Children's Illustration Workshop with Rob Jones: Monday 19th August

Children’s illustrator Rob Jones will be providing summer holiday entertainment by teaching children

how to draw people and pets! Come and join us in the shop for this fun interactive workshop plus book reading.

This event on Monday 19th August at 10am is aimed at children aged 4-8 years old.

Tickets cost £6 per child and include all drawing equipment, tea and biscuits for accompanying adults and £1 redeemable against one of Rob’s books.
  

Tickets available from Eventbrite or in shop.

Local illustrator Rob provided the illustrations for the The Funny Life of Pets and The Funny Life of Teachers

Funny Life of Pets by James Campbell, illustrated by Rob Jones

Uncover the sidesplitting life of cucumber scaredy-cats, non-stop pooping hamsters, exploding fish and everything in-between (and some things that have nothing to do with pets but are still ridiculously funny). This hilarious book answers all the big questions, like: do sausage dogs eat sausages? Why has my cat done a poo behind my wardrobe? And how can I persuade my parents to get me a pet? For real-life pet facts, imaginary stories, and a generally laugh-so-hard-snot-comes-out-your-nose read, this is the only pet book you'll ever need!

This is a book with outrageous facts, hilarious jokes, insanely funny online videos and brilliant stories all about pets, the author, and all sorts of other things.

Funny Life of Teachers by James Campbell, illustrated by Rob Jones

Ever wondered what teachers do when they're not in the classroom? Are they undercover detectives, champion roller-blade dancers or do they spend their evenings playing with their 576 cats?

This face-achingly funny book will also teach you why you should carry an emergency banana with you at all times, how to fart in class silently without anyone knowing it was you and how to catapult yourself to school by building a medieval style catapult in your back garden! 

But be warned – these are NOT normal books. You can read it forwards, backwards, sideways and in approximately 861,000 different ways in between. Whichever way you read it, look no further for fantastic real-life teacher facts, incredibly funny illustrations, imaginary stories and an impossibly silly read!

Help create a 'Dawn Chorus' window at Mostly Books

We reckon it’s about time our window had a make-over – so we’ve asked artist, children’s author and illustrator Suzanne Barton – author of the beautiful new picture book ‘The Dawn Chorus’ – to design a 'Dawn Chorus' window – and she needs some help!

The 'Dawn Chorus' is a wonderful debut by Oxford-based Suzanne. It's the story of Peep, desperate to find out where the beautiful song is coming from one morning. The illustrations just make this book particularly special.

If you’d like one of your creations to feature in our stunning window display for ‘the Dawn Chorus’ call in to pick up a bird template – decorate it and bring it back to us for a chance to win a prize. Or call in on the day – Tuesday April 8 – as we’ll all be making bird collages to hang in our window.

See the finished results at the end of the day – and meet the author herself!

Old Bear guest stars at Teddy Bear’s Picnic

We were delighted to have a real VIP visitor on Tuesday, when one of the most loved bears visited in person as guest of honour at our teddy bear’s picnic.

Our courtyard garden was packed out with picnickers - and their bears - who came along in the sunshine to listen to Old Bear stories and to meet some very famous bears indeed.

Author and illustrator, Jane Hissey, explained that Old Bear was the original inspiration and features in most of her books, which have been loved by children around the world for over 25 years.

In fact, Old Bear is now so old he very rarely makes a guest appearance, so Mostly Books felt particularly honoured that such a venerable bear made such a very long journey from Jane’s home in Sussex (and also very grateful to Jane for making such a long journey and bringing us all her delightful characters).

Old Bear was her very own bear. She had studied on an illustration and design course and worked as a teacher, but started drawing Old Bear when she had free moments after she started a family. She finally found a publisher who was interested in publishing her stories and quickly found readers who loved the books.

Old Bear was quickly joined by other characters – Hoot the owl, Little Bear – and her most recent creations – Ruby, Blue and Blanket. In the eighties the characters featured on everything from jigsaws to china figures.

Our audience featured lots of children and plenty of mums who had loved the books when they were young, as well as some new fans. And lots of sandwiches, cake and much-loved teds.

It was a glorious day and we were extremely lucky as a torrential downpour in the morning had flooded the garden and threatened our plans to be outside. We spent a good hour trying to clear all the water! But luckily the sun shone again and the weather was perfect by the time the picnic started.

