Not a hill with berries, but Berry Hill Primary School in Mansfield. It's quite unusual for me to be doing school visits in January, yet this is the 2nd, not counting the lecture. 
And what a lovely school! All the children were really excited in advance and so they were all smashing sessions. I spent the whole day with KS1, and we had great fun with the stories.
I read Stinky!, which is a current fave, as I love getting them all to be the flies - 60 kids all buzzing together! I did my latest, Bears on the Stairs too, complete with rap poem (I even remembered the words this time!) and, of course, Class Two at the Zoo to Class Two. Plus, with Reception, we read An Itch to Scratch: I get them all singing, and scratching different bits of their bodies, to the tune of 'If You're Happy and You Know It', but changing 'happy' to 'itchy'!
They did great drawings too - nice to see children who are happy to do big images that fill the A3 paper edge to edge. The drawings here are the ones I did one the journey to Mansfield and back.
So many children bought signed books after school, that we ran out, so I have to spend most of this afternoon signing loads more, ready to post back to school - how lovely.
Thanks to everyone at Berry Hill - really nice to meet you all!
If you tuned into
CiTV on Nov 15th to see maisie Smith reading
Stinky! on
Bookaboo, you might have been confused to find
Julia Jarman's book,
Kisses Are Yuk! on instead.
Sorry about that - turns out that the Powers-That-Be changed the schedule dates, so it was on the following day instead. Duh! Hopefully you enjoyed Kisses Are Yuk! just as much (well, hopefully not quite as much...).
Anyway, if the shake-up meant you didn't manage to catch Stinky! the first time round, he is on again TODAY at 12.00pm and 3.15pm. 
The episode is also repeated on Monday
Dec 20th, Thursday
Jan 6th at the same times, and then on Sunday
Jan 16th on ITV1 at 7.10am.
And not only that: if you live down-under in Oz, you can see both series 1 and 2 of Bookaboo on ABC2 on weekends at 08:00 from 4th December through to mid January, and on weekdays at 09:40 from 7th December. Which means you get to see the hunky Robson Green read Class Two at the Zoo as well!
So, no excuse for missing it this time!
I just got back from a thoroughly inspiring weekend at the
SCBWI conference (
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). I'll tell you more about it shortly, when I have more time (it was way down in Winchester, so I've loads of train sketches to show you too).
Today though, despite my mile-long 'To Do' list, I have really got to get on with reworking a text, while the buzz is still with me!
They are a lovely bunch at the SCBWI, and I would urge you to check them out if you are in the biz. 
Before I go though: a quickie reminder that my book with Ian Whybrow, Stinky! goes out on Bookaboo TODAY on CiTV, at 12:00 and 15:15. It is to be read by Maisie Smith of Eastenders.
This is my 3rd visit to Prospect Hill Primary School in Worksop. What lovely, lovely teachers for inviting back!! My first time was in 2006, then in 2008 and again yesterday: I suppose 2 years gives the children the chance to grow up and be replaced by fresh faces.
There were certainly plenty of keen, fresh faces to greet me again this time. And the classroom areas are such bright, colourful environments: a joy to work in.
Mrs Palmer made a special request for me to read Smudge's Grumpy Day to Y1, as the children so enjoyed learning to draw Smudge last time. She's a nice, simple character for little ones to tackle. We got some super drawings again and my Smudge puppet got another outing (I must repair her whiskers: she's down to just 3 now, all on one side!).
I'm very into reading Stinky! at the moment too - I love getting all the kids to play the part of the flies! Y2 drew me some exceptionally smelly creatures and some horribly fat and juicy flies!
Thank you so much to all the children (and Mums & Dads) who bought a signed book to take home. Also to the school, for being so supportive and dealing with the admin of the massive pre-order (so many books that I couldn't fit them all in my wheelie case and had to post them in advance, in a HUGE box!). But the lovely Prospect Hill bookworms still bought loads more on the day. I feel loved!
