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You don't think the characters from the Summer Reading Challenge Mythical Maze are shut up in a cupboard during the winter, do you? No no, they're off having adventures, in and out of the library. The dragon's currently tormenting knights.

If you like colouring, you can print this out as a PDF to colour! Tweet me a photo, I'd love to see it. :)



In other news: Philip Reeve has blogged about his next big book, RAILHEAD. (No, not the book with me, the other one, without pictures.) It's going to be SO amazing.

Also, if you are aged 14-18 and love to write, or know someone that age who does, the BBC is running the BBC Young Writers' Award from today, with a deadline of 25 Feb. More details over on the Booktrust website. Also have a little look at Booktrust's author-recommendation Advent Calender, it's good fun. (Today's Laura Dockrill day.)

So the results are in! The winner of this year's Medusa Malarky Story Starter competition is... Madam Kangaroo Nuggets! For the Summer Reading Challenge, I was asked to begin a story in comics format, and people could continue the story either in comics form or with words only.

Here's how the story started:



And you can read her version of the rest of of the story here!
. . .
“The giant earwigs from mars to invade planet earth, of course!” replied Saul. “We certainly don’t want that to happen, do we Medusa?” Medusa looked shocked, this was the second time giant earwigs had invaded planet earth in her entire life. And it certainly was not a nice experience. Her father had saved earth last time, now it was her turn. “Well get on with it” hissed Sue, and Medusa ran to her space rocket (every normal person has a space rocket in their back garden, don’t they?). She slipped on her space suit and held her breath “3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!!!” And they shot up into the air, whooshing past the clouds, speeding past the moon and heading for mars. “Wow! This is amazing!” shouted Sarah, who had never been inside the rocket before, “I agree!” replied Stephan. “We are going to land soon” said Medusa joyfully. And after a short wait that is exactly what they did, land on mars. “I feel sick” complained Simon. “Look out below!” And Simon vomited over all the other snakes. “Come on! We have got no time to lose!” exclaimed Medusa. So they jumped off the rocket and started looking for the giant earwigs. They searched and they searched until eventually, Sarah whispered: “They are over there”. Medusa crept up to them and shouted: “You will never get the chance to invade earth!”
“Oh yes we will” Ethan boomed back.
“You will not” replied Medusa, and immediately ran up to Ethan “Bite snakes, bite!” ordered Medusa “And do the same to the rest of them”.

10 minutes later Ethan, Edith, Emil, Elliott and Edna were all rolling round on the floor, howling with pain. “Now I must wave you all goodbye” announced Medusa. And with that, she jumped off mars, pushed the planet and it rolled off into the galaxy. “Goodbye!” Medusa and her snakes shouted “Goodbye”.
. . .

I thought this story had the most energy, and conjured up the most interesting pictures in my own head. The vomiting snake made me laugh! And the thought of Medusa running up to the giant earwigs, commanding her hair to 'Bite snakes, bite!' was a good image. My only criticism was that it would have been good to explain a bit more clearly which character was attached to which name; I understood that they were snakes and earwigs from the context, but that could have been tightened up a bit. I would love to find out what the giant earwigs from Mars look like; this could be adapted into a great comic strip. Congrats, Madame Kangaroo Nuggets!

Now, I was actually really hoping a comic would win, because I love comics and I know it's more challenging to make a really convincing comic. There were several comics that had good elements in the shortlist I was given, but none of them really supplied a middle and an ending to the story in a way that was clear and understandable without someone standing there explaining it.

I was so, so, SO tempted to award the prize to this comic by Countess Lacey Quagmire , because the images and some of the details had me in hysterics:




Ha ha! You could make fabulous t-shirts out of some of these panels. The floating Farting Unicorn! The Friendship Snake! The drawing and the colouring is pretty awesome. ...But! After consultation with the team and some agonising, we decided that no matter how mad a comic is, and how beautiful the artwork, the story still needs to make some sort of sense. How do we move from Medusa declaring herself to be a talent scout to them suddenly being in front of a building with MARS written on it? And what is the building in the second-to-last panel? These are all things I very much want to know!

