WORLD BOOK DAY 2016

I'm here, back at my blog to post about two lovely school visits I've made for World Book Day 2016. What a pleasure they were!

But first, I’m thinking about an Author Visit back from very late last year, when I went to ALANBROOKE PRIMARY SCHOOL near Thirsk in North Yorkshire. That felt a very fine visit too, but a particularly busy Christmas came straight afterwards so I had no time to open this blog up at all.  Apologies! I am sure Alanbrooke will have had a very good World Book Day week indeed, despite the snow, as the school, staff and pupils had plenty of links to people and places around the world.

I recall being very impressed by the inclusive and encouraging way that Alanbrooke used computers within the curriculum, and rather wanted to know more about how and what and why and more, but during the day there wasn’t time. Having a still-professional nosiness about classroom practice can be quite frustrating at times.

I heard that the school had, fairly recently, been without any IT for more than a year. An earlier round of York floods meant the school had to move into "un-wired" premises and the teachers had to get used to teaching without electronic back up. Perhaps that break was why they were able to use IT in such an easy spirit? I know they had an enthusiastic mentor-and-mechanic there most days which must have helped things along. 

Thank you, Alanbrooke Primary School, for a good day and one that restored my confidence about the use of computers within education!

Now, on to March and the start of World Book Day celebrations for 2016.

Wednesday was an early start, with a drive down the M1 and across to OVERTHORPE C.E PRIMARY ACADEMY, high above Dewsbury. The school was very welcoming, the children and staff friendly, and the whole day so competently arranged. Although everyone was dressed up, the fun was balanced by a nicely calm atmosphere, and there was even a book stall at the end of the day. What a joy!

There was some extra excitement when thin snow started falling outside and even more when thunder boomed at just the right moment in my story.

By lunchtime the storm had gone and I peered out at the sun streaming through the brisk clouds, lighting up the grounds. This was when I heard all about the outside life of Overthorpe, and the double ponds and the grass and the bulbs and the tree-planting and the poly-tunnel and other gardening plans. I always feel so cheered when schools make the natural world some part of their pupil’s own lives.

Once, I was told, you’d see slag-heaps and pitheads from the top of the hill but in between there were green places to play and roam. I felt glad that Overthorpe was able to open up some sense of space and freedom for their children.

My destination on Thursday was a bit closer: I was at HUNSLET CARR PRIMARY SCHOOL in Leeds. The travel went well – still no snow – but my satnav was in a crotchety mood. It delivered me accurately for the postcode but into a series of cul-de-sacs and dead-ends where streets that once joined up, leading through to the school gates now didn’t. In the end I and my car and talk-bags got there, got parked and got into the school itself. Phew!

From then on, the morning improved. I was very impressed by my glimpse of a rumbustious Book Character assembly, with lots of laughing and dancing and dressing up, both staff and children. Then came my sessions, and even a moment for a quick nursery storytime, and I hope that everyone at Hunslet Carr enjoyed the visit as much as I did. 

At Hunslet Carr, I was so focused on the getting-in with all my talk stuff , on the glass-fronted entrances and reception area and the bright new look of the school interior that I hadn’t really noticed the place. Then, pausing in the hall as I set up, I suddenly saw the beautiful beams holding up the roof and there, on the mezzanine corridor – a hanging banner from the long ago Hunslet Labour marches. This was a school with, despite all the paint, a fine sense of history. All the way up the main staircase – and it delighted me to see them – were objects from the school’s past life and a collection of playthings from the last centuries.

The most poignant was an old slightly faded photo, showing the victorious Hunslet Carr AFC team 1910- 1911. I looked at the faces off all those young players and their Headmaster, and saw the words “The Unbeaten Team” and a list of their winning matches and goals scored. Then, uneasy, I stared at the dates again and realised those boys may well have been among those sent to the battle fields of Flanders a couple of years later. I couldn’t help wonder if those lads had stayed unbeaten?

The second delightful thing was the library area: a small but cosy room, with carpets, cushions, a gentle light and plenty of new and inviting books. Thankfully, one teacher has time out to look after the library stock and to run library sessions, as well as support from Leeds Schools Library Service. All this care showed in the very atmosphere of the room; I could almost feel the sense of pleasure the children gain during their sessions there. Thank you, everyone at Hunslet Carr, for making the day such a good visit. Thoughtful architecture – and I don’t mean vast atriums – really does affect the feel of a school building.

