Naturally, you can't put your doly in a suitcase. She'd miss all the action.
Yolanda sent me this: packed and ready - leaving Bologna for Boston!

Shout out to Charlesbridge by the way...
Founded by Brent Farmer in 1989, and "publishing content of lasting value" ever since. This is not just a philosophy – when the list celebrated 25 years in 2014, eighty percent of the books Charlesbridge has published over the previous 25 years were still in print. These books are also inclusive and diverse and Charlesbridge works hard to uplif voices that have traditionally been left out of children’s publishing. See more here.

See later for her exploits once she's arrived at Charlesbridge in the USA!

And here's another on arrival in Rio de Jenero, Brazil at the Pallas Editora offices with Marianna.

Fitting right in. It's SUCH an honour to see my dolly on these shelves in such amazing company. On the shelf below you can see Marianna - 3rd generation at Pallas, with her mother, Christina (who's dad founded the company in 1975).

Shout out to Pallas Editora...
Pallas Editora was founded by Antonio Carlos Fernandes in 1975.
In 1992, his daughter, Cristina Fernandes Warth, launched a project to include Afro-Brazilian culture in topics previously not covered – publishing books on anthropology, sociology, and ethnology. Then her daughter, Mariana Warth, joined the publishing house in 2002.

Pallas Editora has a strong reputation for its work on African heritage, the candomblé, and popular Brazilian culture. It has recently celebrated 50 years and is considered state-of-the-art in publishing fiction for children, youth, and adults in the area of Afro-Brazilian and African cultures. Read more here.

More to come: Netherlands, UK and American Library Association photos.
Meanwhile, I took my little one along to take part in the the IBBY Ireland Symposium in Dublin City University.

First time crossing the Alps - Hannibal had nothing on us!

Direct flights from Cork-Venice, so we just had to stop over!
The girls were fascinated by everything - I always say Venice is like disneyland for adults - it's kind of hard to believe it's real!
They particularly loved the gondolas and of course wanted to go on them (but there's a safety rule, only 2 under 5s per adult, so of course that ruled us out).
Reader, they were so naughty! Running around St Marks' Square... I was terrified one of them would fall into the water! So back to the room for some quiet time to calm down!

We did find a display gondola in a museum, so that was a small consolation.
They each had to have a photo, but I won't post all eleven! (Pssss they all look the same!)

My favourite statue of the Four Tetrarchs by the edge of St Mark's Basilica - I love how it looks like the guys are whispering secrets.
Had to have a photo there!

And one of the naughty ones slipped out and had a Lemoncello on her own!

Then off on the fabulous Italian train to Bologna!

The bookfair usually really starts for me attending the wonderful dinner organised on the Sunday night before the Fair by the amazing peeps
at Children's Books Ireland.

Gerry Daly (illustrator extrordinaire of the wonderful Puffling books AND author AND illustrator of the new What's that Spooky Sound?) looked a bit worried that she might dive into his desert!

The girls could not believe that in Italy cheese was MUCH bigger than them!

And just HOW MANY kinds of pasta you can buy - including pasta that was bigger than them!

There WAS also work to do... the book fair was BUSY.
But it was the best place to give the illustrator of the Lulu books,
the wonderful Rosalind Beardshaw her dolly. She LOVED her!

And we had some time with the illustrator of the Zeki books too. The equally amazing Ruth Hearson. (Pssst Makers of Dromid, Zeki will be 15 in 2029, so we'll have to think about a dolly for that - plenty of time...)

 After all the meetings were done, we had a little drink together to celebrate 20 years of working together, of creativity and friendship.

The 'Art is the Way' was already in place by the wonderful Enoteca (I'd tell you who they were but then I'd have to kill you - it's my favourite wine bar in Bologna and we don't want the big corporates finding out about it and booking it out!)

All the publishers brought copies of various Lulu/Lola and some Zeki/Leo books.

Elaina Ryan from CBI in DEEP discussion with Marianna and Christina from Pallas Editora Brazil (considered state-of-the-art in publishing fiction for children, youth, and adults in the universe of Afro-Brazilian and African cultures).

Two amazing Publishers - these are people who really know and understand children's publishing.
On the left, my publisher, teacher and editor for over 20 years Yolanda Scott from Charlesbridge (who continue to support these books despite various titles in the series being banned - my own statement is here).
On the right is the amazing author and illustrator (not to mention patron and guide and advocate, as well as co-Publisher at Alanna Max with Fay Erek) Ken Wilson-Max.

More wonderful publishers - Wouter Jooren and Femke Ganzeman of School Support in the Netherlands.