I want to keep my eye on this comics creator and say to her, you show a LOT of potential! Keep studying comics and storytelling, and work on making them as clear and understandable as possible, without losing any of your zany details and wonderful sense of fun!

I've heard so many wonderful things about this year's Summer Reading Challenge, and SO many people took part! I got this message from the kids at Dewsbury Library in Kirklees, who were having a party to celebrate earning this year's medals:



So right here from the studio in London where I make my books, I've made a message back! It's for Kirklees and ALL the people who took part in the Summer Reading Challenge: readers, librarians, volunteers, family members, sponsors... probably even more people were involved than that. Thank you!



And here's the slightly fancier video we made at Leith Library, if you want to see that, too. :)

Here's the video of our Summer Reading Challenge visit to Leith Library! Philip Reeve came along and made a very elegant flip-chart stand. I love it when the boy says, At first I thought, wow, she’s posh! She had like, that bird in her hair, and fancy blue ribbon… and a dress with lipstick on it… and it was like, really posh.

Philip noted that support for Scottish independence has soared since our visit; I hope we weren't a contributing factor...



Thanks again to the kids at Leith Library who helped me come up with the Mythical Maze characters on my previous visit, and to the library team, Edinburgh City Libraries, The Reading Agency, and Tesco Bank Community for organising the day's event.

In other news, after my meeting at Scholastic yesterday, I stopped into Foyles on Charing Cross Road and found this book looking up at me from the display table. One of my all-time favourite illustrators that I'm always going on about, David Roberts, and... hats! Oh my word, you guys!!! Why didn't no one tell me about this book??



David drew his inspiration for the Happy Birthday Madame Chapeau illustrations from fashion editor Isabella Blow, and milliners Philip Treacy (spot the Princess Beatrice hat!, Stephen Jones, and Elsa Schiaparelli (note the shoe-on-the-head hat). And David has a little cameo appearance on this spread, too!



Let's zoom in a bit to read the text:



The book's writer, Andrea Beaty, and I just started following each other on Twitter, so I went and explored her website and there are treasures to be found! Check out this wonderful video of Philip Treacy making a hat! I was totally riveted.



David worked as a milliner, and you can tell, in the sculptural way he draws his figures and their patterns. I put together my hats with a bit of lick and spit - I don't really know what I'm doing - but I often daydream of taking a year out of publishing to work as an apprentice for Philip Treacy, with access to all that great kit. I don't generally get excited about the whole fashion industry (and its emphasis on being super-thin), but I make a huge exception for hats, which can be worn by anyone. Andrea's website also has some examples of hats that you can make yourself:



Hat lovers and fashionistas around the world, you're going to adore this book. You can follow Andrea on Twitter as (@andreabeaty but sadly, David Roberts is not on Twitter. (He's too busy pumping out a prodigious amount of incredible work. How does he DO it??!)

This year Edinburgh Book Festival was OUT OF THIS WORLD!



My literary co-pilot Philip Reeve and I had been putting together a Cakes in Space stage show and this was our first full-on performance. (Since Reeve lives on Dartmoor and I'm in London, we only had one other chance to practice, at Nine Worlds a couple weeks before Edinburgh.) And just as we were leaving for Scotland, this fabulous animated Cakes in Space trailer popped up, made by Ed Beck & David Mead from MB Films:



Our book features a spaceship food machine called the NOM-O-TRON, so we brought along a smaller, portable version:



And I showed everyone how to draw Pilbeam the robot and a killer cake! Here's one of the drawings, tweeted in by @Lorna_May_D:



I still can't quite get over seeing Reeve in streaky blue hair and lipstick.



And we even got our portraits shot by festival photographer Chris Close. We were the only authors he took into his special anti-gravity booth. Thanks, Chris!





When Stuart and I first arrived at the book festival, I raced around looking at all the other photos... and spotted some friendly faces! Here's Philip Ardagh (who works with Axel Sheffler on his The Grunts books; Axel draws Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo - that's the link to the little chappie on his shoulder - and Babette Cole, with characters from her new James Rabbit and the Giggleberries book.



And while I was there, Babette drew me a birthday picture! Thank you, Babette! :D She made sure I paid special attention to the space pants.