Thinking over these descriptions, I’ve realised that each of these three schools offered something extra, something beyond the rigours of the National Curriculum. Each school, and members of staff within, had planned for a wider view and so enriched their pupil’s lives: a thing to be very happy about.

(There may, of course, be other things I didn’t notice because my attention was mainly on my work. If so, apologies for anything or anyone I’ve missed out.)

It's Friday today, and I’m hoping the greyness outside will mean I can do some writing inside during this weekend, as well as looking forward to next week’s visit to a school in Keighley. 

Should be interesting getting there as one route across has been closed all summer because of a rock fall and another has been blocked by the sudden white stuff. 


I must look and see if there's another route will be open, and trust to my AtoZ of West Yorkshire as well as that tricksy satnav . . . wish me luck! 

Meanwhile, many good wishes to all of the children’s writers, illustrators, librarians and book-people travelling around the land, Have a happy World Book Day day/week/fortnight or month, and I hope the snow and cold of March doesn't stay to haunt your fun.
Bye for now! 

VISITING TIME AGAIN : SPRING 2015

The buzz of World Book Day Week - no, fortnight! - is over.  
 It’s an exhausting time – admin and maps and worry about traffic and weather especially -  but each visit brings something memorable or different.

Here are my Spring 2015 visits.

 My first visit was to Oatlands Infants School.  Traditional stories work well with Reception & Key Stage 1 children, and  this time I had fun sharing a favourite telling tale, The Great Chappati Chase and showing them the story now exits in a book form, with beautifully coloured illustrations.  (See above!)

The next day - World Book Day - I spent at Richard Taylor Primary School. Over four sessions, I shared stories, talked about where I got ideas from and how I’d shaped those ideas, as well as reading from various books etc as well. WBD itself was so spring-like that I went out for a quick lunchtime walk (a useful way of warding off midday slump) and discovered a “sticky bun” shop nearby. Such days are definitely days for giving yourself treats.

However, alongside my sessions, I got a chance to see the chicks just hatching out of their shells – some damp, some fluffy -  as well as the happy smile of a newly appointed Lollipop Man and a staff room of teachers learning a dance! (As they’ll have done their dance for Red Nose Day by now, I can put that in this blog.) 

Friday morning was a doubly busy day, The morning was spent with Year 3 &4 at Thorpe Willoughby Primary, where, after a hasty “Author Talk”, I spent time in each class drafting up class poems. The staff and children were also busy celebrating poetry by decorating each door to illustrate a poem. In passing, I noted a ”Daffodils” door, a “Ning Nang Nong” door, and the start of a Kit Wright “Box” poem door. 

Moreover, each class was learning their poem to share it at the afternoon’s assembly. It was an inspiring rush of time.  Additionally, as I sped away, I’d been given a crust of the kind cook’s most delicious bread!

Just as well: my afternoon at Carlton-in- Snaith Primary School was a big “Author Assembly” for Years 2 to 6, followed by a Reception and Year 1 “Storytime”.  All the school, teachers included, had dressed up! The afternoon ended with parents arriving to see the school’s annual “Book Character” procession. As rousing music blasted out, the line of characters wound around the school, each class-load pausing in the hall to “twirl” for the audience, collect prizes, and then reappear for a single Grand Finale Parade. Magnificent! As I was standing by the Reception Classroom door, I had a very good view of all the costumes and the children’s faces as they passed by. Very enjoyable!

However, things got complicated after that.  First of all, my sat-nav went rogue, showing a map of Germany when we were driving through in Leeds, and then getting stuck on my home location and not shifting. The machine continued treacherous the following week, when I was booked as part of the Kirklees and Calderdale Page-Turners Festival school visit programme, only showing arrow junctions. (I ended up dragging out my old A-Z of West Yorkshire and a pile of Post-It Notes.)

My first stop was the school library (large, impressive, and complete with a school librarian - always a joy in these times) at Moor End Academy, where I talked to two groups about my writing and particularly my novel A BOY CALLED MOUSE. 

Over lunchtime, the sat-nav took me along all the cobbled country lanes between Huddersfield and Rishworth, both with and without grass in the middle, around hairpin bends, across between reservoirs and more until - eventually - I reached St John’s Primary for a lovely session with Reception and Key Stage One. 