Just a glimpse of the powerhouse that is Dr. Jane O'Hanlon, of IBBY Ireland and member of the Executive Committee of IBBY International and Barbara Vagnozzi, a most wonderful Italian illustrator.

After drinks, dinner with the Alanna Max Publishing team (Fay Erek and Ken Wilson-Max) , published authors and illustrators (Margaret Bateson-Hill and Ruth Hearson), vital bag carriers (thanks Brian and Gerald!) plus Pam Dix and Nicky Potter.

After the Fair, there was a little time to visit some favourite places around the beautiful city of Bologna - including my favourite San Stefano.
My girl found her niche - boom boom.

So this is a huge thankyou to the Makers of Dromid for helping me celebrate 20 years of this little character and the wonderful editors, Publishers and others who supported me and her along the way.

Click here to read Part 3.

So, the first title in my Lulu-Lola series, was published in 2006 - yes, that's 20 years ago this year. I wanted something special to thank my co-publishers who supported the series from day one (and those who joined in along the way) and championed this little reader for many years.

I thought a gift of a little dolly would be just the thing!

I knew some wonderfully creative people who came together at a makers' group in a local Community Centre where they worked on their indicvdual projects side by side - what a lovely idea!

I asked my friend if anyone in the group would be able to make some dollies to help me celebrate - and she invited me to come along to the next group and ask them - which I did.

I told the ladies my story and showed them some books... as it happened, one of them, Edith, had brought in some dollies (she'd made them many years ago for her now grown children) to mend. She offerend to take the lead - how great. All that was left was for me to have a cup of tea, then leave the group to discuss.

Later that evening I had a message from Edith that 10 of the makers along with herself wanted to make dollies! Edith pointed out that these makers were wonderfully creative (they spin, weave, sew, knit and croché).
However, they are used to making cardigans and rugs and bags... BUT not anything with a little personality. Edith believed that the makers might struggle to part with their dollies on completion.
So, we decided to get enough materials so that each maker coucreate two: one for me and one to keep. Reader, this turned out to be VERY astute!

So, Edith and I estimated and measured and matched everyhting as closely as possible to the original artwork. She then ordered materials. Then everything was go!

Over the next few weeks I got regular updates and photos of progress - especially the tiny shoes!

As the dollies neared completion, Edith contacted me to say the group had decided they would like to put a label on each doll making it clear they were hand made and with the name of each maker (or as they were now calling themselves 'foster mothers') - how delightful!.

Of course I was delighted to do that - it would be lovely for the various publishers to know that an individual had made their dolly (by hand and with love) and not a machine.

As it got closer to my departure for the Bologna Bookfair (where I would meet the wonderful publishers at Alanna Max, Charlesbridge, Pallas and School Supply, Edith called. The dollies were nearing completion, but the makers were struggling with giving them away! "What about a Bon Voyage Tea Party?" she suggested.
The very thing! I set about making invitations:

I assumed this would be at the Dromid Community Centre where the makers meet regularly but no - it was  at my house!

Now, you have to understand just how IN THE MIDDLE of Nowhere we all are. This is ireland - right on the edge of Europe...

Kerry is right at the edge of Ireland:

And we all live at the tip of the Iveragh peninsula.
I'm in Waterville, and the makers live in various places in the surrounding area. The community centre they meet in is in Dromid.

Edith brought the dollies made my two makers who couldn't join us - it's a long trip!

The tea party was lovely - I really enjoyed meeting all the makers.

And it was amazing to see ALL the dollies together!

Quite the gang!! I set off to organise Group Check-in for our flight (Cork-Venice then train to Bologna).
See Part 2 to see how we got on!

The late 1980’s in Ireland was a challenging place. It was hard to find employment and opportunities were few and far between. So it was, that like so many of my generation, immediately on graduation I emigrated in search of work and opportunities.
 
I found them aplenty in London – my teaching experience opened the door to my first job in educational publishing and the rest, as they say, is history*…
 
Then a few years ago, after almost 30 years living and working in the UK,
I decided to return to Ireland.

We had lived next door to our wonderful neighbours, the Rehman family,  for almost 16 years, so we told them about our intended move. We had known Atif and Shamila since they were children.

Atif was now married to the lovely Safra and they had two wonderful children. Afif said the family would like to buy our house so he and his family could continue to live in the neighbourhood, and right next to his mother and sister.

That made everything SO easy and the family were exceptionally kind to us in the weeks coming up to our move. Safra and Atif’s mom, Rubina, cooked for us, which was both delicious and so helpful.