I did quite a lot of costume changes, and Stuart was wonderful about helping me with them, even if he thought I was slightly nuts.



On the Thursday, I had a full day of Outreach Events in Fife. The festival organises these so schools and libraries outside of central Edinburgh can still take part in the festival. Here I am in the festival Yurt, very early in the morning, practicing my There's a Shark in the Bath song. I first sang it at the Hay Festival and I was super-nervous, but I'm a bit more confident about it now.



I took those sharks to Kirkcaldy West Primary School. They were great fun, that lot! And we even got our pictures in the local paper. (Thanks for tweeting that, Damon Herd!)



My assistants and I got to have lunch at the beautiful new Kirkcaldy Galleries:



The Schools Outreach is very strict about not taking photos in the schools, so I only got one. But it's of the excellent team who took me around on the day: Outreach coordinators Sarah Bingham, Grainne Crawford and Rona Neilson and a tag-along Jampire. Thanks so much, team!



One of the challenges of Edinburgh Book Fest is trying to do a few other things outside the book festival. But this time Stuart and I made a point of going to see our friend Emma Vieceli acting at The Fringe festival, in a play called Parade. She did a great job! Emma now makes comics, but she started out as a children's telly presenter and she's recorded music, and it's fun seeing her go back to her roots.



Ah, here's Emma (second from right)! Together with comics people Hannah Berry, Pat Mills and their partners:



On the way to Emma's play, Stuart spotted my Summer Reading Challenge banner in the front window of the new Edinburgh Central Children's Library, together with two of Philip Reeve's three GOBLINS books. Cool!



Another fun thing about Edinburgh is going out for publisher dinners and meet other authors who are published by the same team. Here's Philip, our excellent Oxford University Press publicist Keo Baxendine (who did a lot of our planning) and another of their writers, Wendy Meddour, whose 12-year-old daughter illustrates their Wendy Quill books. (Or maybe her daughter's older now, but still, pretty amazing.)



And hanging out in the Authors Yurt is fun, too. Everyone's sort of equal in there, so you can talk with anyone (and grab cake and whisky and other nice treats and meals). Look, it's Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman! While we were there, Malorie did an interview with a Sky reporter, quite rightly calling for more diversity in children's books, and got stuck with a very bad headline, which caused massive internet outrage, and quite a lot of abuse, too. But Malorie stuck by her guns, and all our colleagues rallied around her, and the whole thing made it much more clear just why we need more diversity in books. Not in a tick-the-box sort of way, but in a way that lots of different kinds of people can find other people like themselves in books. Patrick Ness talked on Twitter about how he couldn't find any books about gay people in his school library, and there aren't that many UK children's books with black people as the main characters. Here's Malorie's initial Sky interview, and a Guardian article about her response.



Here's Malorie's Summer Reading Challenge video:



More exciting encounters: it's Di Cameron from Oxford's Story Museum, comics artist Adam Murphy in The Phoenix Comic), comics colourist Lisa Murphy, Cameron Jr and comics artist Neill Cameron! Adam and Neill both have new books out with The Phoenix Comic and David Ficking books, compilations of their Phoenix work: Corpse Talk by Adam and How to Make Awesome Comics by Neill. Lisa did quite a lot of the colouring for Adam, and has also coloured for my studio mate Gary Northfield (Gary's Garden) when he was pressed for time.



Philip and I were hugely flattered that Geraldine McCaughrean came to our event! Geraldine's been a big influence on Philip, and her book The White Darkness is one of my all-time faves. Geraldine's on Twitter now: you can follow her: @GMcCaughrean.



Philip and I did two Cakes in Space events, one for schools and one for the general public. During the schools event, festival sketcher Morag Edward drew us! She did a great job, but I don't think we made it easy for her: "You moved around a lot!"



COSTUME CHANGE!



Ha ha, I got this week at Afflecks Palace in Manchester during an earlier festival, and I love the name of it: Skyscraper Blond.



Head of Marketing and Publicity Elaine McQuade from Oxford University Press came with Philip and me to Wester Hailes Library to do another Outreach event, this time featuring Oliver and the Seawigs. I'm really getting into this wig thing. My bird thought Elaine was rather splendid and cuddled up. One of the librarians had a phobia of feathers, so I had to put away my fluffy fan.



