Too duel for school: Five Questions with Elys Dolan and her glossy steed

On Friday June 23, we welcomed Elys Dolan to Abingdon, and to Thomas Reade Primary School, where she spent the day talking detective seagulls, glossy steeds and rubbish dragons called Dave with some very enthusiastic - and riveted - children throughout the whole school

Elys had travelled over from Cambridge (on an epic UK tour which saw her in Newcastle and Brighton in the same week).

On her website her interests were declared as 'growing cacti, collecting pocket watches and eating fondant fancies' but it's obvious that what she loves more than anything is to draw.

During each session, the children called out characters to draw, and were enthralled as she brought their suggestions to life on paper in front of them. We had robber squid, a knight with cactus armour - and another knight riding a snow leopard.

 

Her latest book is called 'Knighthood for Beginners', and is all about Dave, a truly terrible dragon. (That's 'terrible' as in 'rubbish').

Dave is hopeless at dragony things, so when he finds a book called Knighthood for Beginners he decides to learn how to be a knight instead. Dave sets out on a quest with his trusty steed, Albrecht the goat (who scores highly on the 'glossy' stakes), to be brave, chivalrous, and knightly, even up against Sir Gnasty, who scoffs at the idea of a very small, strangely green knight.

Duels are fought, quests are begun...and some fetching knitwear is created...

Here is one of the groups learning to draw 'Steven Seagull', the maverick gull and ex-cop called back to the force to crack a particularly perplexing beach mystery.

This was also the first school event with new owner Sarah Dennis is attendance. It was a lovely event to mark the transition!

Whilst we knew that Elys works predominantly with ink, newfangled digital technology and coloured pencils (of which she is the proud owner of 178) we didn't know much else. Cue five questions to discover more...

1.    What are you working on at the moment?

I'm currently working on a sequel to 'Knighthood for Beginners'. It's another adventure with Dave and Albrecht, onyl this time involving magic and titled 'Wizarding for Beginners'. Cue lots of talking animals and bears. I'm also doing a picture book, similar to 'Mr Bunny's Chocolate Factory' only involving Santa and his workshop. I'm also working on something else - but I can't tell you 'cos it's a secret!

2.    What is the best writing (or drawing) tip you’ve ever been given?

I can give you a tip for drawing: draw things from life. Even if the final picture you end up with isn't realistic, it teaches you to draw what you are seeing, and teaches you to really look at things and observe. And sometimes the details you see end up being what you put into the stories.

3.    What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?

The best is definitely that writing for children gives you a licence to write about anything, be as silly as you like. The sheer amount of pants in stories might be something frowned upon if writing for adults! The worst is colouring the spreads. For a picture book, at about 3, things are fine but by the time you get to spread twelve or thirteen you are thinking "why is this taking so long?!"

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?

(Thinks) I'm a big fan of snacks, definitely. And you can't go wrong with a cup of tea. But to be honest, give me a paper and pencil and I can pretty much work anywhere.

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?

When I first started to write picture books, I spent a lot of time putting in elements that I felt should be in a picture book, and the result was a bit of a Frankenstein's Monster. Once I started to have the confidence to develop my own style, and make stuff that I liked and wanted, it turned out that other people liked that as well!

Save Christmas! Matt Haig comes to Abingdon

Given that there are still 44 days to Christmas (that's almost one-eighth of a year!) you might be forgiven for doing a double-take if you'd peeked inside the main hall at Our Lady's Abingdon this afternoon. Christmas jumpers, reindeer antlers, santa hats, and 350 children shouting 'Merry Christmas' at a man standing at the front of the room clutching a microphone, trying desperately to increase the readings on a Christmas 'Barometer of Hope'...

...but it was "snow mistake". On Thursday, Nov 10, children children, teachers, librarians and parent helpers from seven schools welcomed bestselling author Matt Haig to Abingdon, to talk about his book 'The Girl Who Saved Christmas'.

The event was raucous, very Christmassy, and definitely full of hope.

The book is the follow-up to 'A Boy Called Christmas', one of the hits of 2015, and the true story of the boy who would grow up to grant children's wishes around the world. 

The girl in question is Amelia, who seeks out Father Christmas to grant her a wish, but discovers Christmas in danger of being cancelled. Father Christmas has more than impossible wishes to worry about, including upset elves, troublesome trolls and reindeer dropping out of the sky. What can be done?