The local council, on the other hand – argh!!!
Our houses as you can see, are right on the street, so we had to get a permit for the removal van to park on the street outside for a few hours as it would restrict the street to one lane.

Reader, we woke up the morning of the move to discover that the council had ALSO given a permit to the development opposite to connect utilities that same day – and they’d gotten the upper hand by putting out bollards and signs, restricting the road to one lane (the one we had permission to park in - we needed to park in the area marked with the x).

They even had a sign directing traffic to use the (only) lane outside!

Rescheduling for another day was not an option as the movers had already booked a place on the ship to Ireland!
 
As Tom Waites wisely says,
 ‘the large print giveth and the small print taketh away’

and we were extraordinarily blessed with the young man who drove the enormous removals van. I have never seen anything like it, so readers, I present to you Hunts – who parked on a  dime and saved the day!

Snug!!!!!

There was something poetic about coming back by ship… though our little cat didn’t like the journey one bit and howled from a few miles outside Slough for the 18 hours it took us to drive through England, Wales and across Ireland to Kerry. (There's a whole separate blog about her journey!)

The contrast could not have been more stark – here’s our removals van arriving (our stuff was in storage for a few months while we renovated our new home) and parking in a huge place where locals stored their boats in winter!

Then we started the process of settling in...
I revelled in the abundant berry harvest from the hedgerows around the house - perfect for with my morning yoghurt!

And the journey to the first conference I attended was a little different too - no more M4... which is not to say no more conjestion - but traffic calming measures in Waterville are furrier!

I also set up my office and got back to work...

I learned quite a lot from the move and it's all gone into my new book.
Click on the cover to find out more, and here for moving tips.

So, when I was VERY little (I was riding my little trike in the kitchen, so I'm guessing about 2), my mother had a very simple game she used to play with me.
I say 'game' but I suspect it was a way to get five minute's peace (I seem to have spent my early years talking, singing constantly and asking questions).

So my mother's game was to pretend to give me money and send me shopping.

I would then cycle off down the hall and go in one or more of the bedrooms 'buying' whatever it was I'd been sent off to get.
​
I would then return and reel off the various messages I'd 'bought' (we pretended they were on the back of my trike) and I would be asked for the change - which I would count out into Mammy's hand.

I was telling my friends David and Levy about this at the weekend and they sent me the lovely photos of their little Huxley not just playing the original game, but developing it into imagining a little mouse!

Shoppies
I moved on to have a small 'shop' in a corner of the kitchen. Again, not with bought toys (though I know you can get every conceivable thing in toy form now) but with the packaging of anything we were finished with. My mother would wash out old washing up liquid bottles, keep old cereal boxes, salt containers, boxes that tea bags came in... and give them to me for my shop.
Looking back, with more professional EY knowledge now, I can see that one of the reasons I loved this was that the items were so familiar to me from our family using them and so felt real.

By then (I guess I was maybe 3) my mum would come shopping to my little shop and I can just about remember that I don't think we had any money for this game either (not even toy money or buttons). I suspect that since everything was 'real' then imitation or pretend money wouldn't have cut it for me! My grandad had a little shop that sold sweeties, biscuits and ice-cream, so I guess that also influenced things, but I just loved this game.

Learning
I remembered this while writing Zeki Goes to the Market and it made me think about all the learning that was possible with this simple game (especially the first one which needed no props at all). There is so much language still going on - naming the items on the shopping list; counting out the 'money'; and of course, all the imagining...
the work that needs to happen for 2 people to 'pretend' – soooo important for language acquisition which in essence is agreeing that this 'symbolic' word (which bears no relationship to that thing) will mean this thing to us.

So - I encourage you - play shoppies! Play it at the most basic imaginary level...
collect bits and bobs to make a shop... you'll love it!

For more ideas of things to do alongside reading Zeki Goes to the Market, click here.

I think most people are aware of the increase in 'banned books' in the US, but when I say that my Lola books are banned there, people are (understandably) surprised.
So I've written a longer piece with my understanding of what is going on and why ordinary little books like Lola at the Library are being 'banned'*

To read more about Banned Books Week and various campaigns against book banning, click my general piece here. Or to read my personal statement, click here.
Below is more a general background information (as I understand it) and it particularly explains that books are often not so much banned as challenged - that's why I've used * above.

Firstly, I should explain to people less familiar with this whole area, that the Lola books are not banned by the government or any national censorship or similar body… I don’t know if there even is such a thing in the US.
 
