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:
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“
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:
Only a week to go until the start of the IW Story Festival and my first session, How to Beat the Niggle, which is on at 1.15pm on Wednesday 17 February.
It’s been a tough 12 months for everyone, and I think all of us have felt the strain, at least from time-to-time, so I thought it was a good time to dust off my book about childhood anxiety and resilience, The Niggle, to read at the festival.
And in case that’s not positive enough, I will also be showing you how to make a positivity cube like this:
The positivity cube in action!
You can get ahead of the game and print out the template for the cube from here.
Can you make a scary face? Can you wiggle your fingers? Yes? Then this is the session for you! Don’t just listen to the story of The Niggle – about a little monster who whispers in five-year old Joe Jackson’s ear and makes him afraid – but join in! We all get a niggle in our ear from time to time, but there are things you can do to beat it: Peta will show you how to make a ‘Positivity Cube’ so you can get creative and conquer your fears and worries!
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
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!
Because of all the current covid shenanigans, I wasn’t able to run any Jacob Starke Loves the Dark sessions at this year’s Exmoor Dark Skies Festival, but I was able to video a reading and craft session which premiered last Saturday, but which you can still catch here if you have little ones in need of entertainment this half term:
Well, this may be my seventh children’s book, but I have to say that receiving the proof copies gets no less exciting! I have to hold myself back from showing them to random people in the street, and there’s absolutely no chance of escape for friends and family!
I’ll be putting more information about Milly’s Marvellous Mistakes on this website over the course of the next few days, including details of how to pre-order copies. In the meantime, I’m just going to spend some quality time with my proofs…