Matt is a remarkable author, and given that he was in the middle of an awesomely ambitious round-UK tour, full of energy and enthusiasm, as he pitched half the audience against the other in a game of 'Elves v Trolls'.

Matt's Christmas books are illustrated by Chris Mould (no stranger to Abingdon) and even though Chris wasn't able to attend, there was plenty of video of him showing how the illustrations make the book come to life, and how the look and feel of the characters - including a certain Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria and Soot her cat.

Children came from Thomas Reade, Thameside, St Edmunds, Rush Common and Dunmore Primary Schools, and their were pupils from both OLA Juniors and Seniors.

It was a triumph of organisation and hard work by all the schools involved, particularly by the host school, OLA. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen.

Particularly thanks to OLA librarian Barbara Hickford and her team - every child attending received a special Christmas snowman cookie - and year 7 pupils met the schools on arrival and showed them to their seats.

Matt signed books for children - and also books for the shop, so if you wanted a beautiful signed copy for 44 days time, please do call in. But while Matt signed away, we were able to ask him a few questions about his writing life. Take it away Matt...

Five questions with...Matt Haig's Writing Life

1.    What are you working on at the moment? 

I'm working on two things. Another novel for grown-ups (my first since 'The Humans') about someone who is 400 years old, and I'm about to start on my third 'Christmas' book!

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given? 

Write exactly the book you'd want to read. In the early days of my writing career, I guess I had a bit of 'stage fright', and tried to write something I thought other people might want to write.

3.    What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?

The best thing is that writing for children is very 'freeing' for a writer. Children may have a smaller vocabularly, but they have a much broader, wider imagination, which means you can go anywhere and take them with you. The worst? Being asked your age at school events!

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing of snack essential before you can start work? 

I can pretty much write anywhere, I'm a 'sit on the sofa with a laptop' kind of guy. Snacks? Well, peanut butter toast provides fuel!

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?

I think last year (2015), when I published 'Reasons to Stay Alive' and 'A Boy Called Christmas'. After writing for twelve years, last year was definitely the year I felt I'd made it.

(Book blogger and great friend of Mostly Books Annabookbel came along to help - and she wrote her own blog about the event - take a look here!)

Cute Emergency: Hero Pup with Megan Rix

This week, we took animal-adventure author Megan Rix into two schools in Abingdon - as well as an extra special guest who went down well with all the children...

Children from Thomas Reade Primary School and Chandlings School listened as Megan described her experiences training assistance dogs, and how she used this to tell her stories of animals performing incredible feats of bravery and heroics during times of conflict.

Her latest book, 'Hero Pup', tells the story of a young boy Joe and a puppy, Patch. Joe and his Dad have always wanted a dog, but when Joe's father dies, he doesn't think he will ever have one. But when Joe meets Patch at Helper Dogs, Joe has the opportunity to train Patch to make him a useful companion to someone in need. And as their relationship develops, Joe starts to overcome his feelings of gried in what is a very moving but uplifting story.


The special guest was a retired guide-dog called Dru, brought to the school by her owner Richard. Part Labrador Retriever, part Golden Retriever, 12 year old Dru had actually been a breeding dog for other guide dogs, having had 25 puppies, most of which had gone on to become guide dogs.

Megan explained how she came to be a writer - including her own experiences of being off school with whooping cough for a whole term. Having been at the bottom of her class and not very interested in reading, she had nothing to do but read - with her mum bringing books from the library, and her voraciously reading everything she could get her hands on in the house ((including books she probably wasn't supposed to read!). When she returned to school, she found herself at the top of the class - a great testament to the power of reading for pleasure!  

The children had plenty of questions about her books, but also about her own dogs - and of course Dru.

She also read to the children from Hero Pup (published this week) and signed copies for children who queued up to meet Megan and Dru...

Our thanks to Megan for a truly heartwarming talk (and plenty of cute pictures of animals!), Puffin for setting the whole thing up, the children who behaved impeccably...and of course, we took the opportunity to find out more about what makes Megan tick as an author...

Five questions with . . . Megan Rix's writing life

1.  What are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently working on a World War I-era tale involving a circus dog and a young elephant – the dog attempts to reunite the young elephant with its mother. During World War I a lot of elephants were taken from zoos and circuses and ended up doing heavy lifting work around the country, and the older elephant is logging in the Lake District. I typically think and plan the book for a month before writing, but this one is taking a bit longer.