Unfortunately, that evening, I came down with a horrid bug that knocked me out for far longer than I could imagine. (One dire day reminded me of childhood attacks of tonsillitis before I lost my tonsils! ) It wasn’t until the week after – the day of the eclipse - that I managed to visit the wonderful library at Scissett Middle School. What a lovely morning that was – and such a joy to see all the art on the walls! In the afternoon, sustained by DayNurse, I visited Almondbury Key Stage Two School. Although one of the class teachers was away too, the children still made it a very good time!  

 So hooray for World Book Day, and everyone involved with all the organisation and administration during these times of cuts. Thank you all!

Afterwards, at home, I gave way to a second round of flu. So annoying! However, I can’t be grumbly about that because of the joy and relief when you start to feel healthy again (and I had done all the school visits after all!)  

Besides, this week I’ve just finished and submitted a very small project - and this weekend it’s Easter – so I’m looking forward to some happy family times, some good egg hunting and some good reading!

Hope you have a Happy Easter too!

HAPPY FACE! SAD FACE! Or Today's Visit to the Library.

Today, returning a book to my local library, I caught the end of the current book sale. Happy face!

I’d bought a batch of books two weeks ago, when the sale started, and now I’ve picked up another batch of non-fiction titles. Today’s cache included several history books, a trio of cookery books (one healthy and two cake!) as well as a “research” book by a reformed medium and finally a score for the musician in the house. I felt smug and satisfied with this haul and am looking forward to reading and using them.

And yet, and yet, I also felt sad about how rapidly libraries dispose of book stock. The drive to make libraries popular with the general public means that books are taken off the shelves within very few years.  (Nor is such “popularity” truly saving the library services from local authority cuts, alas!)

Such rapid culls seem to me to dismiss the work involved in the writing and making of the books. In addition, each “removed title” shrinks the author’s (small) Public Lending Right payment. If that title disappears from every library, that income is over. And if there are less libraries, and less purchasing of books - not the happiest thought for the future. Much as my clutch of books excites me, those stacked tables do represent a quiet loss of income for many writers. In addition (or subtraction?) within the proposed “community library” world, PLR payments are still to be agreed, as far as I understand. If you know differently, I apologise, and I’d be glad to hear. 

 Library re-organisations do seem to give an excuse for book culls, big and small. Famous names have been protesting about the reference stock missing from Manchester’s refurbished Central Library. 

Specialist collections disappear too: one nearby library used to display a collection of early Victorian children’s books. However, during another re-organisation, the collection was boxed up, taken away and is now lost. 

Once upon a time, I’d imagined that, deep within library headquarters, qualified staff checked that all the archives were conserved. Unfortunately, those qualified librarians have been and are being packed off as at great a rate as the books. I'm certainly not getting at them.

I bought my happy stack of “history reference titles” because I wasn’t sure I’d ever get hold of the books otherwise. Recently, asking about a specific educational title, I heard that the public library is not really there to help higher level academic studies. The web isn't the well thought out, well-reasoned answer to everything.

Another book I'd asked about was too expensive to buy – and the inter-library loan system no longer seems to work. So I wander around, and try not to notice the slebs and tv titles filling the biography shelves, pushing other names out and away. Ah well. I know we can’t keep every book forever, but we live in confusing times . . .

I had originally gone to the library to kick-start a halted project but after trying a line or two, I gave up and walked home. Seeing so much written effort discarded, and some titles bearing the names of people I know, I suddenly didn’t feel up to writing after all.

Still, those “Removed from Loan” cookery books will help me make some comforting cake, won’t they?

Enough dismal muttering and lamentation. Enough crabbiness. I hereby declare that I’m reaching for my timer and putting my mind on my stilled project for thirty minutes. Onwards.

Penny

NEW YEAR, NEW STORY!

Ah yes, that resolution I made about this blog at the start of January? 

I’d meant to start again, honest, but there wasn’t a moment of spare time, or spare brain, come to that.

I was intending to re-start blogging here right after the tidying away of the tree and decorations on Twelfth Night . Then a horrid bug crept in – lots of groo and atishoo all round the house – followed by a week of scary tax accounts. I had a local library meeting to go to, and a couple of urgent blogposts needed elsewhere.

