How to use this Page

As the earth spins past the final hours of 2015 and into the new year I’ve been thinking about bookish New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s what I hope will be part of making 2016 an exciting and stimulating story-filled year:

(1) Finally visiting The Ministry of Stories in London. The Ministry of Stories is a local writing and mentoring centre in east London, where anyone aged eight to 18 can come and discover their own gift for writing. It is hidden behind Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, London’s oldest supplier of goods for the Living, Dead and Undead.

(2) Learning more about the work of Grimm and Co – where children and young people are encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and engage in new and exciting ways of writing such as song-writing, film and fiction. Rotherham based Grimm and Co is disguised as an apothecary supplying sorcery services & unnatural products to magical beings, and is supported by The Ministry of Stories.

(3) Talking with the folk at Storybarn (caldiessb) to learn more about their plans to create an interactive story centre where children can explore, share and discover the pleasure & imagination that comes from books.

(4) Using some of the ideas from visiting these inspiring places to run a FUN PALACE in October… I was so happy that in 2015 I finally managed to meet Matt Finch in person and he’s been my inspiration behind dreaming of a fun palace. Unfortunately he’ll be in Australia in October but if any of YOU are in the West Midlands (or willing to visit!) and would like to do something a bit crazy with me and stories and kids in October…. get in touch!

(5) Following on from my enriching visit to Hay, finding new books to add to my overflowing shelves by visiting Scarthin Books and Astley Book Farm, two bookshops relatively near to me which I’ve long wished to visit.

Scarthin Books (right), interior picture from Astley Book Barn (left)

(6) Continuing to read books which will change my life. Of the 41 originally listed, I’ve so far read 8. My favourite so far has been The Phantom Tollbooth (I just love the playfulness of it) though The Miseducation of Cameron Post also took my breath away. Brilliantly written, and likely a book I wouldn’t have found without asking Letterbox Library for their suggestion.

What are your bookish resolutions for 2016?

What great news! Today it has been announced that multi-award winning author Michael Morpurgo has donated his entire archive to Seven Stories, the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books.

The archive contains draft manuscripts, photographs, notebooks and correspondence all the way back from his first publication ‘It Never Rained’ to his 2015 ‘An Eagle in the Snow’ as well as material relating to his his widely known and admired works such as ‘War Horse’ and ‘Private Peaceful’.

To mark this brilliant news I was able to put a few questions to Michael about his archive.

Playing by the book: What’s the oldest item in your archive which you’ve donated to Seven Stories? Perhaps something you wrote as a child? School reports?

Michael Morpurgo: I suppose I would be going back to about 1970, and I’ve been writing since then. They are scribbles, but they are there.

Playing by the book: What do you think people might be surprised by when they look at your archive?

Michael Morpurgo: The mess! I was just looking at notebooks then and thinking what a jostle of impressions and efforts… the little psychological boosts I give myself. For instance at the end of half an hour or a page I count up a word tally and it gives me an absurd sense of satisfaction; to know at the end of the day I’ve done 1,000 or 2,000 words and how encouraging this is for me.

Aside from the mess, how fluent I can be when I’m working well and how tentative and trembly I can be when it’s not moving necessarily the way I want it to move. And there’s the awful moment when you’ve done too much writing the day before and you can tell the writing gets faster and faster and faster towards 4 o’clock and then you stop and look back the next day and think – of course I should have stopped at lunchtime, because the last three hours were rubbish! Then there’s the great lines through it. There are also the moments you re-trace your life and I rather like that.

Playing by the book: What will you do with all the space created by gifting your archive to Seven Stories?

Michael Morpurgo: Fill it up! It’s already filling up with new manuscripts and other things. Don’t you find that at home when you want to clear a room, you just clear it up for it to fill with other stuff? But the great thing about this is that now it will serve a useful purpose. It really will be useful. There will be some people down the line who will want to know how this particular writer worked out why he would write that story and how he set about it. And I love that – I love that people might have an insight into how that happened, especially when you aren’t around to tell them.

My thanks go to Michael for his generosity in answering my questions and also to Damien Wootten for the photographs from Seven Stories today.

You know how you can climb up the ladder at the top of the Magic Faraway Tree into magical lands, often those which match your wildest dreams? I’ve just spent 23 hours in my own magical treetop land, a place packed with more books than I think I’ve ever seen in such a short space of time and the good news is, I wasn’t imagining it; it was REAL!