2.   What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
Don’t stop. You must continue to write, because as you practice you cannot help but get better. Don’t instantly think that you’ll be good, and don’t limit yourself to one kind of writing, because you don’t know how your style will evolve.

3.   What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?
The best thing is the sheer variety of writing that you can do – for different ages, styles, etc. You have total freedom to set books where you like, when you like. If you write as an adult author, you tend to get stuck with a particular genre (such as crime) but you are really not as limited as that when you are a children’s author. Worst thing – I can’t really think of one!

4.   Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?
Years ago, when I was writing books under my real name (Ruth Symes) I would have said yes, I would prepare to write by lighting some incence sticks, etc. But now, and particularly since I’ve owned and trained dogs, I tend to sit on my bed writing with the dogs asleep next to me. One thing I do use is a marvellous digital pen. This lets me write in longhand as if with a traditional pen, but then I plug the pen into my laptop and everything is downloaded as text without having to retype it.

(As regards the dogs, I now just have to say ‘work time’ and they immediately trot upstairs to the bed!)

5.   What was your biggest breakthrough?
It sort of relates to what I mentioned earlier about writing tips – the whole ‘Megan Rix’ pseudonym came about because (initially) I wanted to write about things that had actually happened to me and my family – and to protect my privacy. But out of that came stories about animals, and I changed my style of storytelling. Up until then I had always written in quite a ‘realistic’ style, but with Megan Rix I was able to develop an ‘omnipotent viewpoint’ style. I had never had the confidence before, because at school they squashed you if you tried to use this. It was almost like “The omnipotent viewpoint? Do you consider yourself to be God?”!

A three-wheel problem: Five questions with Dave Lowe and Jasper Stinkybottom

On Thursday, June 19, children's author Dave Lowe - author of the awesomely funny Stinky and Jinks books - flew halfway round the world to meet children at two Abingdon Primary Schools.

OK, that's not strictly true. Dave was born in Dudley in the West Midlands and grew up in England, so when we found out he was back in the country for two weeks visiting family, and given how we LOVE his books - including 'My Hamster Is A Genius' and 'My Hamster's Got Talent' - we convinced the publisher to get Dave to interrupt his family holiday, which he duly did...

Cue lots of hamster hilarity at Thomas Reade Primary and Carswell Primary Schools, as Dave explained how his own experience with pets (notably begging for a pet, and getting a baby brother instead) informed some of the ideas behind his books...

As a child, David did eventually get a hamster (after guinea pigs and various canaries with imaginative names) but of course Jasper Stinkybottom - the grumpy, brilliant hamster in Dave's books - is a fantasy of a child's perfect pet: a hamster who helps his owner Ben out of various maths-generated difficulties with his nemesis, teacher Beardy McCreedy. They are fun, funny and extremely well written - and Dave explained some of the secrets behind his writing style.

As Dave explained, writing a book is a doddle. He tends to get a first draft down pretty quickly (in fact, when asked how he writes, Dave explained that he just sits there with a pen and paper each day until *something* is written). The real problems come with the editing - working hard to polish, revise and find the right words. He will do 15-20 re-writes to make it more readable and funny, and it's very, very hard work.

As well as stories of his own pets, children were challenged on their own knowledge of animals, and whether they were "Smarter than a Hamster". We learned some incredible facts about whether or not tigers have striped skin, things you can tell about a whale involving earwax, and why you should never keep a penguin in a fridge...

The children were full of some great questions: what's the best thing about living in Australia (the weather) and to weight a whale, do you *really* use a 'Whale Weigh Station'?

Thanks very much to the amazing teachers at Carswell and particularly at Thomas Reade where classes had been reading the Stinky and Jinks books. Thanks to Dave - including his young family who must know the most about Abingdon for any Australian having spent a whole day in the town. And special thanks to Olivia from Templar who used her experience as a bookseller to keep the children entertained in the queue...

It was a fun, inspiring event - and of course we whisked Dave back to the shop to ask him a few more questions about his writing inspiration...

