Thank you Barton Primary School for sending me more photos of the work you did when I visited on world Book Day. These are of the fabulous letter pictures the Year 1 and Year 2 children produced after working with me on Isabella, Rotten Speller. Thank you for sending them. They are really great.

So excited when this picture landed in my inbox last night.

It’s a fabulous flock of Hairy Fairy bookmarks, made by the Reception children at Barton Primary School following my visit on World Book Day. Aren’t they great?

OK. So the local paper, The Isle of Wight County Press, chose, in its wisdom, not to publish the picture its photographer took of me dressed as Hairy Fairy for World Book Day. (What was it thinking?) But it did give me a name check and mentioned my visit to Barton Primary School, as well as including pictures of some of the lovely children I met there. So that’s good enough for me.

I had a lovely day today at Tolwoth Infant and Nursery School in London, reading Hairy Fairy with the three reception classes and the nursery children. So enjoyed meeting these friendly, engaged children, drawing hairy fairies and making some Hairy Fairy bookmarks (see below). Thank you Tolworth, for a really fun day.

I had a wonderful World Book Day yesterday (despite being dressed as the Hairy Fairy!), thanks to the lovely children and staff at Barton Primary School on the Isle of Wight, who invited me in to read my books and lead some related craft activities.

I read Isabella, Rotten Speller with the Year 1 and 2 children who then went on to create their own fabulous self-portraits out of letters. I was so impressed with how they ‘got’ the concept of making pictures with letters and even extended the idea in ways I hadn’t thought of. We then created ‘letter landscapes’ for the portraits to live in – the seaside, the countryside, night-time and the garden – again, I was so impressed with the children’s creativity and enthusiasm.

Here are some of the nearly-finished pictures:

I also went into Reception Class to talk about what fairies are like (not as big as me, apparently, despite my convincing costume) and read Hairy Fairy to the children. They made some spectacular Hairy Fairy bookmarks, with glittery pipe cleaners and other assorted bling. They were just a bit too gluey to photograph while I was there, but they’ve promised to forward me some pictures when they’re dry.

Thank you Barton for a lovely World Book Day – I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

This is what I am looking at at the moment (obviously only out of the corner of my eye as I am also having to concentrate on my two-finger typing, which takes some doing). It is, quite literally, a blank sheet of paper and it is a SCARY THING. As long as it stays blank, it offers limitless potential. As soon as I start drawing on it, its potential shrinks and shrinks and shrinks; diminished by my own abilities (or lack of them).

As I said, it is a SCARY THING . And in the past, I might have been so frightened by it, I would have preferred to leave it blank – keep the potential intact – rather than mess it up. But these days, I am more excited by it than scared.

I am looking at it because yesterday, I finished the first draft of another book (WOOHOO!) and now I can’t wait to start drawing so that I can develop and extend the story. The more books I write, the more I understand how the drawings are just a crucial to the narrative as the words – it’s not a case of drawing what the words say, but making the words say more.

I am very excited to have finished the first draft of my book, and because it’s another rhyming one, it has had to be relatively precise and ‘polished’ (in other words, all the rhymes rhyme), but I know it will change a lot over the months it will take to complete the illustrations.

When I look at some of it, I can’t help thinking about the bit in my favourite Lauren Child book, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book, when the main character, Herb, tries to escape from the book he’s trapped in by climbing up the text and finds ‘Some of the words were a bit weak and the whole lot stared to wobble’. I know the feeling.

Anyway, enough of the delaying tactics. Anyone would think I was scared of that blank sheet of paper. Time to get cracking. Though I might just go and put the kettle on first.

New year, lots of new ideas – time to get cracking…

I’m rarely out of the papers these days, it seems. Actually, I’ve been in our local paper, The Isle of Wight County Press twice in a month. Still, I’m pleased.

Today’s story is about my new book, Jamie and the Joke Factory, which the County Press  kindly says: ‘guarantees to have youngsters in stitches with its wacky spirit’.

Jamie and the Joke Factory, is available to BUY NOW from Amazon, price £6.99.

Thank you to all of you who (metaphorically) rushed out and bought a copy of my new book, Jamie and the Joke Factory, at the first opportunity. It is so gratifying to see the sales coming through from Amazon almost as soon as the book was published, and I really appreciate your support.

For anyone who hasn’t already heard about it, Jamie and the Joke Factory is a slightly crazy combination of picture book and joke book (making it a bargain two-for-the-price-of-one stocking filler!) It tells the story of a little boy called Jamie, and his surprise day out at the joke factory.

You haven’t heard of a joke factory? Well neither had Jamie, but jokes have to be made somewhere, and a joke factory (logically) is the place they are made.

(Actually, when I read the book to a group of 4, 5 and 6 year olds recently, one of the boys claimed he’d not only heard of a joke factory, but he’d visited one! So maybe, after all, you have too?)

Anyway, the story follows Jamie and Grandad as they watch ‘doctor, doctor’ jokes; ‘I say, I say, I say’ jokes; ‘knock, knock’ jokes; and puns role off the production line, guided by the factory owner, Billy Bonkers. Any resemblance to Willy Wonka is not entirely coincidental, but though Jamie and the Joke Factory pays a small homage to Roald Dahl’s wonderful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they are quite different books.

Jamie and the Joke Factory is picture book, where the pictures tell the story as much as the words and the visual gags are as important as the written ones. The book is stuffed full of word- and picture-based jokes, which I hope extends the appeal of the picture book to slightly older children and even reluctant readers.

But please let me know what you think. And if you like it, please consider posting a review on Amazon too. Thank you!

Jamie and the Joke Factory, is available to BUY NOW from Amazon, price £6.99.

Pleased to see that the Isle of Wight County Press has included a piece about my Halloween reading and craft session in Bembridge Library last week: