Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for your support in 2016 – see you again in 2017!

In the meantime, here is my Christmas poem:

Christmas Wrap

Christmas cheer:
Guess who’s here?
Jolly fat man, red-nosed deer!

Early morning,
Not yet dawning,
Daddy’s grumpy, Mummy’s yawning

Tea is sipped,
Wrap is ripped,
Batman onesie, on and zipped.

Jingle bells,
Whoops and yells,
Yummy scrummy cooking smells

It’s fantastic!
(Dad’s sarcastic.)
Overwhelmed by so much plastic.

Corks are popping,
Needles dropping,
I like the cake, but not the topping.

Weather’s murky,
Grandma’s perky,
Roast potatoes, bacon, turkey.

Teenage pouts,
Brussel sprouts,
Lots of laughter, lots of shouts.

Lights and holly,
Talking dolly,
Think that Grandma’s getting jolly.

Cranberry jelly,
Excess telly,
Too much food inside my belly.

Battery’s dead,
All are fed,
Think it’s time to go to bed.

It’s publication day for my latest rhyming picture book, Isabella’s Adventures in Numberland, and I’m very excited!

‘So what’s this new book about?’ I hear you ask. Well…

Can you imagine what it would be like if there were no numbers? If you couldn’t measure, count or weigh? In her latest adventure, accident-prone young witch Isabella falls down a hole and finds herself in a land where nothing quite adds up (because all the numbers have disappeared!) She makes new friends, encounters an old enemy and, though the odds are against her, finally saves the day. You can count on Isabella! More details are available here.

Isabella’s Adventures in Numberland, the perfect stocking-filler for the under-nines in your life, is available to BUY NOW.

One of the things that has made publication day so great so far, was waking up to this lovely review from Linda’s Book Bag.

Pleased to spot a bit of coverage for my recent reading and craft session at Bembridge Library in this week’s Isle of Wight County Press. 

And here are a couple of photos from the day…

I enjoyed speaking to the Bembridge branch of the WI last night. The subject of the talk was ‘Peta Rainford’s Books: the story so far!’

Having done several school and library visits over recent months, this was my first talk to a group where the average age was (ever so slightly) over nine!

I found the whole process a very positive one. Preparing the talk forced me to break from working on my next book and made me consider a number of very basic questions like:

• where do I get my ideas from?
• how has my illustration style developed? and (the big one)
• what next?

I suspect some of my answers were more coherent than others, but it is always good to take a step back from what you are doing and get a little perspective.

Thank you, Bembridge WI, for inviting me to talk and being an engaged and inquiring audience and good luck to those of you considering, or already engaged in, this book-writing lark for yourselves.

Of course you do!

As you may or may not know, I like to write a monthly poem for my newsletter readers. Last month, I wrote one about the plight of a much-maligned bird, a crow called Colin. One of my newsletter readers has asked if she could share it with her friends on Facebook, so here it is. (yes, I know it’s tiny and a bit fuzzy, but click on it and it won’t be):

If you like it and would like to see more of the same (as well as getting the latest hot news from Peta Rainford Books), please sign up for my newsletter by sending your email address to: petarainford@gmail.com. Many thanks.

If you’re on the Isle of Wight this half term and are looking for free stuff to do with the kids, look no further…

I am putting the final few touches to my next book, Jamie and the Joke Factory, but I could still do with a few more jokes! Can you (or, better still, your children or grandchildren) help out?

Send me their favourite ‘doctor, doctor’, ‘I say, I say, I say’ or ‘knock, knock’ joke by Monday (21st September) and I’ll do my best to fit them in. If I put their joke in the book, I’ll put their name in too!

You can put your joke in the comments box below, send it via my facebook page (Peta Rainford’s Books), or via email: petarainford @gmail.com.

I am getting some very lovely comments on my new email newsletter which went out yesterday, including these:

“Absolutely LOVE the rock pool poem…. could be an illustrated book in itself, really good!”

“I thoroughly enjoyed your first edition. It made me chuckle over lunch – putting my dodgy homemade sandwich in jeopardy.”

“Great letter!! Loved the poem.”

(All of these comments are genuine and unsolicited and two of them aren’t from a blood relative.)

Why not sign up for it too? It’s free! All you have to do is email me at petarainford@gmail.com.

Look forward to hearing from you.

I know I have sold copies of my books in the US, but it was nevertheless extremely exciting and gratifying to receive these pics of children in North Carolina having ‘Hairy Fairy’ read to them.

Thank you to lovely Claire Canosa for taking my book into school.

There is an upside to having been woken up at 6am on a Sunday morning: while grumpily lying in bed, unable to get back to sleep, a rhyming couplet came into my head. It’s embarrassingly bad and just what I was looking for to kick off the sequel to Isabella, Rotten Speller.

I have been thinking about the story-line for this sequel for months (since before I finished Isabella), but have been struggling to find a way in. By 7am, despite my sleep-deprived state, I had written the first draft for the book’s opening sequence. Hurrah!

And it looks like I have a 7 year old co-author on this one. Having listened to what I’d written so far, she took my pen from me and finished the line I was working on. She then drew this rather lovely picture of Isabella’s sister (name matter of some dispute):

So quite a productive early morning in our house today. On balance though, I would have preferred a bit more sleep!