Lulu Loves the Library 02/03/2011
...and library users love Lulu! She's been borrowed 32,369 times in the last year. Do you love the library too? Then make sure you are a member of your local library and that you are regularly borrowing - use it don't lose it!  Add Comment Shout South! 01/05/2011
This wonderful writing festival was a great success. My talk was about covers and how important they are. The reason for the chocolate slide is that I was comparing covers with chocolate packaging... ShoutSouth!  Everyone in Brent loves Lulu! 11/01/2010
 This picture was taken during our Lulu Loves the Library event - we read the story then did some singing - this is a bit blurry, but we're having such fun I thought I'd include it. Everyone in Sheffield loves Lulu! 10/06/2010
On Monday this week, Sheffield Library Service officially launched its Little Library - a mobile children's library that brings books (and rhyme times) to areas all around Sheffield. Since Lulu is THE pint-sized role model for young readers, Sheffield chose images from Lulu Loves the Library to decorate the bus and to explain in an image what it was about. The Lord Mayor cut the ribbon and we all had a fabulous day in the sun - starting with speeches in the Crucible and ending with singing on the bus. I feel as good as Carrie in Sex and the City! Even though the official launch was on October 4th, the Little Library has been out and about for a while and has already won some CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) awards:  Anne Frost drives the Library into position  Anna, Ros and gorgeous Freddie pose for photos  The Little Library open for business  Barefoot Books have just announced that the BookStart programme has chosen If You're Happy and you Know it for next years list. Every child in the UK gets the pack of free books, so the print run will be 150,000 copies. This book idea came directly out of my work in the library. Many programmes advocate having collections of poems, rhymes and songs from around the world and I certainly feel that this makes groups more inclusive - and more interesting. However, in my experience, mums from other countries are also very keen that their children learn the common English rhymes and songs. In an effort to make these inclusive (and fun) I modify them slightly. If You're Happy is a good example - all the mums and dads have written out the word for "again, again" or "hurray!" in their own langauge and we've hung them up around the children's section. Each day, when we come to sing the song, we pick one language and sing, for example, "If you're happy and you know it shout Olé - Olé!". Because it's just one word, everyone can shout it out - which is great fun! - and children who speak that language and know that word are very excited to hear and see all of their friends say it too. It is interesting to me when practice throws up conundrums like this. Before I did this kind of library work, I would have focused entirely on producing multi-cultural collections of rhymes and so on. But I've had to rethink much of my theory when in practice some mums tell me, "we don't have a culture of nursery rhymes in this way, so I don't know any in my language" or "but I really want my little girl to learn English ones so she can fit in when she goes to nursery". So, I'm really pleased that BookStart has chosen this particular book - I feel that all the hard work by the wonderful people at Barefoot to get it right has really paid off.  Recordings for Lulu Loves Stories underway 09/03/2010
Last week and this week, we've finally got underway with recordings for the new Lulu Loves the Library CD. I'm hoping to upload some samples on the website, so watch this space. First up was Yumiko who read the story in Japanese. her gorgeous daughter, Sakura came along to make sure everything was done properly!  Lola Loves the Library out in the USA 07/03/2010
Great review of The Sleep Sheep in PW in May, STARRED review of Lulu/Lola in School Library Journal in August. Go USA! This great review coincides nicely with the arrival of fantastic roughs for Lulu No 3. Give one guess what the story is about...  Sheep reprinting already! 05/18/2010
Despite only publishing on April 4th, The Sleep Sheep is reprinting already. Nice reviews in the Bookseller, PW and Kirkus. Princess Stairs 03/11/2010
See, people think that being an "author' involves a lot of sitting around and thinking... but sometimes it just means 54 boxes of books on your stairs!  Unabashed self promotion! 02/17/2010
This is quite possibly the best review I've ever had - indulge me and click here to read in situ: The Reading Zone This is from Willesden Bookshop in London - it's almost as good! |
RSS Feed