Yesterday I did a day of storytellings for Sheffield's Off The Shelf festival. Some years I do public events for them, but this time we invited school groups into the libraries.
We decided on a dinosaur theme, so I read from Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! and the sequel: Rumble, Roar, Dinosaur! Trouble is, there are 14 dinosaur poems in all: too many to do in one go, so I numbered them and got the kids to choose poems by pulling the numbers out of a bag. They thought this was great fun and it meant I could stop when I thought we needed to move on.
I was in Upperthorpe Library in the morning. The invited school had let us down, but luckily St Mary's CE Primary stepped in at the last minute, which was doubly good, because they were great.
The library is part of a leisure centre, with a lovely cafe, so Sam, the brand new Children's Librarian, took me for a very tasty lunch (salmon and soft cheese panini: yum) and, while chatting, we discovered we are neighbours!
After the posh nosh, I was whizzed across town in a cab for an afternoon at Manor Library, where I met the smashing Y1 children from Prince Edward Primary. The photo above is me asking them 'Who likes drawing?'
The teachers and the librarians at both events were all really nice to me, so I had a fun day. Big thanks to the Literacy Coordinator at Prince Edwards, who decided on the spot to buy a copy of every book I had!
Poemes prehistorics amb humor, sorpreses, informacio i ... TERROR!
The postman just bought me another of those lovely, surprise packages. When I opened it up I found... 4 translated co-edition copies of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!. I thought they were in Spanish (what a dimmucks... dimmocks?.. dimmox?.. idiot!) but I've just been reliable informed that the language is in fact Portuguese. Aha!
As always, I'd rather my books be read by children than just sit on shelves, so I'm giving them away. So - anyone out there with children that read Portuguese? Better still, do you have a 'good cause' I could donate a copy to, like a school, library or some such? Let me know and a signed copy could be on it's way to you next week.
Today I am also wondering how Bears on the Stairs got on at the Frankfurt Book Fair... It's SO important these days that other countries sign up for co-editions of new titles, especially America. Crossing fingers that they liked it!
Katie, the designer at the gallery, has just sent me a couple of posters we are going to be using to publicise my exhibition in Tameside next month. What do you think?
If anybody lives close enough and would like a ticket for the Private View on August 15th, just email me - I'd love to meet you!
You don't get paid for events in bookshops, but it means they order a supply of your books (these days, unless you're a best-seller, they generally stock single copies at a time, if you're lucky!). You can then sign them all: in case any new authors or illustrators don't know, signed books can't be returned to the publisher, so remain on the shelves until they sell. I'm a regular embarassment to friends, and often check bookstores and then ask if I can sign their stock - every little helps!
So, I broke off drawing on Monday morning, to do a quickie in my local Waterstones. A small group of children had won book tokens, and Waterstones asked if I'd do a storytelling while they where in store spending them. I was pleased Waterstones had got lots of copies of Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! and even a few hardbacks of Stinky! (which is great, as hardbacks are very hard to get onto the shelves).
I read Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! for only the 2nd time ever. It's takes me a while to warm up to a book and get familiar enough to add in bits of fun and interaction. I tried to do different voices for all the dinos. This one's quite funny if you give it a butch voice: though he's all fluffy and pink, he actually wants to be tough.
I was working this Saturday, despite the sunshine, in the Sheffield Central Children's Library, as part of our annual Children's Festival. It's a lovely, fun festival, with loads going on, including a parade, and there's always a colourful banner hung on the town hall, made by a local school.
It was such a hot day, I thought everyone might abandon me and go to the park instead (especially as the children's library is deep in the basement!), but luckily I was wrong and we had a good turn out of little ones for my morning storytelling. I read Stinky, and the children drew various smelly animals. Virtually every child took one of my books home too - either borrowed from the library, or bought from me, which was lovely.
I was supposed to be drawing in the foyer of the main library at lunchtime, catching people passing through but, because of the weather, nobody did! Uh-oh... my insecurities returned as I headed back down into the bowels of the building for my afternoon workshop session: who in their right mind would choose me in a basement, over ice cream and sunshine?
How lovely then, to open the door and be met by a room stuffed full of eager faces!
I did my usual talk, showing roughs and artwork etc, then read Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!, fresh off the press, and used that as a basis for a 'scary chase' workshop.
My dinosaur flip chart drawings are still a bit unpolished, but everybody pretended not to notice (thanks guys!). We designed a crazy 'dinosaur on a beach holiday' picture, adding all sorts of silly details, until there was no more space to cram in another thing. Then I set a quiz question about the story, to decide who got to take it home. Well done Izzy!
Looks like such a fun day! :o)