Tag blog-tour

You Can’t let an Elephant drive a Racing Car

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Thank you to Bloomsbury Children’s Books for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for this hilarious book

You Can’t let an Elephant drive a Racing Car
Patricia Cleveland-Peck and David Tazzyman
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

In their latest crazy collaboration wherein animals’ antics result in madness and mayhem as they try their paws, snouts, tails, trunks, beaks and other parts of their anatomy at activities normally the province of humans, team Cleveland-Peck and Tazzyman present an unlikely assortment of creatures competing in sporting contests. Starting with the titular elephant sabotaging his chances before the race even begins, among others there’s a junior alligator trying her luck as a figure skater, a kangaroo unable to keep control of the bat in a cricket game, an unaware walrus in a bicycle race – an international one moreover, a wombat that gets the wibble-wobbles in a weight-lifting event

and an entire team of agile monkeys attempting to steal the show at the gym display.

In case you’re wondering if any of these entries end in a medal or a cup, let’s merely say participation is what matters and trying one’s best, and there’s nothing better at the end of the day than a communal frothy immersion to ease those fatigued muscles.

I‘m sure Patricia and David’s well-intentioned contenders will have readers falling off their seats in giggles at the absurdities presented herein and likely trying to imagine some further sporting scenarios for their own animal olympics.
I now hand over to author Patricia to tell you about how she works:

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WRITER

I am lucky enough to live in the country surrounded by fields and woodlands and it is no exaggeration to say that on most days I wake up to the sound of birdsong. I usually spend an hour or so having breakfast and pottering around the kitchen before heading to my writing room. I always feel happy entering it. I think my greatest good fortune is that I am doing something I love and something I wanted to do from about the age of ten.

No two days are the same, but it is good to have a bit of a routine. I usually have emails to  answer first, this week they include one from South Africa and one from Australia. After dealing with the most urgent of them, I settle down to write. Sometimes I write articles about things which interest me: these include odd quirky people, textiles, plants and travel. I wrote one going on a dawn picnic with my children to watch the sun rise – something everyone should do once in their lives.

Often though, I am working on a children’s book. For the texts of the Elephant series, because the books are comparatively short, every single word counts. I have sometimes spent a day or more over one word. But if words are the bricks I use, rhyme, rhythm and assonance are the foundations on which I build stories. I often wander around the house crazily chanting rhymes to myself. I love doing it, but it is not as easy as you’d think.

Sometimes I go travelling far away. My writing has secured me many wonderful trips; most recently to the Arctic where I saw the Northern Lights and went dog sledding but also as far as China, Japan and Mexico. Wherever I go I find things of interest which eventually filter through my imagination into my stories.

When I am at home, I try to go for two walks. Sometimes I go along the lane, into the woods and down to a stream. I look to see which flowers are in bloom, listen for buzzards mewing like kittens overhead and keep my eyes open for the deer which live around here. Other days I stroll our own place where I can see our bees, sheep and poultry. These can inspire a story. I remember throwing some spaghetti out and the sight of the ducks with it twiddled round their beaks gave me the idea for a picture book, The Queen’s Spaghetti. Wherever I am there are stories not far away.

Sometimes I write in the afternoon, sometimes I go out and about – but I always spend the last couple of hours of the day looking over what I have written earlier. As a writer you are never completely off duty. I have a notebook and pen next to my bed because sometimes a great rhyme or a great idea will come to me after I’ve put out the light. As I don’t always put on my glasses it can be a challenge to decipher them by the light of day! I have learned the hard way that I never remember these gems if I don’t scribble them down. There are plenty of ideas out there, it’s just a question of catching them as they fly past.

Please check out the other stops on the tour too

Blog Tour : You’re Safe With Me

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Red Reading Hub is thrilled to be part of the blog tour for a truly stunning picture book; thank you Lantana Publishing for inviting me to participate.

You’re Safe With Me
Chitra Soundar and Poonam Mistry
Lantana Publishing

It’s night-time deep in the Indian forest: the moon is high and the stars a-twinkle. Suddenly though the skies turn deepest dark as a storm brews. All the baby animals are wakeful and scared.
Fortunately for them, Mama Elephant – huge and wise – arrives on the scene and with her softly spoken “Hush … You’re safe with me.” rocks the little ones to sleep.
The wind causes them to whimper and Mama Elephant offers an explanation, “Don’t worry … He’s an old friend of the forest. He brings us seeds from faraway lands.”
Further explanations are provided concerning the clattering thunder, the zigzagging lightning and the rumbling river all of which are proffered in the manner of a lovely gentle lullaby that brings comfort and slumber to all the little animals.

Simply and memorably told with a repetitive structure, onomatopoeia and alliteration this tale is rich indeed.

I’ve been fortunate to visit India – the Keralan forests, coastal Kerala, Goa, Himachel Pradesh and Rajasthan – many times during the Indian monsoon season: it truly is an amazing multi-sensory experience, different in every location.
Both author, Chitra Soundar and artist, Poonam Mistry capture monsoon time so beautifully in their wonderful book.

