New book for World Book Day

Very excited that my new book ‘The Story Shop: Blast Off!’ is published today. It’s the first title in a new young fiction spin-off from the ‘The One-Stop Story Shop’ picture book.

New book for Christmas!

Adventure awaits Shifty and Sam in this action-packed Christmas picture book – with shiny foil on the cover!

Shifty and Sam are off to Lapland to bake a festive feast for Santa and his elves. But there’s a Christmas crisis – the elves are unwell and can’t finish the toys! Does mysterious stranger and gadget queen, Flo Frost, really want to help? Or could she have her eyes on the most magical gadget of all . . . Santa’s flying sleigh?! It’s up to Shifty and Sam to race across the snowy slopes and save Christmas for everyone!

UPDATE! Selected by the Sunday Times as:

There for you

Landscape.jpg

When things you knew and loved and saw are sadly not there any more.

When colours fade to grey and blue and when you’re not sure what to do.

Then hold this feeling, know it’s true. That I’ll be always there for you.

In time of yellow daffodils, we raced and rolled down laughing hills.

We tried to whoosh the sea away, and catch the moon. We dared to play.

We tumbled, cried. We learned to fly. We laughed, and leapt, and wondered why.

We crossed the world. We sailed the seas. We flew our flags, we grazed our knees.

But through it all, one thing was true. I was always there for you.

And this will pass. And we, once more, will laugh and cartwheel on the shore. We’ll feel the wind and soar through skies with lacy mottled butterflies.

But snuggle now. The wind‘s more calm when you are resting on my arm. The quilt is warm, the story bright, and we shall have soft dreams tonight.

For as the stars shine overhead and waves bring shells and leaves turn red. As snowflakes fall, as breezes blow, the thing to hold, to feel, to know-

Is now, as then - one thing is true. That I, my friend, am there for you...


Summer Reading Challenge…

Shifty-McGifty-and-Slippery-Sam-The-Aliens-Are-Coming-Two.jpg

I am over-the-moon (!) that my latest Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam young fiction title

‘The Aliens Are Coming!’ has been selected as one of the books for the 2019 Summer Reading Challenge.

It has three slapstick adventures from the unstoppable doggy detectives, all set in the summer sun. And things are HOTTING UP!

Someone is CHEATING in the SANDCASTLE competition!

There’s something FISHY about the new CAFE!

But it’s the ALIEN INVASION that really makes Shifty and Sam lose their COOL!

Anyone for an ICED bun?! This funny book has been beautifully brought to life by Steven Lenton’s wonderful illustrations.

Published on 7th March 2019.

World Book Day 2018

I really love World Book Day. It is a really busy time for authors and illustrators, with lots of events and school visits. This year has been complicated by the ‘Beast from the East’ (or snow as we used to call it)!

So on Monday I was at a whole school event in Twickenham, then I had to battle to the 'Greatest Book Show on Earth' event in Aberystwyth on Wednesday, before abandoning plans to go to Essex on Thursday! As the snow trapped me in my house today I was decided to use Skype to present to a small school on the Isle of Skye.

p8.jpg

Above all I really love seeing the effort the children (and their parents!) put into the costumes they've created for the day, absolutely brilliant!

Here we have Plip from 'Little Penguin Lost, the 'Little White Owl' and a number of Shifty McGifty characters...