What there is, is actually quite a democratic system…
 
The Process
 
1. The Challenge
Firstly, as I understand it, anyone can challenge whether a particular book is appropriate in a particular school or library (or school/library district) setting.
People can challenge whether a book is appropriate for a particular age group of children, for unsupervised reading or at all.
Different locations have different rules: sometimes you have to be attending a school, or be a parent of a pupil attending a school to challenge a book being used in that school, sometimes you just have to live in the locality. Ditto public libraries.
Almost 60 percent of the recent book challenges involved school libraries or curricula, and about 40 percent targeted public libraries, according to the American Library Association (ALA) numbers.
Caught up in these challenges were 550 unique children’s titles and 1,604 young adult titles, making up 86 percent of all challenges throughout the year, ALA found.
 
There are general rules around these ‘challenges’ – again they vary in how they are implemented but the advice is that the challenger has to have read the book in whole (not just a passage they are objecting to) and they have to say why they think it’s inappropriate for that age group / classroom / collection…
 
The American Library Association has template forms and advice – these are sometimes used as they are, sometimes modified by particular districts.

 
2. The Review
When a person submits a challenge to a school / school district or library, that school or school district or library area has to review the book and the challenge. School Principals form committees or take the book to a school board for review.
 
This worked in the past when a handful of books were challenged in any one year. What has changed recently is the volume of challenges and the fact that challenges are being organised (so groups are sharing thoughts on books, sending template complaints and giving page and line numbers for examples). An ALA report identified at least 50 different groups involved in local and state-level efforts to ban books, some with hundreds of chapters, that have sprung up in 2021.
This increase in volume is overwhelming schools’ and libraries’ ability to process the challenges – some are removing all copies of challenged books while the review is underway, but because of the volume of challenges, reviews are taking a long time, and that leads to books being out of circulation for a long time following a challenge.


The ALA’s advice is not to remove challenged books until after review, but they say that’s rarely being done. One school’s official told local media, for example, that the educational resources were not banned, rather “frozen” while the board vetted them. The situation continued for almost a year.
 
 
3. The Outcome
The review group may decide to disagree with the challenge and return the book to circulation. The ALA is arguing for new rules around challenges so that, for example, a book can’t be challenged again by someone else immediately after being returned to the shelves.
 
The review group may agree with part or all of the challenge.
In response, they can arrange for a book to be redacted, with certain passages marked out, or restricted (available only with a permission slip, for example). A book may also be relocated (for example, moved from the young adult section to the adult section).
 
Or the review group can agree with the challenge and remove the book. Only when a previously available book is removed from the library or school curriculum based on its content, is it considered to be banned.
 
 
So, you can see that for every ‘banned book’, there are books being removed from shelves because of challenges, and the system for reviewing is often overwhelmed. That in itself can lead to self-censorship or simple hesitancy among professionals.

Critical Race Theory

While many challenged books are eventually returned to circulation, many remain banned – including incredibly, Lola at the Library (and others in the series). For clarity I should point out that it’s not banned everywhere – but in lots of states. You can see that, sadly, the Lola books dominate the list of books by my publisher in the US, Charlesbridge.

Any of us who work around children’s books will understand (even if they don’t agree) that some parents can be uncomfortable with and can seek to challenge some books (especially those dealing with sex and sexuality). However, over and over again, people express incredulity when I say the bans extend to apparently innocent picture books.
 
Enter what is referred to as Critical Race Theory… you can read more here, but, if you’ll forgive me for simplifying a very complex and nuanced subject, here’s a quick overview.
 
 
Critical Race Theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old.
The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.
Scholars who study critical race theory in education look at how policies and practices in K-12 (Primary) education contribute to persistent racial inequalities in education, and advocate for ways to change them.
On the ground, teachers try to be more aware and sensitive in their daily practice. As one teacher-educator quoted in the linked article above put it: “The way we usually see any of this in a classroom is: ‘Have I thought about how my Black kids feel? And made a space for them, so that they can be successful?’ That is the level I think it stays at, for most teachers.”
Critics however see CRT very differently. They argue that the theory leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits and that it divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups and urges intolerance.
Some critics claim that CRT leads to schools teaching that “white people are inherently privileged, while Black and other people of colour are inherently oppressed and victimized”. They argue that “achieving racial justice and equality between racial groups requires discriminating against people based on their whiteness”; and that CRT teaches that “the United States was founded on racism.”
 
 
Positive representation (whether of black children, other minority groups, disabled children or LGBTQ topics) has become conflated with CRT. When framed this way, books with positive representations of black children become something else entirely – to quote one mother who spoke at one of the review sessions: “I don’t want my daughter growing up feeling guilty because she’s white.”
 
So, I think you can begin to see that what we would describe as inclusive stories – about very ordinary topics, have become a kind of lightning rod for bigger political issues in the US.