I now hand over to Chitra to talk about her own monsoon memories that inspired her story …

You’re Safe With Me originates from the memories of the monsoon storms of my childhood. I grew up in the coastal city of Chennai, a port and a fishing hub. During the monsoon season, we got used to listening to the radio for news about the storm and we knew all the technical terms that define the ferocity of the storm.

Here is a sample of a video in Tamil that describes the storm that’s expected. We heard similar broadcasts, except on the radio. As kids of course we didn’t have TV until I was 15 (another long story).

My memories of rain are clearly etched with sound, the feeling of damp and wetness everywhere – clothes not drying, squishy doormat, wet clothes and the smell of damp clothes. As a 6-year old I remember climbing on to the top shelf of my cement cupboard because our flat was flooded. We waited the water out by sleeping on the top shelves.

As an 8-year old and later, I have sat by the radio listening to the news, waiting for my father to return from work. An hour’s journey would stretch into four as he waded through the streets, drenched in the rain. As a teenager, I have cycled in the rain to school, my book-bag wrapped in three sheets of plastic. I remember losing my expensive raincoat at school and having to cycle through the torrential downpour.

But all my memories of tropical thunderstorms are not scary or stressful. For a city that’s hot most of the year, rains are both a blessing and a curse. The first drops fall on the parched ground, evoking the fragrance of the earth. The rain is relentless, loud and full of promise. The good memories are always associated with the cool air, the sound of rain and a spicy Indian snack with a book by the window.

I’ve returned to the topic of the thunderstorm often and in various ways. Long ago when I was just starting out, I wrote a story that was inspired by a real life incident during the monsoon rains called Afraid of Dogs.

And of course my love for flood stories led me to the story of Pattan’s Pumpkin, which is again set during the torrential downpour of the monsoon season.

You’re Safe With Me is a storyteller’s take on the thunderstorm. Monsoon rains and thunderstorms are dramatic elements of this beautiful earth. Clouds gather over the ocean, they create low pressure and they bring rain and storm. I wanted children not to be afraid of its ferocity.

But this is also a book about perspectives. I wanted young readers to look at anything loud or bright or scary from a different viewpoint. Something unfamiliar might terrify us. Once we understand an unknown, it’s familiar, it can be fun or perhaps it needs to be respected.

I had no expectation of how the illustrations would turn out. I knew Poonam Mistry will and should interpret the story the way she sees it and she would bring her own experience of the storm to the story. And she has done it wonderfully, hasn’t she?

Her art inspired by India has brightened the pages and created a third dimension to the story.

Thunderstorms are a necessary part of living near the ocean. And we’re just a small part of how things work on this planet. And therefore, we should do our part to protect the nature around us, lest we should one day be deprived of its beauty and kindness.

Thank you Chitra.
For more guest posts and reviews, I hope readers will follow the rest of this blog tour.

Blog Tour – The Wardrobe Monster

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A big thank you to Old Barn Books for inviting me to be part of the blog tour for an exciting debut picture book from Bryony Thomson

The Wardrobe Monster
Bryony Thomson
Old Barn Books

As a small child I can remember having a phase of being scared to go to bed. For me the cause of the terror wasn’t a wardrobe monster: I was convinced the resident owl from the oak tree in our garden had fallen down the chimney and was flapping around in there, ready to fly out into the bedroom at any moment. The fact that there was a chest of drawers in front of the fireplace made no difference.
We eventually discovered that a stray branch from a cherry tree in our neighbour’s garden tapping on the window when the wind blew was the cause of the trouble.
I wish I’d had something like Bryony Thomson’s debut picture book to reassure me.

Like many young children, Dora the child protagonist of her story suffers from fears about the dark.
Lack of sleep means that she, along with bedfellows Penguin, Lion and Bear are in a bad mood at breakfast time.

This bad mood lasts throughout the entire day and come bedtime, Dora employs delaying tactics.

What exactly is the cause of the problem?
There are sounds coming from inside the wardrobe – a wardrobe monster no less.
Can Dora and her toy friends face their fears and confront that monster? After all, they only need to open the cupboard door when the banging starts …

The smudgy nature of Bryony’s superbly expressive illustrations makes her characters all the more huggably adorable – even the one responsible for the scary noises.

Red Reading Hub is thrilled to be part of the blog tour for Bryony’s book: here she talks about her favourite childhood books:

Picture books weren’t a big part of my life as a child, I’ve checked with my parents and I just didn’t really have many. Stories and reading, however, were still hugely important and many of my earliest memories involve being read to by my Mum or Dad, snuggled up against them and cocooned in the magical world created by the story.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Winnie-the-Pooh was a favourite amongst my whole family and I am lucky enough to still have my full colour hardback copy complete with maps of “100 Aker Wood” as endpapers. I was particularly fond of the incident where Pooh goes to visit Rabbit, eats too much honey and condensed milk and gets stuck trying to leave the rabbit hole. The characters all had such distinctive voices and I can still hear them in my head (the way my Dad used to read them). Somehow because the locations in the story are so familiarly English you felt like you were a part of it and when out for a walk might at any moment bump into Eeyore or Pooh or come across a heffalump trap.

