The Rainbow Weaver

On Tuesday we welcomed mother-and-daughter writing team Lyndsay Russell and Tippi Hanson to Mostly Books for the first in our series of Summer children's events. How their book The Rainbow Weaver came to be written (from a sleepy storytelling session) is a rather magical story in itself, and they certainly brought a fair amount of magic to the shop (not to mention a lot of energy and enthusiasm).

It was a great event. Taking advantage of some (rare!) good weather, Lyndsay and Tippi (and Lyndsay's husband Mike on guitar!) read the story aloud in the garden. The Rainbow Weaver is (as far as I'm aware) unique in that - as well as being a wonderful story with Lyndsay's trademark illustrations - it uses different typefaces to emphasise different characters in the story, to help readers tell the story out loud. On the Wenlock Books blog, they like to post pictures of events and let them tell the story. In this instance - and with Nicki behind the camera (who is a far, far better photographer than me) - I will do the same. Suffice to say that with games , colouring and facepainting (courtesy of Lyndsay) throughout the afternoon, it was a very magical - can colourful - day.

We have copies (signed by both Lyndsay and Tippi) in the shop of course. It might be too early to start mentioning the 'C' word, but it goes without saying that we feel these books make a very splendid and original gift. Thanks to Lyndsay and Tippi for making the journey up to Abingdon, and for their (very great) efforts to make it a fantastic event. Our next event is this Tuesday, when survival expert and author Ken Griffiths will be pitching up for the day in our garden (whatever the weather!) and teaching survival skills to kids. How cool is that! Sessions at 11am, 1pm and 3pm (strictly tickets only). We haven't quite decided how wise it might be to demonstrate how to light a fire yet...