Hay-on-Wye is a small town on the border of England and Wales and whilst its resident population is under 2000, it has over 20 bookshops, a library and one of the two biggest book festivals in the UK, bringing in over 80,000 visitors for a week in late May/early June each year.

Here are some of the wonderful bookshops we visited:

1. The Children’s Bookshop

The Children’s Bookshop

The Children’s Bookshop would be my first recommendation for anyone looking for children’s books which they actually want to read themselves or give to children. Whilst the stock is all second-hand (as is the case in most Hay bookshops), the books here are not primarily collectors items selling for £££. Rather they are simply older books in good condition, many for £1 / £2 / £3.

2. Rose’s Books

Stella and Rose’s bookshop is a specialist children’s bookshop, ideal for collectors

To survive in a town with so many others, most bookshops have carved out a specific niche for themselves. Rose’s specialises in collectible, rare and out of print children’s books and is full of very, very beautiful books. Whilst children are allowed in the bookshop, this is really a place for adult collectors with a bigger budget than most parents buying simply for their kids’ enjoyment.

3. Hay Cinema Bookshop

Hay Cinema Bookshop (a vast shop with books on almost every subject, and most definitely not just film!)

We nearly walked past this bookshop as I thought it might be dedicated only to film books, but how wrong I was. This place is VAST and has books on every conceivable subject. Remaindered books mingle alongside second-hand books, and there’s also a specialist section containing rare and collectible books.

4. Open air shelves in the Castle grounds

The open air Castle Bookshop

Hay is a very picturesque village, with narrow winding roads and a ruined castle at its heart. There are two sets of open air bookshelves in the castle ground which you can peruse as you picnic.

5. Only for the brave

You can guess what sort of books you might find in here…

6. Richard Booth’s Bookshop

Booths, said by some to be the best bookshop in Hay.

Richard Booth is credited with having started the book revolution in Hay, and he continues to play a significant role in the town running a cafe and a cinema alongside this beautiful bookshop. The children’s section isn’t enormous, though it does mix new books alongside second-hand books, so if you are looking for more recent publications this is a good place to head.

7. Addyman Books

Whilst of course the two specialist children’s bookshops were real delights for me, perhaps my favourite bookshop in Hay was Addyman Books. With a very wide ranging collection of books, including the best selection of children’s books I found outside the two dedicated children’s bookshops, Addyman’s is enormous fun to explore not least because of its themed rooms with interesting and unusual décor.

8. Broad Street Book Centre

Broad Street Book Centre had the best selection of children’s non-fiction I found anywhere in Hay.

9. Greenway’s Corner Bookshop

Tucked down a little alleyway Greenway’s has only a small children’s section but it will always have a special place in our hearts as it was actually the first bookshop we visited when we arrived in Hay. M was especially delighted as she found one of the books in the Dune series (her current passion).

10. The Poetry Bookshop

My only disappointment in Hay. But that’s only because it was on my “target list” but by the time we got there it was shut (5pm) so we didn’t manage to get inside.

Hay is lucky to have its own library as well as all these bookshops. I do wonder what it is like to be a librarian here!

Another library nearby which is very definitely worth visiting is Hereford Cathedral’s Chained Library.

Photo: Rosemary Firman. Click to go to the source.

Housing many medieval manuscripts (and next door to the incredible Mappa Mundi) this is a powerful space for reflecting on the value, beauty and longevity of books. It’s part of a great exhibition in the Cathedral and whilst it is about 20 miles from Hay (easily reached by public transport), it should be on any book lover’s itinerary.

For more photos from my time in Hay, head on over to Playing by the Book’s Facebook page.

What’s been your favourite ever bookish destination?

Seven Stories is the UK’s “National Centre for Children’s Books” and has as its mission to save, share and celebrate Britain’s rich literary heritage for children.

It is part archive, part exhibition space, part playground, and it all adds up to something very special indeed.

Today it is celebrating its 10th birthday, and last weekend I was lucky enough to spend two days there revelling in its delights. I cannot recommend it highly enough; from its engaging exhibitions (fascinating for all; the littlest of children to the greyest haired grown-ups), to its opportunities to play and be inspired by the best of children’s books and book illustration (whether through art and craft activities, role play or dressing up), via its tremendous bookshop and lovely location, Seven Stories is the ultimate destination for anyone in the UK if you want to feed your imagination with the very best of words and pictures.