There’s No Such Thing As A Dragon by Jack Kent

There’s No Such Thing As A Dragon was one of the few picture books I owned, purchased when one of the travelling book fairs came to our school; I can remember picking it off the shelf! What I loved about the book then, and still do now, is the complicity between Billy Bixbee and the reader who both acknowledge the dragons existence, set against Mother’s complete refusal to see what is going on right under her nose. The illustrations are brilliant as well, there is so much life and character in them, especially the dragon with his obsession for Buttercup Bread.

George Mouse’s First Summer by Heather S. Buchanan

I must be honest I have very little recollection of the actual story of George Mouse’s First Summer. It was published the same year I was born and I think my parents must have started reading it to me when I was very small. I do remember the illustrations which were tiny and beautifully intricate, but what I remember most of all, and what made this one of my all time favourite books, was that one of the mice (George’s eldest sister) was called Bryony. As a child with an unusual name – in the 80s probably even less common than it is now – this was HUGE for me! I felt a sense of ownership over this book like no other before or since.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Ballet Shoes was a book my Mum and I shared together. The book itself was the old hardback copy she had been read when she was a little girl. At the time I was obsessed with ballet myself and so the book had an innate attraction but what really sticks in my memory is the characters rather than the story. They felt like real people and in the differing personalities of the three sisters there was always someone you could identify with.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

War Horse is one of the first books I have a really clear memory of voluntarily reading myself. I’m sure there were others before it but it was the first book which I remember surreptitiously reading under the duvet when I was meant to be asleep. It was the first book that made me cry and the first book that I tried to illustrate; I still read it every couple of years. Again it was the characters that won me over, despite being a horse I felt as though I knew Joey like a friend and when Topthorn died I was devastated. The book gave me a completely new perspective on World War I, which we had touched on briefly in school and awoke an interest in history which has continued ever since.

Thank you Bryony and I hope readers will follow the tour on some of the other blogs; tomorrow is the turn of Playing By the Book.

Feelings

jillrbennett 1 Comment

Red Reading Hub is Happy that Caterpillar Books invited me to be part of the FEELINGS blog tour and thanks too, to the book’s creators, Richard and Libby for …

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Feelings
Richard Jones and Libby Walden
Caterpillar Books
Emotional literacy and well-being are at the heart of the Early Years Foundation Stage and Every Child Matters, and yet still, as we’re told in the PR for this book, ‘One in ten children aged between 5 and 16 (have) a mental health problem.’
So what happens once children move into primary school at age five? Here is not the place to discuss this issue although I have strong views on what I see to be some of the contributory factors: rather, I welcome anything that can help children to explore their own feelings and emotions openly and within a safe context. Many picture book stories offer this possibility; now here we have a lovely, specially written and illustrated book to this end.
Richard Jones, the illustrator, places the child right where he or she should be: at the heart of this book …

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and then, after the introduction, assigns a double spread to the exploration of ten different feelings/emotions: Brave, Sad, Angry, Happy, Jealous, Alone, Embarrassed, Excited, Afraid and Calm. Each one is beautifully atmospheric.
Vitally important as personal feelings are, it is also essential, in order to function well in society, to be able to see things from other people’s viewpoints. So after acknowledging that we’re all different and that this is mirrored in our own personal feelings, Libby Walden (or rather her child narrator) makes this final suggestion: ‘Try to walk in someone’s shoes to see how they might feel, /For though you cannot see them, their feelings are still strong and real.’ How many times a day or week do those of us who teach in the foundation stage or spend time in Early Years settings say to individuals after an incident, something like “Now how do you think so and so feels about that?”
The rhyming text makes use of metaphor to look at what happens when one is overwhelmed by a particular emotion: Sad is a ‘river … bursting through its banks’ covering the land and creating a ‘sea of salty tears with no sign of the shore.”

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Angry is ‘a fire-pit in the ground ‘blazing, spitting, bubbling and swirling and finally, erupting …

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Jealousy, in contrast, is a rolling ‘emerald mist’, churning, seething and eating away at you from inside, blurring your vision and fixing your mind on something you don’t have.
For many children, particularly younger ones, pictorial representation is the easiest (and for them, safest) way to explore their feelings. With this in mind, I shared the book and asked some children to talk, reflect and respond in their own way: here are a few of their pictures.
Angry seemed to be the one feeling that was all-engulfing: Gracie has become an enormous bear with jagged teeth and claws …

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Interestingly Richard himself mentions jagged shapes and fiery colours in his discussion of illustrating Angry for the book. Saba too has jagged lightning in her Angry scene …

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Happy for Daniel is doing sport …

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for Shahan lots of sweets to eat, especially his favourite gulab jamun …

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For Lexi, it’s celebrating a birthday …

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Sad, for Shifan is broken toys …

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for Frankie it’s bullying …

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Excited for James is activities that allow him to release his boundless energy …

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If these responses are anything to go by, Feelings should certainly prove to be a very valuable resource for teachers and other working with children.