We had a great time at Wester Hailes, drawing Sea Monkeys with everyone and singing the EEP song, but I didn't get any photos. Our next stop was Leith Library, where we were helping them with their Summer Reading Challenge final medal ceremony. First I sang an opera aria...


Photo by Jeff Holmes

(No, not really.) If you've been following my blog, you'll have seen that MYTHICAL MAZE theme of this year's Summer Reading Challenge has been a big part of my lasts few months. I got to be the official illustrator, and when I first took on the job, I met with kids at Leith Library and got their ideas and feedback on some of the characters. So it was great coming full circle and hearing how they'd enjoyed the challenge, and congratulating them for reading their six books.


Photo by Jeff Holmes

We tried to slide the medals on gracefully and not get them stuck on anyone's ears. It's a tricky task.


Photo by Jeff Holmes

Philip and I read a bit from our Oliver and the Seawigs, the myth we've created, and I talked with the kids a bit about myth making. There's no way to say your characters will be remembered thousands of years from now, like Medusa or the Minotaur, but if you do your best, you never know!


Photo by Jeff Holmes

I led everyone in drawing Medusa, Edinburgh City Libraries' Simon Radcliffe said a few words, and our sponsor, Tesco Bank, took a big Summer Reading Challenge group photo.


Photo by Jeff Holmes

One of the fun things about this summer is the way so many kids and librarians have dressed up in mythical creature costumes, and the photographers took us outside for a few more cosplay shots:


Photo by Jeff Holmes

Whee! Thank you, Edinburgh! A huge thanks to the festival's Children & Education Programme Director Janet Smyth, and you can follow the festival on Twitter: @EdBookFest and see some other things that happened on the #EdBookFest hash tag.


Photo by Jeff Holmes

As much as I love book festivals, I find them exhausting, and I was very grateful that I didn't have to go straight back to the drawing desk (despite impending deadlines). Stuart and I took a couple more days to visit Glasgow Auntie, and she looked after us wonderfully. Here she is, having an intimate moment with a Jampire.



Glasgow Auntie took us to beautiful Troon. I had no idea Troon had such an amazing beach.



But jellyfish... JELLYFISH! We were glad we weren't swimming. Check out this alien creature that had washed up:



One last shot with lovely Stuart in the Troon sun.



Bye bye, Scotland, but just for now! If you're further south and still want to see our Cakes in Space performance, there are still a few spaces left for our Saturday morning family-friendly launch at Daunt Books Marylebone, central London on 13 Sept at 10:30am. Book your free ticket now! (You can come with kids or without, in space costume or not, it's up to you!) :)

Remember when I posted this 'How to Draw Anansi' sheet?



Well, the Summer Reading Challenge have put up a video from my studio where I draw it for you, and talk you through it! And I also give you a little look at the two books I have coming out this autumn: Cakes in Space with Philip Reeve and Jampires with David O'Connell.



Click here to read my earlier blog post about Anansi, and here to download the drawing sheet as a PDF. And don't forget, if you're age 12 or younger, there's still time to enter the Medusa Malarky comics competition! The final deadline is Sept 8th.



Still don't know about the Summer Reading Challenge? It's not too late to take part! Click here to find out more.

I've seen some great Silly Unicorns tweeted in after The Guardian posted my Summer Reading Challenge How-to-Draw guide. I'll post more later, but one of them inspired me to draw this:



Here's the original Silly Unicorn, on the left, that inspired me, tweeted by @carol_mcgovern in Ireland. She painted the lovely one on the right. But something about her daughter's block colouring and shapes really stuck with me.



And here's the budding artist, who's also done a There's a Shark in the Bath picture. She's on a roll!

Check out The Guardian gallery today! It features one of the characters nearly a million children around the country will have on their Summer Reading Challenge mythical maze poster, Silly Unicorn!



Grab a piece of paper and something to draw with and click over to The Guardian website. And if you get the chance, tweet a photo of your drawing with the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag. Grownups welcome, too!



It's been so fun seeing people dress up for the Summer Reading Challenge! Check out this Unicorn, tweeted by Cambridgeshire Libraries of staff member Jenna Lawrence. Love it!