Five questions with . . . Dave Lowe's writing life

1.    What are you working on at the moment?

I'm working on a book for an older age-group at the moment, a fantasy-type of book for ages 8-11, a sort of Narnia type of book, which I'm about halfway through. But I'm also writing text for some children's picture books, so I'm sort of going older and younger from the Stinky and Jinks books!

2.    What is the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?

(thinks hard) Well, if you are a budding writer, don't think of yourself as a budding writer, but instead as a *writer*. I always thought of myself as a writer, just one who had never been published. You work for years and years, getting better, so that when you are published there's a lot of 'back pay' for the work you already did! You payment is in the future, but there is no difference in terms of the product you produce - your writing.

3.    What’s the best thing and the worst thing about being a children’s writer?

The best thing is children's imaginations, they have amazing imaginations. And that means you don't have to pile adjectives and adverbs on top of each other, your reader will do the job for you, it all comes out of their brains. this doesn't work for adults, they need extra help - but for kids, they do the work for you, you just need to tell the story.

The worst thing is, once I've spent some time in a child's world, I find it quite hard to get back into the adult world. If you've just spent five hours with stupid jokes about pirates, it's kind of tough (and a bit of a shock) to have to, I don't know, go into a shop and talk to other adults.

4.    Do you have a writer’s survival kit, eg a place, thing or snack essential before you can start work?

Well, I drink a lot of tea! I also write on very narrow, lined paper for my first draft. I'll then edit this, and usually write it out again entirely in longhand. After that, I'll get it onto computer. I always write out a draft at least once by hand - it takes ages! But for me, I feel that getting it onto computer feels like the book is in its final stage, so if I have stuff on the computer - and it's rubbish - I get very annoyed.

5.    What was your biggest breakthrough?

I wrote a book before the Stinky and Jinks books, and it was about a boy who discovered a book of his dead grandfathers's inventions, and he tries to replicate them. The joke was of course that his grandfather was a terrible inventor, and most of the inventions didn't work or ended up doing something totally opposite. That book didn't get published, but an agent took the time to write me a proper letter rather than a standard rejection (which I'd been getting up until that point). For me, it was a turning point, because although I wasn't taken on, it gave me encouragement that I was on the right path.

So I wrote another book, sent it out to ten UK agents, I get 3 or 4 really strong responses and one agent loved it. That was Madeline, my current agent, who is amazing.

Dinopants!

I love doing school events. They are often maddeningly complicated to set up, and there are often lots of 'variables' in terms of planning, on which the eventual success of an event hangs. But just occasionally, everything - the school, the author, the kids - just fall into place and you run an event of which everyone is justly proud.

Well, that's what happened on Monday when children's author, performer and scriptwriter Ciaran Murtagh spent a day at Thomas Reade Primary School in Abingdon. Ciaran writes the 'Dinopants' series of books, which we are big fans of in the shop. He also writes for some heavyweight CBBC shows such as 'The Slammer' and 'The Legend of Dick and Dom', so the children were pretty excited about him coming to the school. They had done a lot of preparation for his arrival - not least making a range of 'Dinopants', the best of which were strung on a makeshift washing line in the main entrance:



The school could not have been more supportive of the visit, even going to the lengths of arranging dinosaur-shaped snacks for the author's lunch:

How cool is that?!

Ciaran was introduced to the school in assembly, and then proceeded to run workshops with pretty much every year group in the school throughout the day, starting with reception:

Then years 3 and 4...

years 5 and 6...

and finally years 1 and 2. The workshops consisted of storytelling sessions where the kids decided what actually happened in the stories at key points. The chocolate monster story in the last workshop was particularly impressive...

Ciaran then signed books for everyone - including copies of the latest in the series "Dinoball", not yet released, and hot from the back of the author's car.

Here's one lucky boy clasping his copy of Dinoball, and who had eagerly been awaiting the release of the fourth books (having read the first three at bedtime over the past year - I told you they were big favourites in the Thornton household...) 

Thanks to Ciaran, who worked like a trojan, and whose hand must have seized up by the end of day after numerous impromptu sketches of dinosaurs, pants and, well, yes, dinosaur poo. Thomas Reade School deserve a huge thank you, as do teachers Julie and Kirsty for setting the whole thing up. Not least to the children, who got fully into the spirit of the day and made the stories come alive.

Ciaran will actually be in "The Slammer" this Friday (juggling porridge apparently). I'll try to put a link here once it's up in iPlayer!