I enjoyed myself enormously at the end of last week: I have been working in Bakewell, a pretty village not that far from Sheffield, as part of a mini festival called The Write Stuff, organised by the local Lady Manners High School:
At my first event, with Y3 at Bakewell Methodist School, I was delighted to say hello to some children who had been to my storytellings before. We had a lively session: I read Class 2 at the Zoo and Stinky! and the children drew some extremely smelly animals!
The rest of my storytellings were housed in Lady Manners' fabulously massive library, with groups made up of children from all the neighbouring village schools. I did 6 sessions over 2 days, so to keep myself from going mad, I read different books for each and got the children to draw different things. We had some knock-out pirate pictures based on Class Three all at Sea.
The children were all fantastic. Thank you so much to Mrs Hetherington for letting us take over her library and for looking after me so well. It was great to have so much space to spread out, and to allow the children to draw nice, big pictures.
Yummy school dinners by the way!
Thanks too, to Simona for giving me a lift, and to Louisa for her mercy-dash to Longstone, when there was a mix-up about who needed to be where.
Last week, I packaged up my Korean copy of Stinky! for a trip to Spain, and sent him to visit fellow illustrator Tomas Serrano.
In return, Tomas sent me a signed copy of the wonderful Salfon, El limpiador de tejados. I don't speak Spanish (dos cervezas is my limit) but Tomas has kindly done me a translation. The title means Salfon the Roof Cleaner: while cleaning the roof of a witch who is in disguise as a regular person, Salfon learns her secret.
Tomas's illustrations are gorgeous. Vibrant watercolours and great characters. Some wonderful draughtsmanship too: I especially like the ariel views of roofscapes - very tricky stuff! Thank you so much Tomas.
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!
On Tuesday I had another fun day, storytelling in Birmingham. Young Readers is a lovely festival that lasts 2 whole weeks, and I was really pleased to be invited to take part.
As you can see, I went back to pencil again for the train journey. There must have been some sort of fertiliser conference on: he was one of several working on fertiliser documents (Nosy Parker Chapman).
At
Quinton Library I met the cutest Reception class. They arrived early, and then had to wait ages for their transport back to school, so ended up sitting for well over 1.5 hours, but they were so good. I practised reading
Stinky! and we drew smelly things, then I gave them an old favourite:
Big Bad Wolf is Good.
At lunchtime, the organisers laid on a really nice buffet in
Central Library for all the authors and illustrators to have lunch together, so I got to meet the lovely
Steve Smallman: great bloke, fab cartoonist and author of one of my faves:
The Lamb Who Came to Dinner (also on
Bookaboo - read by Meatloaf, no less!).
The afternoon was in Kents Moat Library with Blakenhale Infants - a bit of a squeeze, as it's only small and the school bought 90 children, but we had a stonking time. I love it when the kids are really up for it. Sometimes you get such a lovely vibe and it simply glows: all the old jokes work exactly right, new fun ideas just appear in the air and the children seem to be completely on your wavelength. Wonderful.
Big thanks go to the teachers, who had done lots of prep work with them. At the end they gave me some great paintings and pieces of writing they'd done in school. Here is a taster (thanks Holly!). There are more in the Picture Gallery.
I drew this man on the train back to Sheffield, but he spotted me half way through and the sketchbook was passed all round. It's always a bit embarrassing carrying on after that, especially when the victim is sitting so close. I stuck with it though and finished him off.
I little while later, when they'd lost interest, I managed to sneak a drawing of his friend (with his wonderfully beardy double chin) although I had to pretend to be drawing the luggage rack above his head whenever he glanced across!
Don't forget: CITV on November 15th at 12.00, and after school at 3.15pm.
I will of course keep you posted about who they decide is going to be the wee, smelly warthog's new friend, and when it is scheduled to be broadcast.
This is fascinating Lynne, thanks so much for sharing them, I shall be back to watch them again, Brilliant. It looked like fun too! You'll be on the TV next????
Hiya Lynne! I find your videos to be instructive yet fun. Thanks so much for sharing the creating process with us your readers. I find that when you show your work I am definitively all fired-up to go and do MY work.
PS You look great on camera!
hi Lynne - these are SO wonderful!!! So great to have you on video just in case I forget your aussie(!?) accent!!! So much fun and wonderful work!