for children and young people. (It’s going to be equally enjoyable and nervewracking!)

Yes, on Friday the Federation of Children’s Book Group’s annual conference kicks off (with none other than Cressida Cowell!), and then all the way through to Sunday lunchtime I will be living, eating, sleeping, dreaming books even more than usual.

Next week I shall report back with lots of photos, bringing you news from Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, Meg Rosoff, Anthony Browne and Helen Oxenbury, Holly Smale, Julian Sedgwick, Damian Dibben, Abie Longstaff, Megan Rix, Justin Somper, Lauren Child, James Mayhew, Mick Inkpen, Guy Parker Rees and Atinuke, in addition to the authors I’ll be interviewing in person.

But in the mean time I’m in marathon training. Book marathon training. My favourite sort of marathon training, and the best way to prepare for the conference!

Once Easter is over I’ll be back to a full programme of posting here with lots more reviews and interviews and in the meantime you can always find me on Twitter.

Happy Reading!

Within just a few hours of arriving back in the UK last week I was off to the annual conference organised by The Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG). The FCBG is a UK charity which works both locally and nationally to promote reading for pleasure amongst children.

Local groups run meetings for both adults and children interested in children’s books, author visits, and book themed activities. On a national level, the FCBG organises the Red House Children’s Book Award, promotes National Share a Story Month, and National Non-Fiction Day, and hosts an annual conference packed with author, illustrator and publisher talks amongst other things.

Having recently joined the National Executive of the FCBG this was my first time at conference. I had a tremendous, inspirational time, and here’s a flavour of who I saw and what I got up to:

Friday night saw a special party to celebrate 25 years of Winnie the Witch. Winnie’s illustrator, Korky Paul, gave a great talk about his work (revealing the reason behind Winnie’s crumpled hat). He also showed us his stripy socks which was a particular delight to me as last time I met him we talked about underpants.

Saturday morning kicked off in the most fantastic fashion, with Eileen Browne (author and illustrator of Handa’s Hen amongst many others) interviewing Axel Scheffler. Axel was quiet, unassuming and charming.

Axel revealed that the Gruffalo we now know and love started life as something rather more menacing – I hope you can see the grumpier, meaner Gruffalo in the photo below. Later he also revealed that the BBC are currently working on an animation of Room on the Broom for Christmas 2012.

First thing Sunday morning Sally Gardner gave an passionate talk about her background and her life with dyslexia. Sally did not learn to read until she was 14, and by this time she had been labelled as “unteachable”. Her’s is a remarkable life story, almost impossible to believe if you have read I, Coriander, a book set partly in 17th-century London and partly in a magical fairy world, which is both beautiful and lyrical, and a book I think many 8-12 year old (girls) would adore as much as

The sun was streaming down when I arrived at Harrogate library, and I feared all my punters would have decamped to the Valley Gardens. But no: every seat was taken in the lovely events room.

I was there to talk about my latest book, and I was welcomed by a very keen group of child readers. Some of them had already researched the book; others asked penetrating questions about my own childhood reading: “Which Narnia book is your second favourite in the series?” They all did extremely well on my Rascals and Tearaways In Children’s Literature Quiz (sample question: Who was it that sailed away to where the wild things live?) We shared writing tips, the parents chuckled amiably, the powerpoint worked, my tea was hot and sweet...



This lovely event was part-hosted by the Harrogate Children’s Book Group – part of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG). This in itself gave me a warm feeling – for when I was an unpublished writer, and knew no other writers, and very few adults interested in children’s books, the FCBG was very important to me.



The FCBG is, as its name suggests, a federation of local groups. Some run author events, others discussion groups for adults: all of them foster a love of children’s books. They come together at their Annual Conference, publish a magazine Carousel , and also run the Red House Children’s Book Award, the first Book Prize to be awarded on the basis of what children themselves actually think about the books. Its child judges early recognised the quality of authors like Anthony Horowitz and JK Rowling, who went on to become household names.

The FCBG was founded 40 years ago by Anne Wood, whose deep interest in children’s later led to ground-breaking children’s TV, like Teletubbies. (To learn more of her story, listen to her recent appearance on Desert Island Discs). At that time, her main interest was as a parent – and I suspect parents still make up the bulk of the FCBG’s members.