Responses to Banned Books

The responses to bans have been varied.
 
Organised Responses
There has been push back and increased organisation against challenges and bans. Professional groups of teachers and librarians share strategies.
The American Library Association for one has put together resources (and I have links to many on my website here)
 
Groups of parents have got together and begun attending review sessions to argue (for example) that while a parent might not want their child to read a particular book, they should not have the right to make that book unavailable to other children (whose parents don’t have a problem with it).
 
In some instances, students (usually older/teen) themselves have mobilised and had challenges and bans overturned.

 
Donations and Buy-Lists
Some communities respond by doing various things to make the banned books available elsewhere in communities where they are banned.
People will set up little free libraries and ask for people to buy and donate challenged and banned books.
 
Others simply put lists together and encourage communities to order them at their local bookstore.
 

Wider groups who feel affected by bans sometimes set up more general (i.e. not local) groups to advocate for banned books or books they feel might be under general threat. LGBTQ groups for example, put lists together or simply call on people to support writers by buying their books (see more below). Reviewers, influencers etc call for people to, for example, buy books by black authors – generally or as part of special book drives.
 
Bookstores are not included in bans and many create identified sections of the store, shelves or a table, of ‘banned books’ for people to buy.
 
Publicity
The publicity surrounding a challenged book often results in a sales boost. Sales for Kobabe’s oft-challenged “Gender Queer,” for example, grew 120 percent in 2021, compared with 2020, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks book sales.
 
So it’s not all bad then?
Not only would I not agree that it’s not all bad, I actually think there is no upside to any of this. The increased publicity and sales figures quoted above often makes the headlines. However, this is really only a gain for a limited number of titles and a particular genre of title. So, while some books (especially those regarded as edgy or provocative) will gain a certain notoriety and exposure from being banned (as in the example above) and people can feel cool and brave by going to the banned table or buying a banned book and donating it to a little library etc… the overall effect on the majority of books is just awful.

For most picture books, for example, notoriety (however undeserved) is rarely a badge of honour and most likely it leads to a fall off in sales. Possibly because I would categorise my own books this way, I really feel that particularly for ordinary, midlist, not-so-famous authors and books, it is really disastrous.

Why?
First off, even if there are what I’ll call ‘supportive’ purchases, these in no way compensate for the loss of sales to schools and libraries.

This in particular affects the ordinary, midlist, not-so-famous authors and books.
So simple picture books like my Lola books or non-fiction (think for example of non-fiction biographies that are fiercely important for children to learn about their own and other communities’ historical figures, inventors etc) are really threatened.
Many of these titles are not hot sellers in bookshops in the first place (I mean aside from bans), so are unlikely to be stocked, let alone make it onto the cool/banned table. If you look at the York County banned list (I link to it because it was one of the first big controversial lists) you can see the range or books affected (and it makes me almost cry to see the whole Lola Reads series on the list).

Does this effect who or what gets published?

For now, I get the sense that bans are not overtly affecting how publishers commission. BUT (and it’s a big but), publishing is a risky and expensive business, so it seems unlikely to me that editors and publishers are not worried and thinking about these issues as they make decisions about what to publish.

I certainly worry about books that are seen as taking risks being more rigorously scrutinised; books by new authors / from minority communities especially on topics that publishers are less sure about or have less confident sales projections; books where publishers may feel they are growing new audiences…

A personal note…
I feel very lucky with the continued support of my amazing publishers, but I am beginning to hear little rumblings about pushback.
The book banners of course don’t care in the slightest about the author, they just want Lola, a little positive African American character, on the banned list.
However, the corollary doesn’t follow and the Lola books sadly (though understandably) often do not make it onto the lists of banned books championed by anti-ban activists (usually since those lists focus on books authored by black or other minority groups - see the UK's Guardian newspaper headline here for how this is often presented).
 
I’m not whining about this – I’m just describing it to illustrate how ordinary authors and illustrators (including authors and illustrators of colour) and books can so easily fall between stools – making it onto the banned list, but not the ‘championed’ list.

 
The first Lola book (Lola at the Library) was published in 2006, so there are almost 20 years of loyal fans (most especially librarians along with families with young children) who love the series which now extends to 11. But if I was just starting out, I wonder whether a publishers would have to be very brave to get behind such ordinary little stories as Lola Gets a Cat or Lola’s Sleepover, or Lola Meets the Bees (especially with me as a white author of a *black main character).
 
