Adventures in KidLitLand Nov-Dec 2019

Just one of many 'Oh Wow!' vistas.

I had the most marvellous time gallivanting around London and Oxford, with my husband, in November. It’s amazing how many children’s literary icons you bump into in that part of the world! From sipping mulled wine at JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis’ old haunt, the Eagle and Child pub, through to coming face to face with the Dodo from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ in the Museum of natural history, and discovering Tolkien’s’ dragon-treasure in the Ashmolean museum, finding Harry Potter curios dotted throughout the town, to imagining Lyra from Philip Pullman’s books slipping around the alleyways as we sauntered around the cobble-stoned town. And that’s only Oxford! It's such an inspiring and stimulating place, the centuries of creative thought seem to have infused the air!

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Lewis Carroll's handwritten 'Alice's Adventures Underground,' in the British Library

In London, I missed out on visiting Paddington Bear at the station by just a smidgen, due to an over-enthusiastic porter (I can’t complain- he took pity on us dragging our heavy bags from Oxford, and gave us a lift on his tractor, direct to the taxi rank, bypassing my plan to stop off at platform 1)  but I got to catch up on some rebels in kid’s lit at an exhibition at the British Library. Imagine seeing Roald Dahl’s Matilda manuscript with editor’s notes, and Lauren Child’s original collage artwork for Clarice Bean! And then there is the permanent exhibition with Lewis Carroll's beautifully bound handwritten story of Alice’s Adventures Underground. Just WOW!

At the library, I also got to meet up with author and friend, Stephanie Ward, whose new picture book, Arabella and the Magic Pencil is glorious! I took home a signed copy!

And of course, a visit to Shakespeare’s globe is a must for any literature lover in London – the guided tour was an anniversary gift from our children and it brilliantly evoked a bygone era. Marvellous!

Back on the home front, I had fun making a little video trailer for my story, Nine Christmas Carrots, in the Christmas Cornucopia anthology – check it out here. Move over, Marvel movie trailers, I say - they'll be knocking on my door for hints soon ;-)

Inspired to polish my writing skills by my time away, I’ve done a few things since returning:

1. Had a chat with legendary best-selling author Andy Griffiths, via a webinar run by the ASA. It was great!
2. Embarked on a short online course with Jen Storer about writing Junior Fiction.
3. Picked up a few handy hints on writing humour from Oliver Phommavanh and on literary illustration from Margrete Lamond, at the SCBWI Christmas party.
4. Networked with my support crew, at both the above party and the CBCA Northern Sydney Christmas drinks, where we also marked the closing of The Children's Bookshop with Paul and Beth MacDonald as guests of honour. Paul and Beth have been a major supporter of local Kid's book creators and the bookshop's closure is a loss for all of us as well as the local community. The good news is that Paul and Beth are opening a new bookish venture in Glebe, and I wish them the very best of success.
5. Took a seemingly never-ending story to my critique group to workshop and improve. They reckon it’s nearly ready now!

I’m taking a couple of month’s break from my author/illustrator interviews with Just Write for Kids, but I hope you caught up on the final instalment of my interview with Kiah Thomas in November. If you missed it, you can find it here. I was also excited to announce the winners of the JWFK Pitch It competition for which Kellie Byrnes and I judged the picture book entries. It was a strong field of pitches, and I’m glad that both Kellie and I agreed on the place-getters. You can find the shortlist here, and the winners here. Congratulations to the winners and all those that 'had a go.'

​This month  I got to talk with Katrina Roe on Hope 103.2 about two novels that are great for starting conversations around deep themes – Girl Running, Boy Falling, by Kate Gordon, a YA story around the aftermath of youth suicide, and All the Things I never Said, by Samantha Wheeler, a  mid-grade novel about a girl with a severe disability and her family. Both books were CBCA notable books this year.
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With Christmas fast approaching, I joined up with Penny Reeve to sell our books at a Christmas market stall. It’s a lovely way to engage with customers in an immediate way, sell a few books and make connections. Penny wrote a beautiful post about it that you can read if you’re on facebook, here.

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Look what I found in the Brookvale PS library with this amazing TL!

​The end of the school year is upon us, and I was honoured to be asked to present the library award at a K-2 presentation assembly at Brookvale Public School this week. I didn’t have a speaking role, but if I had, I would have explained that I think the library award is actually the most important, because as we know, reading feeds the imagination and, as Albert Einstein is quoted as saying:

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited whereas imagination        embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.’

So…

‘If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.’

Also on the subject of libraries, I was so pleased to see this article recently about the way a school turned around flagging grades by reviving the library! It was a lovely antidote to the article I wrote for the Students Need School Libraries blog, The Mystery of Shrinking School Libraries, earlier this year - as I said in that... it's not rocket science!

And talking about schools, if you’re a TL and you want to book me for an author visit or workshop next year, check out my presentations page here. I’m happy to say that I’m now represented by Creative Kids Tales Speaker’s Agency and Greenleaf Press. 

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As we wind down (and ramp up) to Christmas and the New Year, here's what I am looking forward to…

1. Putting my feet up and making a dent in my ‘to be read’ piles!
2. Christmas, of course. Talking of which, I love a nativity book, and this year Jess Racklyeft has illustrated this beauty, at right, reviewed by @Story_hound Archie on Insta, of which I’ve bought a number of copies…
3. And for the New Year – I think I’ll start off with a bang and enter that ‘never ending manuscript’ into this Picture Book Competition – anyone going to join me? 

 
To close the year, Archie and I wish all our readers and followers a joy-filled Christmas abounding in love and laughter - I think this photo encapsulates just that! Happy Christmas!

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