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| Lucy as Emily Wild, complete with investigation kit |
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Thank you for sending in your fantastic pictures of Adventure Island World Book Day costumes - I loved seeing them.
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| and a brilliant Drift badge |
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| Lola as Drift, with perfect face paint - one black ear, one white with brown spots! |
I had a great week, with visits to some of my favourite schools.
Here are a few of the things I got up to . . .
Tuesday at Litcham School in Norfolk
Led a workshop on travel writing with a Y8 group. Students pitched their ideas for new travel books based close to home, including,
Rubbish: One student's quest to throw a piece of litter in every bin in Norfolk and
Dave: One student's quest to meet every man called Dave in South West Norfolk. Then we journeyed farther afield. Inspired by extreme quests like Tony Hawkes'
Round Ireland With A Fridge, how about
From Little Mileham to South Africa with a Sloth but no Sugar. Playing the part of editor, the ideas were so great, I commissioned them all, and sent everyone off on their imaginary travels with super-generous imaginary expenses. I really enjoyed running a poetry workshop on the theme of Home with a Y7 group too - so many great ideas and lots of thoughtful, interesting work. Well done, everyone!
There is a lovely write-up of the visit on the
Litcham Library blog. Thank you for your kind words, everyone!
Wednesday at Princethorpe Junior School in Birmingham (by video!)
Recorded a video to play in the WBD assembly tomorrow, announcing the winners of their hundred word story writing competition and reading out the winning story. I got to growl in the voice of a monstrous brute with the head of a lion and the body of a bull and wave a sword around. Well done, Logan! Logan's story can be seen on the Story Showcase on the Young Writers page. As an extra prize I'm going to write a short mystery featuring the winning children as the intrepid investigators.
Thursday at Coton Primary School near Cambridge
Almost cried in assembly. As the children began singing
I am the Lord of the Dance I
was ambushed by the accumulated memories of the long-ago nativity
plays, harvest festivals and leavers' assemblies I attended when my sons
were there.
Helped a Y3 class invent tarantula cars
and hedgehog bikes and unicorn planes and a supercars called the
Lamborghini Big Pancake.
Met aY3 girl- called Emily -who had dressed up as Emily Wild. As if
that was not enough joy, her little brother in Y1 was
dressed up as Emily's dog, Drift!
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| Meet Drift the dog! |
Friday at Kensington Primary School in Liverpool
Accompanied
the head and seven children - one winner per year group of the 'design
a book cover for your favourite book' competition - to choose their
very own book prize in lovely Liverpool Waterstones.
Created
dangerous writing suspense scenes with Y6 - including much discussion
of hero cats, killer hamsters, ninja dogs, being sucked into TVs,
exploding cities, failing WIFI signal . . . the list goes on!
Saturday at home
Collapsed in a heap on the sofa . . . with a good book of course!
Thank you to everyone at Willingham Primary School for making me so welcome at your school when I came to visit last week. I had a great day working with all three Y3/4 classes as well as with a lovely mixed-age group in the morning - where we got to work spinning tales of adventure and magic using my newly created Story Factory - modeled here by Scruffy. Scruffy comes along on all my school visits to dispense cuddles and perform as Drift's stunt double. Well done, everyone, for your brilliant imagination and enthusiasm. 