Wonderful titles like Sulwe will always find a publisher, and the same goes for edgy stories like Julian is a Mermaid… but I feel that many publishers still need substantial reasons to make black and other global minority children the main characters in a story*. Often, for that to happen, the story needs to be important, substantial or self-consciously about their ethnicity or some part of their culture.
So, I worry that having black main characters in ordinary, gentle, everyday stories could become a more challenging thing for publishers to consider.

It seems to me that this would lead to a much more limited range of stories featuring black and other minoritised children and that would be awful. ALL children not only need to see themselves and their world reflected in the stories they read, but they have the right to the same diverse range of books as any other child. Books for black and other minoritised children should not be limited to grand themes or challenging oppression (however important these books are). Surely they deserve as much as any child to also see themselves in funny stories, and gentle stories about the everyday - the kind of reassuring stories to read before going to sleep. Surely that's what having 'diverse' books means - bring included in all kinds of stories and celebrating the rich range of human experience?

I regularly quote from Rumaan Alam's wonderful essay, We Don’t Only Need More Diverse Books. We Need More Diverse Books Like The Snowy Day. He says everything I've every wanted to say on the subject, just more eloqently - so I'll quote him again here:

For me, I didn’t see many pet stories, for example, featuring a black child, so I wrote Lola Gets a Cat. The same goes for environmental stories – they are sometimes treated as somehow a separate 'issue' to ‘inclusive books’, so I feel quite passionate about Lola Plants a Garden and even more so about Lola Meets the Bees (since not only is Lola's friend Zora an African American beekeeper – something we don't often see in picture books – but also because Zora keeps her bees in an urban setting and so includes children who live in towns and cities (and who can sometimes feel excluded from environmental or nature stories when they are set in the countryside).

Lola has a positive almost 20-year track record and I am so lucky to have a wonderful, long and trusting relationship with my publishers, Charlesbridge (who have a tremendous committment to publishing inclusive and diverse books, and minoritised voices). But I wonder if I were starting out, would a publisher ask why I want to feature a black main character in an environmental story or, say, one about preparing to adopt a cat or going on a sleepover? And yet, isn't it important for little kids to see positive representation in ordinary, everyday stories like these?

​Wider and long-term impacts?
I feel that range and variety and diversity in inclusive picture books is really important and I worry about the longterm impacts - and not just in the US but in the UK and Ireland and the wider publishing world. Picture books are expensive to produce and most UK publishers need the support of a US publisher before they can commit to publishing. So, even though there isn't the same organised effort at book banning in the UK (though there has been a rash of protests in Irish libraries in recent times:
there could be a knock-on effect on which books get supported by US publishers and are therefore published in the UK.
 
Action!
So, it behoves us to be informed and vigilant – and to continue to support those wonderful publishers who continue to publish inclusively. I also want to put in a word for the gentle books that don’t appear to be about very much – they are the little stories I fear for.
 
Thanks,
Anna

To read more about organised efforts to fight book bans, see my page here.
To read my personal statement, see here.

*I've used the word black here - uncapitalised - as influenced primarily by Emma Dabiri's amazing book, What White People can do Next where she writes very persuasively on the topic (there's a short reel on IG for anyone interested here quoting Toni Morrison and of course bell hooks).

Older pieces on my site use capital Bs (as someone who lived most of my adult life in London, I tend to use Black/black as opposed to African American - except when I'm writing specifically about Lola /the US) but moving forward this is where I'm at.
Watch this space, I'm planning a piece on language - and explaining the terms I use and why - it's shifting all the time as I read and learn.

Further reading

Here is a link to the list of books banned by the Central York school board state in Pennsylvania (the first large scale ban to hit the headlines - the one mentioned in the Guardian article):

Read some industry-specific comments from Publishers Weekly:

To read the National Coalition Against Censorship's advice to schools, read here.

More about Critical Race Theory here.

Updates
• April 2025 - Review of the Numbers - SLJ's analysis of the ALA Libraries Report
• April 10 2025 -North Carolina Bill Aims To Charge Librarians for Exposing Minors to “Harmful Materials or Performances” | Censorship News
• April 2025 -Nevada bill would prevent book bans in public and school libraries

World Bee Day celebrates ALL bees, not just honey bees.

My photo shows a bumblebee enjoying a forrage in a fuscia - most likely this was in August. In May, there are not so many flowers out, so there are some things you can do to help bees at this time and celebrate World Bee Day with them

Plant early flowering plants so they have something to forrage on in the early months as they emerge from the hives. The bees around me just love my Hellibores and spring bulbs... You don't have to have a big garden - I grow these in pots.

No mow May
Leave what little flowers that grow alone!
For example, despite the fact that dandelions are commonly perceived as a weed by the gardeners, theyare  an important source of nectar and pollen not only for bees but also for butterflies, moths and other pollinators - particularly before the full flush of summer flowers appear.
See the links below for more information.

