Illustration Festival 2

Also at last weeks Illustration Festival, I got to watch Chris Wormell read from his new book One Smart Fish. This book is a lovely picture book about evolution and how One Smart Fish invented legs so he could walk on the beach! After reading the story to an enthralled audience Chris created a strange creature from the bits of animals that were called out, e.g. the head of a cat, the neck of a giraffe etc. Then a huge roll of paper was rolled onto the floor and children were asked to draw any type of animal they could and covered the paper with a huge menagerie.

Illustration Festival

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see David McKee (Elmer, Not Now Bernard) and Tony Ross (Little Princess Books, Horrid Henry (illustrations) at Blackwell Bookshops first Illustration Festival. They spent an hour going through the alphabet drawing animals that the young audience called out. They made it look so easy. At the end they did signings so of course I had to buy some books!

Hello

HI, my name is Sam and I love books. I love children's literature and although my own daughter is well past the picture book stage I still love to look at picture books. I work with children who have a range of severe special needs so use picture books in my work with them. We have sensory stories using props and objects to help them experience and engage with the story. That is the favourite part of my job and I plan to tell you about the stories we have used and what we did to make it come to life. I also like meeting children's authors so try to go to events to hear them talk about what they do or see them in action. I have been lucky enough to travel around to some of the many places in the UK that focus on children's literature so would also like to share that too!