Jane brought along all the original characters for us to meet and all of them had their own story of where they had all come from and how they ended up with starring roles in her books.

The stories would make a book in themselves.

It was as delightful a way to spend an hour as you could possibly have.

Her books are popular the world over and were made into an animated television series and they have been praised not only for their charming stories and colourful pictures, but also use of texture and perspective.

It was great that Jane also gave us an insight into how the books come to life.

She explained how she first writes the stories and then uses the characters to set up the scenes that will appear alongside the text, sometimes using pins, hooks and threads if the characters need to be in action or flying.

It was a unique insight into the meticulous attention to detail that goes into producing children’s book. It really gave an idea of how much work goes into the books, but also why they seem so full of life and texture. There are really no other books like them.

She also says she only uses coloured pencils to draw with and brought some of the original drawings for us to see.

With an audience from babes in arms, they appeal to a great range of ages. Now celebrating twenty-five years since being published, the Old Bear stories will now be delighting a whole new generation of children.

A tremendous thank you to Jane for such a delightful hour of insight and stories and for being generous enough to share them with us. We had a lovely time.

(Want to get a parent's view on the event - visit Child-Led Chaos's report on the day, and also visit Jane Hissey's own website for much more on the story behind Old Bear)

Goblins, pirates, pen and ink: learning to draw with Chris Mould and David Melling

One of the best things that happened last year was our first ever event at Abingdon Library. Keen to strengthen our ties further (and also very keen to take advantage of the recent stunning upgrade to the Library layout) last Saturday we held an illustration masterclass for about 30 children, aged between 7 and 12. Inspiring and captivating everyone throughout the afternoon were two very special illustrators: Chris Mould and David Melling.

David is very well know at Mostly Books (we had a lot of fun last year with the launch of Hugless Douglas), but this was the first event we had done with Chris - who travelled down from Leeds especially. And they complemented each other brilliantly: both Chris and David have a very understated, laid back approach to presenting in front of children, in which the drawings takes centre stage. Whilst I very much appreciate events we have done with some of the high-octane, 'whoops-I've-hit-myself-with-a-chicken' authors that we have had in the past, I think it's great to see that children can be rapt and captivated simply by the power of the drawings that emerge on a flip-chart.

David kicked off by giving an overview of how he draws, and what quickly emerged was a series of rapid-fire illustrations which acted as a metaphor for the creative process (it doesn't come out well in the photo below, but the Goblin figure at top left is equipped with a large pencil).

Chris then stepped in, using black paint to 'block' some space, out of which emerged a somewhat scary creature, appropriate for someone whose books (such as the Something Wickedly Weird series) are often filled with weird and scary creatures...

During the event, both authors emphasised the importance of 'just getting on with it'. getting stuff down on paper and trying not to get self-conscious about drawing. Chris in particular is very passionate about countering the phenomenon that kids stop drawing around 11 years old, which corresponds with the leap to secondary school. He tends to work only in black and white and never rubs out - "you kill your drawings if you do that!"

As the acryllic paint dried, and Chris inked in details for the character, he then used tippex to add elements over the black paint. It was mesmerising because it was all done at such speed...

Many of the older children had already got busy with the paper and pencils in front of them, but at this point David took over and we got all interactive. Here, David instructs everyone in a Goblin's 'masterclass'...

And you can't see much, but here were the results.

And here are a few Goblins close up:

Chris - referencing his next project, all about pirates - got everyone drawing a skull and crossbones, and then our hour was (officially) up. With the library closed, Chris and David signed books and answered questions for some time afterwards...

...before one final pose, and a nip round the corner to the shop for a cup of tea, despite the heat:

My thanks to both Chris and David for a really superb event, and one which we have received so much great feedback about. It was a real privilege to meet and listen to Chris for the first time, someone who communicates so strongly the joy of illustration simply putting pen (or pencil) to paper.

It also happened that July 9th was the launch of the national libraries Summer Reading Challenge. Based on the theme of 'Circus Stars' children are challenged to read six books over the Summer from their library, and get prizes for doing so. Go see the website to learn more. Very happy to report (via the head librarian) that several children signed up at the end of the event...including some children on their first ever visit to the library. Magic...