Links
Click here for LOTS more information about bees. My new book also has LOTS of info.

Read about No Mow May here

Find out about which flowers help bees...
Did you know that bees can see the colour purple more clearly than any other colour... Or that tubular-shaped flowers are an important source of food for long-tongued bees such as the garden bumblebee. Read more here.

For the best flowers to plant in the USA, see here and here
For Ireland and the UK, there's information about Spring flowers here
and general informaiton about flowers here
and this No Mow piece has great advice about wildflowers for bees

I sat David down and told him that we were going to a restaurant but we were not sure Dan would be able to behave. I asked David if he would take charge of Dan, explain to him that he would have to sit nicely while we waited for food; that he was not to play with the cutlery, the plates OR the food; but that we would bring along some toys. It wasn't quite a play opportunity, but it was close and David seemed keen to take responsibility!

We were lucky to have a wonderful elderly waiter, just like Bruno.
Not only did he get a suitable chair for David, but he got one for Dan too AND put a napkin on both their laps - exactly as he did for the adults.

I can report that Dan did really well, and only had to be called to attention once or twice by David! And we all had a wonderful meal and evening together.

So when I came to write this story of course I had to chanel this experience almost exactly (except that Zeki has his own Mr. Seahorse).

Just this weekend - a few weeks before publication, I welcomed David to my home.
He was accompanied by his wife Levi and his young son, Huxley, as well as his brother Dylan. We didn't go out to lunch, but I can report that Huxley behaved beautifully at the table at lunch and David, Levi and Dylan enjoyed my old story - and my new one!

For more tips for taking toddlers to eat out, click here.

I'd always thought that imaginative play came naturally to small children but then I had an experience when I worked as a Sure Start Community Librarian.

As part of the Family Support Team, I helped out at Stay & Play sessions - we had sand play, water play, sit-on cars and tractors, as well as dressing-up boxes, a play kitchen, dollies and soft toys and small cars and animals.

One day I noticed two small boys pushing small cars around - they just pushed and bashed them off each other and pushed again, looking to me at a loss as to what to do next. So, I got a little play bus and people and 'drove' up to them. I made a little queue of the people and had them go on the bus one by one, 'asking' each one where they were going (Morrisons, the swimming pool and the library apparently!).
Then I drove the bus around and dropped them off...

The boys watched intently, then when I left, began to play the same game.
What interested me most was when I returned the next week I saw the little boys involved in a complex imaginary game with the bus, the people and their cars.
They were making the play people say, "hello" and were obviously pretending that there were other people in the cars.

It really struck me that they had seemed to need that small prompt from me to get them going (though likely they would have done this at some stage off their own bat).

It did make me think about my own childhood (which was FULL of imaginative play and story-making - whether I was the hero or my dolly was). Had I had such prompts?

Well definately I had - I could even remember them...

My mammy used to send me on 'errands'. She would touch my outstreached palm with her fingers to 'give me money' then send me off down the hall on my little tricycle to buy things. It probably gave her a few minute's rest from my constant chattering! I would 'get' the things on my bike and then report back.

This certainly informed my play when I was older/outside - I was always 'someone' on my bike - some drama was playing out in my head (even if I only drove up and down the path from the gate to the back door. Reader, I was often McClowd -  (weirdly on horseback) off to solve some crime!!

My mother's other game with me was 'shoppies'. It may have been possible at that time to buy play stuff (and I think I remember having a little toy cash register at a later stage) but at this point Mammy just washed out used tins, cereal packets, washing-up liquid containers etc to set me up with stuff to sell.

I can just about remember her coming to my shop (again with the imaginary money). I don't think we even bothered with small coins or anything at this stage - possibly I was so young it would have been dangerous. Certainly I remember using ludo tokens in my cash register later on when I was  alittle older).

I DID have an tiny old cupboard of my grandfather's - it had a small drawer that was perfect for the 'money' and a little door inside of which I kept purties (old lipsticks, odd earings, little shiney things I'd collected). Though all the stuff for sale was real size and didn't fit in so was displayed on a shelf nearby.

I suspect that my mother set me off and then I played away by myself with pretend customers - and I possibly combined it with tricycle journeys...

And speaking of journeys - a final game I remember from when I was very small, was my mother lining up the kitchen chairs (and possibly my own small pink chair) to make a bus. She would sit my teddies and dollies on the chairs and I would be both bus driver and conductor. I'm sure she asked the various 'passengers' where they were going - but it's so long ago my memories are vague. All I remember is that it took time to sort everything before I sat into the driver's seat and 'took off'.