Located just outside the centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Seven Stories is housed in a former grain and flour warehouse (yes, with seven storeys) with a tremendous riverside setting.

Seven Stories is the building in the centre of this picture, with the boat moored outside the largest windows.

The 19th century industrial buildings in the neighbourhood make the setting very atmospheric.

The riverside setting for Seven Stories makes for a great area to explore.

The front entrance to Seven Stories.

Seven Stories has three main exhibition spaces and the first one we headed off to explore was Painting with Rainbows, packed with original illustrations and opportunities to explore the stories by Michael Foreman.

Foreman’s artwork when seen in real life simply sings off the page. Even though I know his work well, I was still taken aback by the vibrancy of his colours. It was such a treat to see some of my favourite illustrations of his up close and personal.

Lots of opportunity for play inspired by the illustrations on display are included throughout all the exhibitions, whether it’s playing at rock pooling alongside reading Foreman’s One World, or hiding under a replica Andersen shelter with a copy of War Boy.

Multiple copies of books and lots of seating space abound so there’s every opportunity for curling up with a good book either on your own or with a child or two in your lap!

Next up was Rhyme around the World, showcasing the artwork from the stunning poetry anthology Over the Hills and Far Away – A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes from Around the World alongside much of the original artwork from the classic poetry anthology Lavender’s Blue compiled by Kathleen Lines, illustrated by Harold Jones.

A third exhibition space explored the different illustrators who have worked on Paddington Bear over the more than 50 years that Michael Bond has been telling the marmalade loving bear’s stories, but it was the attic space which most excited my children.

Huge cut-out illustrations by Jim Kay of Diagon Alley lined one long wall in this brilliant performance space. The images are taken from the new fully illustrated, non-abridged version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone which will be published in October.

There were also plenty of Hogwarts school uniforms to dress up in and this simplest of activities really captured my kids’ imagination.

The attic is used for live storytelling and theatre productions, all free as part of your entry ticket. The two shows we saw whilst there, including one inspired by Chris Haughton’s Shh! We Have a Plan were excellent. There’s also an ongoing programme of author and illustrator visits throughout the year – in the next few weeks Jonny Duddle, Derek Landy, Sarah Crossan and Patrick Ness are amongst those you can go and hear.

WHEN (not if, but when) you make your visit to Seven Stories pack your back (and wallet) in such a way that you can make the most of their fabulous bookshop, which is especially strong on picture books.

The bookshop has plenty of space for browsing and also contains a cafe. You can visit the cafe and the bookshop without having to visit the rest of Seven Stories.

There were many more lovely details that made Seven Stories special, from the design of the rubbish bins, to the mural on the cafe wall and more.

A small part of the mural on the cafe wall

Enjoying one of the areas dedicated to simply sitting down with a good book!

In a time when libraries are being closed and museum and arts funding is under constant threat it is a special joy to see Seven Stories full of life and energy. It’s a gem of a museum and family-friendly space, with imaginative curation and design, thoughtful and engaging staff eager to talk about stories and the sort of richness within its wall that will inspire long after you’ve left.

Here’s to you, Seven Stories! Wishing you a very happy 10th birthday, and looking forward to the next 10 years of exciting exhibitions and events!

Michael Foreman is someone rather special.

He’s often described as a “national institution”, with a 50 year back catalogue of tremendous books for children and young people. I, however, think this is perhaps a little too staid a description for someone who has such sparkle in his eyes and who gently radiates a real sense of joie de vivre, hopefulness, and energy when you hear him speak about his work. Foreman may have turned 77 earlier this year, but his illustration and storytelling continues to innovate and be full of forward looking optimism, alongside the beauty and wonder which was there from the beginning.

Twice a winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, once in 1982 for the anthology “Long Neck and Thunder Foot -Sleeping Beauty and other favourite fairy tales” and then again in 1989 for War Boy: A Country Childhood, my own introduction to Foreman’s books as a child was through the eyes of a dinosaur and a panda: The copies from my 1970s childhood of Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish and “Panda’s Puzzle” are still much loved, not least by my own children.

I’m not a great one for the cult of celebrity, but I’m humbled and excited beyond measure to bring you today an interview with Michael Foreman, an author and illustrator whose stories have become embedded in my life, bringing it richness and – in both a literal and metaphorical sense – lasting colour.

