Dinosaurs Invade Cambridge

I've always been a big fan of Cambridge Wordfest so it was as massive honour to be able to take part this year - especially as it's the tenth year anniversary. OK, so  my talk was on Friday Thirteenth, but I didn't care. I was on the same programme as Beast Quest. Mr Gum and Paddington Bear and I was talking about dinosaurs - it doesn't get much better than that!







The room was packed with enthusiastic - and very knowledgeable - kids. I couldn't even catch them out with a pachycephalosaurus! One of the highlights of the day was that I had some fabulous REAL dinosaur  fossils and casts to show - all courtesy of the lovely people at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge. (If you live anywhere near Cambridge and you've not visited this fabulous museum yet, GO THERE NOW!) I was a little nervous of having such precious objects in my care, but it was well worth it!
T-Rex on the Table
Dinosaur fossils on the kitchen table, ready for Wordfest
At the end of the talk we invented a new dinosaur by putting together greek word stems using my unique top-secret patented dino-namo-rama machine. I asked whether any member of the audience would like to come on stage and draw the new dinosaur on the flip chart in real time as it was assembled. A brave lad called James volunteered. He did a great job! (The scruffy writing is mine - I should have left that to James too!)

Meet gigamassolophosaurus wordfestii
(=giant long-crested lizard)
As if that wasn't enough fun for one day, I then took up position on a rather grand leather chair especially reserved for authorial posteriors only, and signed books and had chatted with lots of lovely kids about books, adventures, dinosaurs and fossils.



I just hope that they'll ask me back next year!