These memories definitely suggest that even if I didn't need a prompt as such, my mother started me off and that set me up for hours of imaginary fun.

My childhood experiences, along with my love of reading (which in time infomed so much of my play) definately informed the thinking behind Lulu Loves Stories.

Lulu brings quite a haul of books from the library, then reads one each night.
Each story prompts her play next day - she is a fairy, a pilot, a mummy, a tiger, a farmer and a builder. Then she takes a leap - her Daddy makes up a story about a girl with magic shoes and Lulu believes that her shoes are magic too.

My own Dad was an expert in making up stories. While I loved his stories of the Fianna and their heroics (especially the Bodach of the Grey Cloak for some reason - though it's very brutal), and the tales of his own childhood, what I loved was the stories he made up... about our cat, about the crows that lived in the trees opposite.

And when he tired of my demands for 'just one more', he would start, "Once upon a time there was a little girl called Anna..." These I did NOT like - the little girl was very very well behaved and did what she was told and went to sleep after only one story!

But these along with the tales of his own childhood must have instilled in me the idea that anyone - even little ordinary me - could be the hero of a story, most especially their own story. And that's why Lulu Loves Stories is dedicated to him (along with Martha, an old friend from WGARCR days who first suggested I work at Sure Start).

I remember clearly my first play date (though we didn’t call them that) to a classmate for an hour or two after school. They had stairs (which was exciting because we didn’t) and her mother seemed to me even at that young age obsessed with cleaning! The house was more like a hospital ward and I remember being afraid to touch anything! My other friend was the opposite – her house was totally chaotic with lots of children and laundry piled up everywhere.
 
I don’t remember eating at either house – that was for later, longer visits (I was only about 4). And it was really on these longer play dates (and especially sleepovers) that I began to realize that how my family lived was not universal – I began to realize that what, how, when and even where we ate was not universal across families.

Looking back, I think this is a big realization for young children – a next step of separation and differentiation not unlike the developmental stage when a very young child begins to realize they are a separate person from their mother.
 
And so I wonder whether that is also at the root of the clothes swapping that went on at these sleepovers…
My grandmother’s house was near my school and I usually went there rather than home at the end of my school day. My mother would usually be there and we would wait there for my Dad to pick us up on his way from the school where he taught. My mother was good friends with a family across the street and I would often play on the street outside their house while I waited.
 
Even here (it wasn't a proper play date – we didn't go in the house and just played together on the street) I remember we would swap shoes while we played tag or hopscotch on the street. I was always keen for this game as I most often had sensible laced brown shoes (tough and suitable for passing on to my younger brothers!). I longed for the likes of the Mary-Janes most of my friends wore and delighted in wearing them even if only for an hour or two – though they were understandably reluctant to wear mine!

On a proper sleepover, of course you could completely swap clothes.

Like Lulu, my first sleepovers were at cousins’ houses. When I was very young, they were mostly with my cousin Cathy - the daughter of my mother's sister. Like me, Cathy was an only girl – we both had three brothers (Cathy’s were all older than her, mine were all younger than me! Our families crossed over in the middle with us) and so sleepovers afforded each of us the chance to gain a sister.

I was probably wearing those brown ones and shorts and T and was very envious of Cathy and her strawberry dress and silver sandals!

So of course I had to have some clothes swapping, some experimenting with other possible identities at the core of my sleepover story.
 
I found it funny when I sent the text to Yolanda at Charlesbridge and to the illustrator, Ros Beardshaw, both mentioned that their daughters were totally into swapping – and like my child self I began to realize that this was not an experience unique to me!

That set me thinking – if sleepovers are an occasion to realize that how your family is, is not universal, could the clothes swapping thing a way of further exploring that? Exploring other possible identities perhaps? I’ve not been able to find any writings on this, but the more I think, the more I’m convinced that that urge to try on another child’s clothes while on a sleepover is really experimenting with other possible versions of yourself – yourself imagined as part of this family, perhaps.

Ros Beardshaw really rose to the challenge and we planned that not only would Lulu and Hani swap clothes completely at the centre of the story (below), but from the first moment they are alone together, Hani puts on Lulu’s red and blue bracelets and Lulu wears Hani’s yellow one.

When they wake up in the morning, they manage to have swapped PJs during the night!

And in completely self-indulgent moment, I asked Ros to do a special thing for me. So, in a lovely secret moment, if you look carefully at the final scene (right) Lulu is going home in Hani’s yellow strappy sandals!

50 years on but who cares - I finally got my wish vicariously through Lulu!!