Thursday 17 November 2011

Greeting & Musing : A School A Shop and Alice.

Odd drive on Tuesday morning as something was wrong with the car - now happily sorted - but by heavens, not what you want in busy traffic on the way to a school ooking.

So thanks to everyone at Norton Primary School, Malton, North Yorkshire, for welcoming me and for making the day enjoyable after all, and to Mary Marlowe who arranged the day and let me tell stories o=in the lovely library too.

Lovely drive in the sunshine today to the Little Ripon Bookshop, collecting a box of books for an author event I'm organising and very much looking forward to: Emma Barnes talking about her book "How (Not) To Make Bad Children Good".

Also ended up collecting several lovely and longed for books for myself, including an "Alice" with Mervyn Peake's illustrations. Excuses? One: I don't like the nasty, dingy look of my own childhood copy. Two: I can't find the alternative: our copy of "The Annotated Alice". Three: It's the next but one title for my grown-up Book Group. But I just wanted the pictures really.



In fact, Lewis Carroll did lodge in Ripon for some of his life and enthusiasts have claimed that the twisting tunnel below Ripon Cathedral was the inspiration for that famous rabbit hole.

I now have a deep and mysterious hole in my bank account.

Monday 14 November 2011

Greetings - And a Transformation Spell

Last week I had a most interesting Writing Day at East Ardsley Primary School, working on writing on the theme of Ancient Egypt. Many thanks to everyone involved, especially the children.

Here's something that Year 6 and I made, based on an Egyptian myth.

THE SPELL OF AMUN-RE
Spoken to transform the gentle Cow Goddess Hathor
into the Goddess Sekhmet the Lioness.

O GENTLE HATHOR!
May your soft breath steam with vengeance!
May your teeth turn sharp as spears!
May your tongue long for the taste of blood!

May your eyes blaze like rubies with rage!
May your paws lash like a crash of
thunder!
May your claws slash like swords in battle!
May your skin shine as bright as the burning sun!

May those who spy you approaching -
O GREAT SEKHMET!
Scream with FEAR! FEAR! FEAR!


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