Playing by the book: War Game, War Boy and After the War was Over are gifts to the interviewer. Your childhood home, life and extended family play an enormously important role in your work it seems to me. There’s a real grounding in a location and time that echoes through your work. And yet, alongside this inward reflection, there’s a big, wide-open view onto the wider world – a curiosity about our planet, a passion for travel, a keen interest in sharing this wider world with us your readers, a passion just as strong as for seasides, Suffolk and your family. How has this ability to look generously in both directions come about do you think? I’ve wondered if it has something to do with the way the world came to you during the war, with soldiers and POWs from all over passing through your home village.

Michael Foreman: Absolutely, yes. Family has been enormously important to me. The connections between generations – a sense of Time and Place. The questions my children have asked over the years – heightened now that we have new grandchildren – another rich source of stories.

Playing by the book: A wonderful animation was made of War Game and I understand there were plans for animated versions of War Boy and After the War too. What happened to these plans?

Michael Foreman: Nothing as yet, unfortunately. They are still awaiting funding.

Playing by the book: I do hope they get funded – I think they have such great potential. Having worked on animated films yourself in Denmark, what was the experience like for you to see one of your books re-imagined in another medium? (This stands for both War Game and The General, although I haven’t been able to track down a copy of the latter’s animation).

Michael Foreman: I was, of course, delighted that someone thought enough of the books to devote time and expertise to give my stories another life.

Playing by the book: These three books are all in one way or another about or inspired by your own family. Have you done any genealogical research further back in time, before your uncles’ generation?

Michael Foreman: One of my nephews has done quite a bit of research but it really just unearths earlier generations of fisher-folk.

Playing by the book: How would you feel if the makers of ‘Who do you think you are?’ approached you? Would you consider writing an up-to-date autobiography, including some of the more curious aspects of your career as a writer and illustrator? I’m sure there are some interesting stories to tell and scenes to paint from having worked at Playboy, with JG Ballard at Ambit magazine, for the police drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men and even working in the education/outreach department of Chelsea football club!

Michael Foreman: In October, Pavilion Books are publishing a retrospective view of many of the books I have done for them. War Boy, War Game, etc plus collaborations with Terry Jones and Michael Morpurgo, Edna O’Brien, Madhur Jaffrey, etc and classics like ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘The Wind in the Willows,’ and two collections of Fairy Tales. The book, ‘A Life in Pictures’ also touches on some of my travels and working for magazines around the world.

Playing by the book: In the forthcoming exhibition at Seven Stories I understand there will be some sort of re-creation of your studio. Can you share a little bit about your favourite materials to work with – what sort of paper you like (what paper is good for different projects), what pencils and watercolours are your favourite for studio work, or for sketching on location? What is your top tip for anyone (but particularly children) who want to try out watercolour painting?

Michael Foreman: I am reluctant to give tips to anyone – I feel it is important to be able to draw well – but, I’m not sure it’s taught in Art Schools these days.

Liquorice Comforts – suck them and then use them as face paints! (It really works – I tried it out as research for this interview!)

Playing by the book: Over time it seems to me you’ve used some unusual art materials – here those liquorice comforts pop up again, and I’d be more than game for seeing if they still make great face paint, or can even be used on paper. Then there’s the biscuit tin paper linings you used as a child for drawing on, and I’ve also read you’ve used coffee grounds to create certain effects in your paintings. What other unusual art materials have you enjoyed / do you enjoy using?

Michael Foreman: I often use water colours because it allows the whiteness of the paper to shine through and illuminate the colours. Build up the colour from the back, layer upon layer. Sometimes the colours flow into one another, surprising you, sometimes disastrously, sometimes wonderfully. Go with the flow. You can always revert to a bit of acrylic to paint out mistakes which don’t work.

A spread from Michael Foreman’s Two Giants, published by Walker Books

In some of my early books, I used some collage – ‘The Two Giants’ and ‘War and Peas’ and, in ‘Mia’s Story’ I used scrap paper picked up from a rubbish dump in Santiago in Chile.

Two illustrations by Michael Foreman from Alan Garner’s The Stone Book

Alan Garner’s ‘Stone Book’ quartet, I illustrated with etchings.

