Tag Archives: Isle of Wight

Crab, Dab and Blenny are going live!

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I’m so excited to be taking Crab, Dab & Blenny to the IW Story Festival this February half term. It’s been a long two years since I last did a live event!

And I’m particularly pleased that it’s Crab,Dab & Blenny that I’m sharing at the festival this year. The importance of reducing the amount of plastic in our oceans has never been more acute.

Join me if you can, at Quay Arts in Newport, Friday 25 February, 11.15am-12pm, to share my rhyming story about fishy friends and plastic pollution, and find out how all of us, even children, can do our bit to reduce the amount of plastic in the sea.

There will also be some hands-on, gluey fun, with a beach-inspired craft activity. I hope to see you there!

Tickets are available from Quay Arts

For more information about my event, and all the other inspirational goings-on at the IW Story Festival, on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 February, please visit the festival site.

Crab, Dab & Blenny are going on tour!

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With the school holidays almost upon us, and with so many children having beachy staycations this summer, I thought this would be the ideal time to promote my new rockpool-based rhyming picture book, Crab,Dab & Blenny, so I’m taking it on tour! More specifically, I’m having my first ever blog tour, with Crab,Dab & Blenny being reviewed/featured by 25 bloggers over five days, starting Monday 12 July. Phew!

It’s going to be exciting and nerve-wracking in equal measure!

So please keep an eye out for the reviews, and like and share (if they’re good ones!) on social media. Here’s the schedule:

Great Early Reviews for ‘Crab, Dab & Blenny’!

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I’ve had some wonderful early reviews for Crab, Dab & Blenny; really couldn’t have been better if I’d written them myself!

I thought Crab, Dab and Blenny was utterly brilliant. Peta Rainford understands  children so well. Crab, Dab and Blenny considers the difficult issue of plastics in the sea, but the author makes it accessible without ever being patronising, and it is entertaining and actually uplifting, as well as educational, so that it is a really fantastic book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Linda’s Book Bag, full review here

It is 5 stars from us for this one, well written, a lovely rhyming style and some fab images and best of it it carries a very important message! Very highly recommended.

donnasbookblog, full review here

Crab, Dab & Blenny is a beautiful, rich, educational story that will not only gives children a wonderful tale but also arms them with the knowledge that not only is plastic bad for the environment but how they can help when they are next at the beach if they see plastic lying around.

Whispering Stories, full review here

A lovely tale, but with a serious and current environmental message, the pupils in school loved hearing this read aloud, and it prompted lots of discussion about what we can do to help stop waste ending up in the sea. The bright illustrations and fact that it was written by a local author about beaches near the school (St. Helens) added to the enjoyment, and really brought it home that this is an issue that affects all of us.

richreadalot, whatIread, full review here

A great rhyming story with an important environmental message surrounded by beautiful illustrations. 

Amazon Review

We absolutely love this book. Wonderful character and excellent rhymes. With such a clear ecological message for children.

Website review

Crab, Dab & Blenny is available to buy from my online shop or Amazon.

IT’S PUBLICATION DAY FOR CRAB, DAB & BLENNY!

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I feel like it’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here! Publication day for Crab, Dab & Blenny!

It is available to buy from my online shop, from Amazon and, as they always say in the adverts, ‘all good bookshops’, including the lovely Medina Books, here on the Isle of Wight.

Publication Day started in the most fantastic way, with a lovely 5 star review from Donna Maguire and her four-year-old daughter, Ava, on donnasbookblog:

“It is 5 stars from us for this one, well written, a lovely rhyming style and some fab images and best of it it carries a very important message! Very highly recommended“

You can read the full review here.

I’m really excited about this book. It feels very close to my heart: inspired by the beaches – and particularly the rockpools – of the Isle of Wight, where I live. The beaches are beautiful, but, like a lot of other people, I am frustrated and upset by the amount of plastic washed up on a daily basis. So I’m hoping my book will not only pass on my enthusiasm for rockpools and rockpooling, but also help inform young children about the problem of plastic pollution.

Here’s the blurb for Crab, Dab & Blenny:

Fish friends Dab and Blenny are upset by the plastic that washes into their lovely rockpool home. Crab, on the other hand, just LOVES the shiny bright colour… But when Blenny gets caught in plastic twine, Crab finally understands the danger of plastics in the ocean.

Crab, Dab & Blenny is a fun, rhyming picture book for 4-to-8-year-olds, with an important environmental message.

If you want to find out more about the inspirations behind the book, and how I put it all together, my video session for this year’s IW Story Festival, From Source to See is still available on YouTube:

Join me at at IW Story Festival for a chance to win a dedication in my new book!

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I hope you will be able to join me at the IW Story Festival, on Thursday 18 February, at 2pm, when I will be talking about the process I went through to produce my new book, Crab, Dab & Blenny. I will also be offering one lucky person the chance to have my new book dedicated to them, or a person of their choice. Join me for the session for your chance to win!

Crab, Dab & Blenny will be published later this year

Find out how my experience of living on the Isle of Wight, my love of rock pools and my worries about plastics in the ocean, inspired my story.

The IW Story Festival runs from Wednesday 17 to Saturday 20 February, all sessions are on YouTube and FREE! You can see the whole programme here #crabdabandblenny

What a fab festival it was!

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Reading jacob Starke Loves the Dark and talking about dark skies

Can’t believe a whole week has gone by since the inaugural IW Story Festival took place – and I’m still feeling the buzz!

I’m part of the core organising committee – along with Elspeth Giddens, storyteller Sue Bailey, and fellow local author/illustrators Jules Marriner and Debbie Webb, who all worked liked dogs but were determined and positive throughout! We had a vision: to inspire creativity and imagination though stories of all types, in children from the Isle of Wight – particularly from ‘hard to reach’ families – and beyond. We didn’t know if we could pull it off. But we did. With bells on. (l should add: although we were the core team, we couldn’t have done it without the help and support of many other wonderful people.)

Fellow organisers and friends, Jules Marriner (looking almost too comfortable as Winnie the Witch) and Debbie Webb (grabbing a selfie with Korky Paul)

Hundreds of children and families poured through the doors of the Riverside Centre in Newport to see authors, illustrators, storytellers, poets, puppetry and theatre. They took part in junk modelling, book making, World Book Day costume making and encounters with bats, bugs and owl poo!

We’ve been very grateful for all the local press coverage we’ve received

The success of the event was helped, in no small part, by our fabulous headliners: Korky Paul, Nick Sharratt and Sarah McIntyre, who brought in the crowds and were all charming and generous with their time and drawings. Sarah wrote her own blog, which gives a fabulous flavour of the fun of the festival. You can read it here.

Indulging in some fandom with the splendid Sarah McIntyre
Nick Sharratt had been signing books for around an hour and a half at this stage –
and he’s still smiling!

My own session – where I read Jacob Starke Loves the Dark and led some nocturnal animal mask making – was great fun and resulted in some fabulous badgers, foxes and owls.

I was so pleased with how the masks turned out!

The festival was also the first outing for my new book, Milly’s Marvellous Mistakes – it was exciting to see it on display in the festival bookshop run by Medina Books. Even more exciting to sell a few copies!

Medina Books did a great job as bookshop for the festival