Try your hand at drawing Anansi, one of the Mythical Maze characters in the Summer Reading Challenge! It's easy, if you do it step by step:



If you'd like to print it out for your library (or to use at home, or at work - adults can try it, too!), you can download a PDF here.



Some background: When I was planning out the Mythical Maze characters, some of them changed quite a bit from my original sketches. But not Anansi, I think I nailed him with my first drawing. I taped this bit of paper to the wall of my studio:



Anansi's an African trickster god, and the god of stories. When you think of spiders, you think of dusty corners and cobwebs. But I'd been reading a Telegraph article about men in the Congo who live in quite rough places, but take great pride in dressing very smartly. The basic philosophy of the Society of Elegant Persons of the Congo: to defy circumstance and live with joie de vivre. I liked the idea of making Anansi a very dapper chap. Thus, the yellow hat, cool glasses and spats.



I've heard storytellers tell tales of Anansi - he comes very much from an oral tradition of storytelling - but I can think of two books I've read about him. I grew up with Anansi the Spider, the picture book by Gerald McDermott, and much later I read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Two books couldn't be more different, but they're both inspired by the same mythical character, and I'm sure the two books (and newspaper article) inspired me.



But those are just two Anansi books, there must be lots more. Can you tell me about any other top Anansi books or comics? Leave a note in the comments if you know of one, a really good one!

Why not try writing your own Anansi story? What sort of tricksy adventures would your Anansi get up to? Can you use spiderwebs as part of the design for your book cover or comic? Your setting could feel very African, or you could show Anansi right where you are, maybe in your home, at the shops, at a funfair, or even as far away as the moon. You can draw Anansi more like a person or more like a spider, or perhaps your Anansi will be female. It's up to you!

I'd love to see your drawings and comics, if you want to tweet photos of them on the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag. Don't forget that the Medusa Malarky comic competition is still going on! You can download your comic Story Starter here.



Oh dear, yesterday someone in Seattle set their house on fire trying to kill a spider with a blowtorch. Do NOT try this at home! Spiders are tricksy. ...Oo, and there's another possible story starter.

SELFIE WITH CAMILLA! ^____^


Photo by Sarah Reeve

Yesterday the Summer Reading Challenge team took me and the Medusa fascinator to Exeter Library to talk and draw with children from St Leonard’s Primary School ...and the Duchess of Cornwall! (Camilla is no stranger to the Medusa hat; you can see hers on a Royal Hats blog here.) I talked with the kids about the Mythical Maze characters I'd drawn, then they helped me draw a four-panel comic about an yeti-Medusa adventure, showing them how easy it is to make a story. Then we all drew Medusa (one kid had something like 46 snakes on his Medusa - it looked like an explosion!).



I talked a bit about how we are still creating myths and legends; no one can second-guess which will be the stories remembered for thousands of years, but we can try our creative best and who knows, perhaps people will still remember our characters for generations to come. I introduced them to my Oliver and the Seawigs co-author Philip Reeve and we pointed out the little Sea Monkey on the poster, saying it was our contribution this year to myth making. Then I invited Camilla to come help me draw a Sea Monkey and she was such a good sport about it! I liked her monkey, it's very cheeky.



And we all sang the Sea Monkey song! Camilla said she wouldn't be able to get the chorus our of her head, and I apologised. (It does have an annoying catchiness to it.)


Photo by Sarah Reeve

By the time we got back to London, people were already sending us links to news reports! Camilla wasn't the only one giggling, after I'd read this Daily Mail article:








Organising this visit was quite a feat! Big thanks to Head of Libraries, Culture & Heritage for Devon Ciara Eastell:


Photo by Sarah Reeve

And to Head Librarian Karen Bowdler and her son Connor:



And to Philip! He's not part of the Summer Reading Challenge but he's a Devon local, and it was SO much more fun doing the event with him helping me draw a bit and singing the Sea Monkey song with me.



And we were both able to dedicate a copy of Seawigs to the Duchess:



Thanks to Philip's wife, Sarah Reeve for taking lots of these photos!



Here's our Summer Reading Challenge gang: Reading Agency director Anne Sarrag, writer Damian Kelleher and publicist Annabel Robinson and gleeful Sea Monkey.



Phew, what an odd day! Now back to work on my picture book... Read the rest of this post

Snakes alive! This year's Summer Reading Challenge is off to a great start! Here are a bunch of us at the British Library launch, being our usual quiet, demure selves.



That's illustrator-animator Steve May on the left (who did a great job animating the Mythical Maze trailer), writer-illustrator Liz Pichon, some tall chick in a hat, writer (and former actor, I discovered) Guy Bass, and writer Helena Pielichaty. Oh, and here's Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman! (She's also been super-busy coordinating this weekend's London YA Lit Con.)



One of the things we were asked to do was to make a video saying which book we'd like to recommend to people doing the Summer Reading Challenge. I chose my studio mate Gary Northfield's book, The Terrible Tales of the Teenytinysaurs. It's a brilliant read: funny, and beautifully drawn.



Look out for the beautiful dark underwater scene that Gary carved out of a giant sheet of scratchboard! (Here's a peek at it from our studio.) Gary's the person who originally showed me how to do library events, he's ace.



Here you can see me talking about Teenytinysaurs. I think I might have been underwater, too, or just very tired, because I don't think I usually talk that slowly and deeply. Kind of weird sounding. But, hey... FLOURESCENT MEDUSA HAT.




Oo, and can you tell what book the Minotaur is reading? Yup, that would be Teenytinysaurs. (I think it has its horn through a Harry Potter book.)



I'm so enjoying keeping an eye on the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag on Twitter. So many libraries are being wonderfully creative with turning the Mythical Maze characters into big displays! Check out this dragon from Church Stretton Library in Shropshire:



Jules Tudor made an awesome yeti! And a whole bunch of displays from Havering Library have totally been cracking me up; check out this slightly sinister Nessie.



And this yeti and unicorn, also by Havering Library! Ha ha! I love these.



Oo, super creative Mythical Map of the children's library by Totton Library!



And I love seeing how the parents are starting to get into it. Tweeted by Ged Hirst:



Lucy Yewman and her mum Sarah Yewman are always game for a book-related activity! Here's Lucy's Medusa Story Starter comic. (You can download yours from the Summer Reading Challenge website.)



And Sarah did one, too! I absolutely love it when adults take part in making comics and other children's activities; it shows kids that this isn't some patronising thing for little 'uns, it's something people can keep doing and enjoying into adulthood. Kids get much more excited about their own work when they realise adults read, write and draw, too. Great comic, Sarah Yewman!



And another comic tweeted in by an grownup, Damon Herd:



There's even a Mythical Maze app! Here's the Solus team, who went about putting it together.



You can play games, see the figures go 3D when you find the matching posters in your library, and learn more about each character. Download it free here from iTunes.



We had three lovely speeches by these VIPs: Chief Executive of The Reading Agency Sue Wilkinson, Chief Executive of the British Library Roland Keating and Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman. Thanks for all you do to support reading and libraries (and for the kind words and flowers)! You can see more photos from the launch here on the SRC Flickr page.



Keep an eye on the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag, @readingagency on Twitter, on Facebook, and on the website itself for frequent updates and new videos. Exciting times!

Yesterday evening, The Reading Agency, the British Library and Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman launched the Summer Reading Challenge Mythical Maze! (I wore a Medusa hat.)



More about this soon! You can get updates on the Summer Reading Challenge website, their Facebook Page, and follow the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag on Twitter. (Be sure to use the hash tag if you do something fun at your library that you want to share!)

The theme of last weekend's edition of The Funday Times was DRAGONS. Which was very handy, because the dragon is also a big part of this year's Mythical Maze Summer Reading Challenge!



Shark & Unicorn are mucking about with Dragon a bit here.



A cool thing: yesterday I got to meet my Sunday Times editor for the first time! Her name is Karen Robinson, and we'd only ever talked by e-mail. The Funday Times is mostly a film tie-in, but Karen's keen to nurture local talent, and I've been thrilled to have a regular comic in a real broadsheet newspaper. (Well, only six times a year, but regularly six times!)