However, I think almost all the catching up’s done now so today’s a day for a small celebration. Today’s post brought my five author copies of a new book:  

The Great Chapatti Chase.

It’s my version of a familiar story format – and no, I’m not going to tell you which! – and one I’ve enjoyed telling on school and library visits for quite a while. 

I’ve even told it at the Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival in Delhi. Here’s the cheerful cover:

Thank you, artist Laura Sua, for all of the brilliant and clever illustrations between these pages.  

Happy sigh. Yes, the nice times of 2015 have begun. Happy New Year, everyone!

THE LUNCH THAT GREW

Well, it’s over, and I have begun sleeping well again. 

No, not today’s great happenings in Scotland – though I have felt sick with worry over that - but the Scattered Authors North Day last Saturday, which had been a long time in the planning.

Way back in February, I met a bright and inspiring writer and illustrator, Teresa Flavin. She’d recently moved from Glasgow to Leeds, and I’d heard nice things about her from writer friends in Scotland. As we were chatting over lunch, somehow the gentle grumble “Why do all the writer’s lunches seem to happen in the South?” changed to “Wouldn’t it be good to set up one for children’s writers in Yorkshire?” And so, bit by bit, last Saturday’s event at Leed's West Yorkshire Playhouse was born.  

We did begin by thinking “Lunch”. However, restaurant tables aren’t always easy to hear across and all that lively ordering and eating does interrupt the chat somehow, which is a problem if you’ve travelled for a couple of hours to get there. So our “Let’s have a lunch” grew from “Maybe a session before?” to a “Maybe a session after as well?” and then someone suggested more speakers - and before we knew it, a whole day had been planned.

How thankful we were for the West Yorkshire Playhouse, a modern venue not far from the central railway station, especially when cheap pop-up arts venues also had a habit of popping down just as quickly too. 

And, once things were arranged, how thankful we were for all those Scattered Authors who said they’d come and then did come! Money matters can be very scary . . .

 

And a Grand Day it was, the thirteenth of September! We started with two wonderful speakers from Leeds Libraries Services - Debbie Moody and Pauline Thresh. Then came CWIG Past Chair Helena Pielichaty,  passionate about our fast disappearing Schools Library Services and about the “Patron of Reading” scheme.

Then Teresa Flavin herself talked about the social networks that she finds useful – a well-planned wise and informed “do it if it works for you” approach – before we all went in for the task of trying to identify what his within the plates of sandwiches on their dark and gloomy table outside the Congreve Room. (Teresa and I have since suggested that WYP Catering put clear labels on their serving plates!) The sandwiches themselves, by the way, were very nice. So, the actual lunch, and more chatting.

The afternoon brought Jason Beresford with an entertaining account of his life so far, his “The Fabulous Four Fish Fingers” books and a burst of ukulele playing as a conclusion.

The last speaker of the day, Hilary Robinson, talked about working in BBC radio and setting up her Strauss House Productions company. Hilary decided to maintain control over her own work and ideas by independently publishing her new picture books in collaboration with Mandy Stanley (illustrator of The Copper Tree series) and Martin Impey, whose detailed illustrations add so much to the highly praised picture book, “Where the Poppies Now Grow”.

 

Finally, braced by tea and cookies, the roomful of writers chatted until one by one they had to leave: for Wales, for Derbyshire, for Scarborough, for Birmingham, for Cumbria and Northumbria, or simply for a closer home somewhere around Leeds. Oh, the hours were over so soon, and I got to speak to far fewer people than I wanted to. Even so, I was so pleased that all those months of administration led to a happy and satisfying day for so many.  Teresa and I had a private cheer afterwards and plan to celebrate sometime soon.

Nevertheless, although Sunday 14^th September was definitely a day filled with numb and lazy rest, I kept recalling voices talking about a Christmas lunch in Leeds sometime, maybe December. This idea will – I am promising myself - stay as a simple Scattered Authors Lunch!

After all, I do have some writing work to do . . .  

Have a happy weekend.

.

TALKING TO LADIES

So Wednesday evening went well. Phew! Whenever I’ve been away from “Showtime!” a while, I get anxious. 

My own showtime is not Brucie’s bright lights and dancing with big teeth and lots of  twirls and "Ta-da!". Mine is much more modest - just dressing in presentable clothes, adding a bit of slap and going out smiling to give a talk. 