An illustration for ‘The Day the Sun Hid’, in the anthology “Michael Foreman’s World of Fairy Tales”, published by Red Fox.

Playing by the book: Although blue is something of a signature colour for you, I think the choice of “Under the Rainbow” as a title for your new exhibition is wonderfully apt, for your use of the whole spectrum of colours is something very special (a personal favourite is the image from The Day the Sun Hid, where tremendous blues and greys are offset by rainbow coloured weaving in the traditional clothing of the people of Sikkim). With this in mind, I wanted to ask you something about your many illustrations which are reproduced in greyscale, often illustrating longer novels (sometimes by Michael Morpurgo). Are these created in greys, or simply reproduced this way? When you know an illustration is going to be reproduced using greyscale, do you approach it in a different way to when it will be printed full colour? For example, do you make more use of pencil lines?

Michael Foreman: When working in black and white, the line becomes more important. Sometimes, I use only line, building up the form by the traditional method of cross-hatching. Usually, I use pen and black water colour wash. Sometimes a book illustrated in full colour is reprinted later in paperback in grey scale. This can be with disappointing results as the paper used is often inferior to that used for colour printing and some of the strength of contrast can be lost. When setting out to illustrate in grey scale, you can make sure the contrast is strong enough to compensate for any loss in the printing.

Excerpt from 100 Great Children’s Picture Books by Martin Salisbury, published by Laurence King

Playing by the book: In the recently published 100 Great Children’s Picture Books, Martin Salisbury chose your book “The General”, describing it as one of your “finest achievements”. Whilst a first book will always have a special place in any illustrator’s heart, is it the one book of your own you would pick above all others? (I know asking anyone to choose their favourite book is somewhat unfair; here I am curious to see, from an illustration point of view which book(s) you are especially proud of, particularly challenged you, changed you in some way).

Michael Foreman: I didn’t know Martin Salisbury had described my first book, ‘The General’ as one of my ‘finest achievements.’ Flattering, but does this mean he thinks I haven’t got any better in 50 years?

I wouldn’t want to pick a ‘best book,’ but a favourite would be ‘War Boy’ because it is about my mum and people I love. I am pleased that ‘Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish’ has lasted so long, and ‘A Child’s Garden’ and Michael Morpurgo’s ‘The Mozart Question’ are among my favourites, and were very moving to do.

Playing by the book: And finally… Having watched lots of videos of you, seen you talk about your work, and reading between the lines in your books, you come across as an optimistic person, a glass-half full type (perhaps because of your early brush with death in the form of a near miss with an incendiary bomb?). In all the films I’ve seen, you’ve a sparkle in your eye and a glint of something quite playful (how you talk about crawling between old ladies’ legs in your Mother’s shop, or the delight and shock in Miss West’s periwinkle long drawers). In a day and age where there is much to depress us, especially when we consider conflict and the environment, and our lack of empathy for others – all themes in your forthcoming Seven Stories exhibition – how do you keep the sparkle? How can we help ourselves and our children keep believing in better, keep ourselves hopeful? What would you write on the Tree of Hope which I understand is going to be a central feature to which all exhibition visitors will be invited to contribute?

Michael Foreman: Yes, surviving the bomb at the age of three did give me a perspective on life. I try to appreciate every moment.

The world is full of ideas and people are full of stories and some stories demand to be told, need to be shared. I have been so fortunate to be given the opportunity to share some of my hopes and dreams with children. We must give our children endless hope and love so that they can be at peace with each other and that they can make their world a happy place.

With regard to my message on the Tree of Hope, my wish would be that the seeds from this tree of hope spread far and wide.

I’m extremely grateful to Michael for taking the time to answer my questions. The interview was carried out in celebration of ‘Under the Rainbow’ – a new exhibition opening at Seven Stories, the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books on the 19th of July.

Through the exhibition Michael’s books are used to ask readers to consider the consequences of conflict, the fragility of our environment and the importance of friendship, empathy and tolerance through his insightful storytelling and beautiful illustrations. Families will be invited to add to the ‘Tree of Hope’ with messages for the future; explore stories of war and peace through War Boy, War Game, The General and Ali Pasha, build and play in a multi-sensory environment inspired by Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish and One World, and be inspired by Michael’s creative process in his artist’s studio with his own personal artefacts.