I had lunch with her and Damian Kelleher, who's been my amazing champion and go-between for Summer Reading Challenge, Funday Times, Kids Week and lots of other things.



And Damian has a new book out this week! A Dog in No-Man's Land ties in with the First World War commemorations and looks great, published by Templar, with illustrations by Gary Blythe, edited by Helen Boyle (of WRD magazine) and designed by Nghiem Ta (who's worked on loads of Templar's 'ology' books).



They've tucked all sorts of letters and postcards in amongst the pages, giving it a wonderful scrapbook-like feel, and I'm very much looking forward to reading it. Congratulations, Damian, Gary, Helen and Nghiem!

COMICS are very much a part of this year's Mythical Maze Summer Reading Challenge! Get a kid hooked on comics and you have a kid who loves reading. In fact, you don't even have to 'get' kids hooked on comics; if you leave a kid in a room with a good comic, he or she will go right for it. And the miracle of comics is that, as soon as they've read the comic, they'll very often want to make one! What other form of reading inspires such instant creativity?


Pop over to the Summer Reading Challenge website, where I've created a comic Story Starter: two panels of a comic, and you (or a kid you know) can continue the story.



The downloadable sheet only provides six panels, but you're more than welcome to make lots more panels on another sheet of paper, or just use the first two and create panels any size and shape you want. (You can even finish the story just with writing and no pictures, but it's making comics I'm more excited about. Drawing a stick Medusa is JUST FINE.)



It might be fun to bring in some of the other Mythical Maze charcters! Or perhaps bring Medusa in the comic right where you live, to your home, school, supermarket, etc. Or take her and her snakes to the moon, it's your call. If you'd like to enter it into the competition, the closing date is 8 September 2014.




The Summer Reading Challenge is setting out all sorts of Story Starter competitions by different writers and illustrators; keep checking back to the website. (Please do tweet me - @jabberworks - your comic, I'd love to see it! Use the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag!)



It's great seeing different library displays popping up on Twitter! Here's one tweeted by @EmilyFellah in London:



And another by @MartinColes in the Vale of Glamorgan:



Don't forget, I've listed a bunch of ideas for Summer Reading Challenge activities here on my blog. Hope you have fun with it!

Recently a couple people have asked me for tips about running workshops tied in with the Summer Reading Challenge's theme of Mythical Maze. There are loads of things you and the kids could do, but here are a few ideas I've come up with to start you off!



* Design your own Mythical Maze: You've seen the maze I've drawn, with homes in it for each of the Mythical creatures; draw your own maze, and make homes in it for your favourite characters, either from myths or from any of your favourite stories! (Why not a Goblins maze? A Horrid Henry maze? A Shark maze? A Gruffalo maze? The Phoenix comic maze?) Alternatively, make a 3D maze with a box and folded cardboard for the walls, and decorate it.


Photo by Dave Warren

* Play Mythical Creature Consequences:
Simple version: Fold a piece of paper into three pieces, so it can be unfolded one segment at a time. The first person draws the Mythical creature's head, the second person draws the torso, and the third person draws the legs.

Alternative version: Keep each segment hidden from the next person: the first person draws the head and makes the lines of the neck just visible in the second segment, and folds over the paper to hide it. The second person draws the torso, without seeing the head, making the lines of the waist just barely visible on the third segment, and folds over the paper to hide it. The third person draws the bottom third of the character, then all three people watch as the paper is unfolded and the new creature revealed!

Here's one I drew with two other artists: Jonathan Edwards and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell. Another name for this game is Exquisite Corpse.



* Play Mythical Writing Consequences: Write one sentence setting a character off on an adventure. For example, decide on a treasure (or horrible thing!) that the creature really wants, and set it off on a Quest. Pass the sheet around the table, with everyone adding a new sentence to the story.


* Costume fun: I love dressing up! Choose one of the Mythical characters and make a costume! Here's a Mermaid costume (by helen_geekmum), but I've also seen excellent tails made out of painted paper plates for scales. If you make a costume, do tweet a photo with the #SummerReadingChallenge hash tag so we can all see it! (And that goes for all the activities!)



