Oops. I’m a bit late posting this week’s Lockdown Special Offer. But fear not, it will still run for the full seven days. This week I am offering UK customers of my online shopthree books for the price of two. And there’s no pesky coupon code this week: just add the first two books to your cart in the normal way, then, when you checkout, put ‘3 for 2’ in the ‘Order notes’ box, along with the name of the third book.
Don’t forget, you can also use the ‘Order notes’ box to request any personal dedications. Unfortunately this offer is only available to UK customers and closes at midnight on Wednesday 2 December.
Get any three books for just £13.98
My final Lockdown Special Offer will be posted next Tuesday, 1 December.
Hi! just to let you know about this week’s Lockdown special offer in my online shop: until Monday 23 November, I’m offering 10% off plus free postage on all purchases. Just click on this link and put in coupon code HB3SMST3 at checkout to grab yourself a bargain!
In lieu of the usual round of autumn festivals and pre-Christmas fairs, I’m going to be running a series of Lockdown special offers over the next four weeks. To kick things off, I am offering 20% off all UK purchases from my online shop between now and Monday 16 November 2020. All you need to do is add the coupon code 6E5H2BZ6 at checkout.
Did you have a go at making a Scribble Monster or two after Monday’s post? (It’s here if you missed it.) If you did, you may, like me, have found it strangely addictive, and ended up with a whole bunch of monsters…
What’s the collective noun for a group of monsters? A roar? A scare? What do you think?
I’m now surrounded by Scribble Monsters. Which got me thinking about creating a story about them. Why don’t you have a go? And don’t forget: I’d love to see anything you do – you can email it to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford
12: Create a story about Scribble Monsters (and you don’t have to write a word, unless you want to!)
There are lots of different ways of creating a story:
Tell it! Talk about the characters and the adventures they might have ( you could video or record the story, if you like)
Draw it! As soon as you draw in a background behind the Scribble Monsters, you start telling a story about where they live and what they are doing. Or you can create a more detailed narrative, by creating a cartoon strip
Write it! Writing could be anything from single words – labelling a drawing, for example – to speech bubbles in a cartoon, or the more flowing narrative of a ‘traditional’ written story
Whichever way you decide to create your story, you might like to think about the following:
What are the monsters called?
What relationship do the monsters have to each other? Are they friends? Enemies? Strangers? Members of the same family? Or something else?
Are they goodies or baddies?
Where do they live? Maybe they live on a mysterious planet, with a mysterious name. Maybe they live in the fluff under your sofa. Maybe they live next door to you…
What language do they speak?
What adventure will they go on?
These are just some broad-brush ideas for creating a story. I will look at some of them in more detail in future posts. Have fun with your story making – and do please feel free to share your creations with me.
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 McIntyreNick 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