I shall be visiting the exhibition in mid August and will report back! I really can’t wait

If you’d like to receive all my posts from this blog please sign up by inputting your email address in the box below:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Last weekend saw the first birthday of the book group I run for 8-12 year olds at the local public library. On Saturday we celebrated with lots of games – book spine poetry and book charades (where titles had to be those of books we had read or discussed during the past year in book group) causing the most laughter. There were also lots of bookish treats:

On Monday we had an amazing trip to a local arts festival where we saw Michael Morpurgo retell his book The Mozart Question, accompanied by a fabulous set of musicians who played music matching the storyline. The show was wonderful, powerful and moving and Michael very generously made time for the children in my book group to interview him over a slice or two of birthday cake – what better first birthday present could there be?

Members of the book group presented Michael with a copy of the anthology they’ve written this year, and which they have been selling to family and friends to raise money for Michael’s charity Farms For City Children. They had each practised their “author signature” and signed the anthology. It was a proud moment to see it in Michael’s hands!

Before the fun and games on Saturday we spend some time preparing for our interview with Michael by reading lots of past interviews with him, highlighting things we found interesting and making a note of questions that we couldn’t find answers for. I found this a really effective way of encouraging the group to think of questions more unusual than the ones that so often arise when authors do a Q&A with children, such as “Why did you become a writer?” or “What tips do you have for aspiring authors?”.

Looking back over the year, it’s a delight to see how the book group as grown. Initially it was a determined, constructive response to my eldest being bullied at school for being a bookworm, and out of that stressful situation something lovely has blossomed. I’ve been supported along the way by many people and I’m really grateful to them all, especially the authors and illustrators with whom the book group has tweeted and the library staff who have helped with book reservations.

Earlier this week I was contacted by a blog reader who is spending a few weeks in the UK and wanted some advice about the children’s literature highlights she shouldn’t miss whilst in the country. This got me thinking about dream places to stay for all of us who love to read.

Recently a central London Waterstones bookshop offered one lucky reader the chance to spend a night amongst its bookshelves, inspired by the case of a tourist who accidentally got locked in the store last month. Unfortunately it was a one-off opportunity to sleep in the bookshop, but here are 12 more places you can stay in on holiday and read to your heart’s content (and one place that might inspire you to never leave home at all..).

ReadingLasses in Wigtown

Photo: Elliott Brown on Flickr

Gladstone’s Library

The Ceilidh Place

Stay above a bookshop in County Kerry, Ireland.

Photo: zoetnet on Flickr

And if none of the above is quite what you are looking for, take inspiration from Michael Seidenberg’s apartment on the Upper East Side and transform your own home into a bookshop. That way you’ll always be able to sleep surrounded by books:

There’s No Place Like Here: Brazenhead Books from Etsy on Vimeo.

Summer holidays are nearly upon us here in the UK and so I’ve compiled a set of places to visit with the family all of which have a children’s literature link.

Last week I treated myself to an morning exploring the Island of Berk and reacquainting myself with just how one goes about training a dragon by visiting Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s A Viking’s Guide to Deadly Dragons with Cressida Cowell

The exhibition originated at the marvellous Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books and is now slowly touring the UK (in 2015 it will be in the National Museums, Northern Ireland and The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, whilst in 2016 it will visit Norwich Castle Museum and Tullie House, Carlisle).

Based around Cressida Cowell’s How to Train your Dragon series, the exhibition is packed with original illustrations, both draft drawings and finished artwork, notebooks and video interviews, audio clips and [you have been warned!] …dragons.

There’s a viking long boat you can climb in and sail away on, there’s a camp fire for telling stories around, there’s dressing up and there are books you can just sit and enjoy reading.

The dragons are very keen to be played with, though some are scarier than others!

I think kids will love seeing some of Cressida’s school work – a descriptive piece she wrote with comments from her teacher on how to improve it!

I love showing kids how even very successful authors “uplevel” (to use my girls’ schools’ favourite bit of literacy jargon) their work; it’s completely normal to revise, edit and improve. That’s why this little note caught my eye:

I was delighted to see that some dragons love reading!

Something about these little girl vikings really caught my eye:

The exhibition has a great mix of open space – allowing kids to rush around playing with the dragons and climbing aboard the long boat – and fascinating artwork and notes from the author that are worth spending time really looking at closely. If you don’t know the books, you’ll get a great flavour of them and the kids will still be able to enjoy the exhibition because there are plenty of things to do, including lots of buttons to press. If you DO know the books, it is really exciting to see the art work and something of the development of Cowell’s ideas. It’s also pretty fun to cuddle the dragons!