* Make a mask! Some masks you could make include a snake-y Medusa hat or mask, a Minotaur headdress with horns, a Garuda beak, a Mermaid wig full of washed-up sea objects, or a fishy tail. (You can download potential mermaid wig items from my Build your own Seawig activity sheets.)




* Comics Jam session: Pick one or two of the characters and have them interact in a comics panel. Pass the paper onto the next person and have them pick up with the second comics panel. Have a third person pick up the story in the third panel (or the first person, if there are only two people), and so on. Creating four panels is a good achievable target, but the Comics Jam could continue as long as the participants want.

You can create the panels as simply as folding a piece of paper into quarters. But here's a printable Comics Jam sheet I came up with for a Dublin workshop, if you want a bit of help. Feel free to adapt it to be more Mythical Maze themed. (Download the PDF here.)



I usually lead Comics Jams with groups of 20 people or less, but here's an example of a giant Comics Jam!




(Click here to read more about this Dublin Comics Jam and get more detailed instructions.)

An A3 folded-paper, four-panel Comics Jam:



Psst! My Jampires co-author David O'Connell and I haven't officially launched this website yet, but it has some tried-and-true, printable tips on leading Comics Jams if you'd like some help. Click on 'Set up Your Own Comics Jam'.

* Make a Comic: Read one of the myths starring one of our Mythical Maze creatures, then create a comic inspired by the character. (Chose one of the Anansi tales, for example, either to adapt one of the stories as a comic strip, or to come up with a new story.)



* Make Your Own Book! You could make a comic book, or a picture book or a book with just words. Perhaps you could write a line of a poem on each page. A fun way to start is by designing a colourful cover out of card, cut paper, glue and stickers. Feature your character on the front cover, then use folded paper to create a story inside.



When you're finished, staple or sew the folded paper booklet into the cover.




Bonus idea: create a poster advertising your new book! Swap book quotes with the other kids, promoting your book (see below):



* Make a Diorama! Create a world for one or more of the Mythical Maze creatures. Or for any book character!

You can do this lots of different ways. Here's how comics artist Philippa Rice builds a little living room for the characters from We're Out and My Cardboard Life:



I got the idea for making a shoebox world from Ezra Jack Keats' picture book, The Trip:




Here's a world a neighbour friend and I built in a box, using paint and Sculpey clay:



* Create a Mythical Maze boardgame! This can be as simple or as complicated as you like. Draw a basic route, then add perils and rewards. Decide if you want to play your game with dice, or perhaps kids could advance on a display board that shows the number of books they've read.


(This photo's from a workshop I ran at a Leicester library, click here to see more.)

If you want ideas for your gameboard layout, you can download and print my board from When Titus Took the Train. Feel free to trace it, simplify it, or adapt it for your own Mythical Maze game.



* Create a Name Totem: Did you know that when you cut your name out of paper, it can look like a cool mask? Use your own name to inspire a new Mythological creature! Here's my name, Sarah:



And here's how you do it!



Here are some more by @damyantipatel:



* Create a Mythical Maze mural: Let everyone add to it! Cover a wall in paper, leave the posters nearby, and have people draw their own versions of the mythical characters. Be sure the youngest ones can reach! Perhaps have them write a short description of the character next to their drawing, or even a very short story.



Last weekend, Alexis Deacon used a great way to inspire kids and create a mural that has a lovely unified feel to it. He created vague creature shapes using one colour of paint, then the kids could go in with black markers and turn the shapes into more detailed creatures.



Oil pastels can make beautiful, vibrant images:



But be careful, they're messy!



* Create a Life-Size Cardboard Maze! I've never actually done this, but Viviane Schwarz has! Find out more about it on her blog.


Photo by John Peacock

* Make a paper dragon kite, studying books on kite making and Chinese parade costume

* Create an Anansi web, perhaps tucking into it cut-out creature drawings by the kids. (Welsh librarian @martincoles has been posting photos of his library web.)

* Create a giant paper Nessie around the walls of your library. Feature a book cover image on each of her humps!

* Build a yeti cave. Create a fun place for kids to climb in and read books, with Yeti peeking out from the entrance to wave them in.

Hope that helps! Please do add any more ideas you might have in the comments here, and spread the word, if you think your fellow librarian friends might find these suggestions handy!