I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to Karen Ison and all the students and staff I met at Rose Green Junior School when I had the pleasure of visiting them last week – and to Georgina Lippiett, Jen Rogers and everyone at Children's Bookfest for making this visit possible!
Children's Bookfest is an amazing organisation that brings authors into schools. The authors do events, and then every child is given a copy of a book, which the author signs and dedicates for them. I was delighted to do an event for them in Chichester last year, and was excited to do another one in Bognor Regis at Rose Green, organised by the brilliant teacher Karen Ison.
We had a fantastic assembly where we talked about reading and writing and books, and it was clear that there were many brilliant readers in this school. Some of them had come across all my books before, from Varjak Paw onwards. But the book that everyone was currently reading was my new book Tyger, which Children's Bookfest had given to everyone in Years 5 and 6.
I saw some fantastic creative writing and artwork that Year 6 had done with Tyger last year. And this year's Year 6 were already getting started on it – a wonderful thing for an author to see!
It's an incredible thing to feel the buzz around reading and books that this kind of visit creates. There's something so inclusive and inspiring about giving a book to every child on a visit, and I've loved working with Children's Bookfest. So thanks again to everyone who was part of this brilliant day! And thanks to Karen Ison for the fantastic photos!