Snuck in between information on Dragonese and the Hooligan Initiation Programme there’s also some factual background to the vikings which was nice to see. There’s a special section devoted to the How to Train Your Dragon films and my plan is to take the girls to the exhibition one morning during the summer holidays and then to the film in the afternoon Would you like to join us?

The exhibition is FREE and runs till August 30th. It’s well set up for people with hearing impairment, with all the videos either signed or subtitled. The cafe in the museum is one of the best museum cafes I know and the rest of the museum is really well geared up for families, with lots of hands-on activities in every space.

Full details: http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/events/vikings-dragons/

Are there any children’s book themed exhibitions on near you in your part of the world? Please do let me know – even if I can’t visit them, I’d love to know about them!

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!

As a final Last Hurrah of the Summer Holiday, M, J and I spent Saturday gone in the wonderfully inspiring Discover Centre in London. Part soft play centre, part adventure playground, part kids’ bookshop, part interactive kids “museum” with buttons to press, ropes to pull, and costumes to dress up in, Discover defies easy description. But the glue that binds all these different aspects together is stories, and in particular telling and playing stories together.

So you can imagine how we at Playing by the book were rather excited to be there!

Various themed spaces include props to encourage creative play, and everywhere there are baskets crammed with books. You can sit and read, run about and play, explore, dance, and literally let your imagination run riot.

We’d gone there to meet up with some fellow children’s book lovers: Read It Daddy, Polly from The Little Wooden Horse, Helen from Capptivated Kids, and Elli from Taking Words for a Stroll. We were truly a babble of book bloggers – in seventh heaven as our kids played wonderfully well together and we got to let down our hair a little too.

There’s an amazing playground outside at Discover – exactly what all playgrounds should be like – with climbing frames and slides begging for stories to be told about them. Not just objects to burn up energy on, but characters in adventures to be played out. With plenty of nooks and crannies, outdoor musical instruments, shady spots and sun traps, why can’t all play spaces be this imaginative?

As well as creating themed play spaces (some are permanent, whilst others change during the year), Discover hosts lots of visits by authors and illustrators, and none other than Alex T Smith, the brilliant creator of the Claude books (absolutely perfect for newly fluent readers, just moving into chapter books), as well as several gorgeous picture books including Primrose, Ella and Egg, was holding a session whilst we were there.

Alex made me cry with the beautiful stories of how his Grandpa used to write stories for Alex, about what Alex’s toys got up to when Alex was at school. What a great inspiration! Then we all had lots of fun learning how to draw Claude, with Alex revealing several Top Illustrator Tips along the way.

Alex was brilliant with the large crowd of kids and adults; if you get the chance to see him live, grab it with both hands!

I left really wishing that Discover could replicate itself across the land. Libraries, soft play centres, more conventional museums wanting to attract kids, councils thinking about creating public play areas could all learn a lot from Discover.

Original artwork from The Tiger Who Came to Tea and other books by Judith Kerr are on display at this retrospective we were lucky enough to visit at the start of the holidays.

The first section of the exhibition features several of Judith Kerr’s early childhood drawings, which Kerr’s mother carefully brought with the family on their flight from Germany in the 1930s. It’s amazing that they’ve survived.

A picture by Kerr, aged 9, titled Fairground at Harvest Festival

This part of exhibition in fact explores Kerr’s childhood and her experiences of having to escape Germany as Hitler came to power. We read about how it felt for Kerr to be a refugee in Switzerland, then France before finally settling in London in 1936.

Our favourite corner in the exhibition space was that inhabited by the life-size tiger in Sophie’s kitchen.

The kids adored this role play area. My only slight sadness was there were no empty beer bottles!

In the next part of the exhibtion we had lots of fun curling up and reading inside Mog’s cosy basket.

Something new I learned from the exhibition is that Kerr has designed wallpaper and fabrics.

Textile design by Judith Kerr, 1950s

Wallpaper designed by Kerr

We had a great day quite literally playing by the book: I can highly recommend this exhibition if you’re anywhere near the West Midlands. It runs till 29 September and is free. You can find full details 5 Comments on A Judith Kerr Retrospective at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, last added: 8/6/2012