Even so, having collected my notes and various “exhibits”, there ‘s always the fizzy fear that things might not work this time. 

Last Wednesday was a different audience: it wasn't a school or library or "family" session but a talk booked by a local Ladies Group.  On the programme, my name was down as “Author and Storyteller” but beyond that my talk was a mystery. (Would I have turned out for so little information, especially on a “Bake Off” night?) Anyway, I was very glad to see the earliest ladies arriving.  Empty, that hall seemed quite large.

I always worry that the “children’s books” topic can seem a touch demeaning – of course it isn’t, at all -  but sometimes adults can feel bristly. I began by talking about “how I got into children’s  writing” – both my teaching career and other more personal issues as well as showing a couple of very old children’s books I’d owned when I was little.

After that I talked about where some of my ideas came from, some made more meaningful as the audience knew the local settings I’d used and a cute cat story. Then there was a quick run through some more amusing aspects of the book process, illustrated with a few “interesting” pencil roughs and short readings. 

Finally, there was a “popular children’s book characters” picture quiz to fill the gap while tea was brewing.

Afterwards – as ever – I wondered why I’d been anxious. As an audience, the Ladies Group were warm and friendly and interested. Best of all, it seemed, the evening gave them a chance to reflect on children’s books and remember books they’d read as children in the past, the pleasure of reading books with their own children and even the pleasure of sharing the same books with their own grand-children or other small friends. It felt a very happy talk.  
Thank you, Ladies!

Meanwhile, last Thursday was a quick trip to the West Yorkshire Playhouse to check the room and the details for a gathering of children’s writers on Saturday. 

Of which more - as some say - anon. When I recover.

LOOKING AT CLEAR WORDS AND SPACES

Today I’m casting harsh glances at my muddle of an office, full of books, papers, ironing baskets and a very persistent cat – but I will refuse to take in these daily surroundings.

Instead I am imagining myself in a calm white creative space that is definitely not my own. At the weekend I went to a small private gallery, surrounded by farmland, where a landscape painter and a ceramic artist were holding an Open Studio event.

The paintings and prints – from the small to the very large - captured the wild movements of the weather, trees and grasses against the wide Yorkshire moors, while many of the finely detailed ceramic pieces echoed the shelled creatures and fossils found on the Yorkshire shoreline. It was an enjoyable visit, particularly – in that selfish writer way- as I came away with two aspirations.

 

The first was that peaceful gallery space. It was calm and "empty" - although more people were arriving as we left – but it also felt alive, particularly because one end was the painter’s studio. The gallery was a place where work happened: a good, creative space. 

Around the huge desk were paints and brushes. Ah, breathe in!  The faint scent reminded me of long-ago art-rooms in schools and college and that life-saving escape of art lessons within an academic curriculum. Being in the gallery was such a pleasure.

 

Heavens, why don’t writer’s studies have such beauty about them, I wonder? Right now, I want to empty my room, sort the contents, throw out the accumulated rubbish, tidy and clean until I have a simple space again.  But if I do, that’s my writing time gone and broken for far too long, and right now I can’t afford that.

The second joy was an invitation to sit and spend time with the ceramic artist’s journal. The book was full of her sketches, prints and experiments, the pages covered in samples and collages with briefest of comments alongside. 

Occasionally there were more words: short, beautifully hand-written passages. These recorded the working process: the ideas, the developments, the halts and the persistence needed so that the work moved forward, exploring again.

I valued the way the journal offered fragments of conversations with fellow artists and mentors. We all need support or sounding boards during moments of uncertainty or crisis. Thank  you, my own "writing friends".

But alas, another contrast! My personal pages are not things of beauty at all, just scatter-brained notebooks carrying cryptic clues like “p 53.Does P go on too much about this?  “ Ch. 23. Canal boats? Engine or horse? Check dates!”  “What does Zk want? Is he needed? Delete?” And so on. 

For ten seconds , I daydream. Could I, perhaps, begin to make such a wonderful journal? The answer comes promptly. No, right now I haven’t the time. My scribbled yellow “Morning Pages” will have to serve. Sometime you can, but not now.

 

I'd read one phrase that seemed to catch - for me - the eternal conflict between the making of any art and the too-swift passing of time. Here it is, half-remembered:

“The idea is in the head before it is in the hands.”  

Oh, the hands can take such a long time to get the work done.

Onward!