Ali Sparkes adopted by Green End Primary School

Ali Sparkes gave an inspiring performance at Green End Primary School

As part of the Manchester Children's Book Festival and the International Reading and Writing Relay, Ali Sparkes visited Green End Primary School on Friday 4th July.

Ali's visit to Manchester wouldn't have happened if the wonderful staff and pupils at Green End Primary School hadn't adopted her. Ali had heard through the grapevine that Green End Primary School was a wonderful eco-friendly school with an enthusiasm for learning, and insisted she visited the teachers and pupils if she were to take part in the Festival.

Green End Primary School Librarians have promised to give Spidey the Sea Monkey a safe home in their library

Ali's custom-made Sea Monkey, Spidey, enjoyed his visit to Green End so much that he asked to stay. The school librarians have promised to give Spidey a safe home in the library, on the condition that he behaves himself.

Teacher at Green End Primary School, Faye Okorie, told us how her pupils were "engaged and inspired" by Ali's visit, "Ali linked brilliantly into our school motto of 'Dream it, achieve it!'"

Ali Sparkes with pupils Rahima Chowdhury (left) and Michael Ryder (right), and teacher Miss Okorie from Green End Primary School

Pupil, Michael Ryder, added that the author of Shapeshifter and the Switch series "really inspired" him.

Fellow pupil, Rahima Chowdhury, commented, "Her books are very fascinating and I'm looking forward to reading her next book. I have learnt to never give up."

Cathy Cassidy in Salford

Friday 4th July saw the finale of the Reading and Writing Relay, and Cathy Cassidy took the baton to Wentworth School in Salford for the final event.

Cathy’s session was extremely inspiring for young writers and added personal touches describing what she loved at school – daydreaming! Hanifa Choudhury said, “We learnt about what Cathy was like when she was young and her inspiration for writing books."

Wentworth High School pupils Yasmyn Abdulwahab and Hanifa Choudhury with author Cathy Cassidy

Cathy captured the importance of how creative daydreaming can be with another pupil Yasmyn Abdulwahab adding, “I learnt I can be imaginative and daydreaming isn’t bad! The talk was really interesting."

The pupils were treated to a reading from the latest book Sweet Honey from the popular The Chocolate Box Girls series and even had the chance to take part in a quiz to see which character they were most like.

Cathy also showed one of her mood boards for Sweet Honey and the different pictures that influence the characters.

Teacher Sarah Eggleton said “Cathy, is always, a brilliant speaker. Inspirational and practical tips on becoming a writer. Our students loved it! Thank-you!” 

Liz Kessler carries the Reading & Writing Relay Baton

Liz Kessler with Year 9 pupils, Lucy Beveridge and Charlotte Foy

Liz Kessler, author of the popular Emily Windsnap series, continued the Manchester Children's Book Festival Reading and Writing Relay by visiting to Turton High School in Bolton.

On Thursday 3rd July, Liz encouraged Year 7 and 9 pupils of Turton High School to become writers by talking them through the process of writing a novel and getting it published.

Year 9 pupil, Charlotte Foy, told us, "I really enjoyed today. It's really inspired me to write a story of my own and gave me some great ideas!"

Fellow Year 9 pupil, Lucy Beveridge, added, "A brilliant experience, very inspirational. Thank you!"

Teacher, Carole Baily, commented, "An excellent day that has inspired students to read and write."

Curtis ends his leg of the Reading & Writing Relay at Marple Hall

Curtis Jobling has completed the first leg of the Reading and Writing Relay by visiting Year 7 pupils at Marple Hall School on 26th June.

After the event pupil, Emily Kynastan, said "I was really inspired by Curtis' talk, it was funny and really interesting!"

Fellow pupil, Lucas Thompson, said Curtis' visit was "Interesting, funny, witty; all the qualities you enjoy. Definitely inspiring!"

Teacher at Marple Hall, Lyn Lawton, added "I am delighted that so many of our Year 7's felt inspired to buy Haunt - 172 copies sold!"

Pupils Lucas Thompson and Emily Kynastan with Curtis Jobling

Justin Somper, author of the Vampirates series, will carry the baton for the next leg of the Reading and Writing Relay.

Poetry Power at Oswald Road Primary School

We at Oswald Road Primary School in Chorlton are very excited about this Saturday's event with Cerrie Burnell. Our 2 poetry winners were given free tickets to the event, as was the little girl for whom the poetry competition was fundraising: Leila McMurray.

They will all get to meet her afterwards too! 

Leila needs an operation to improve her mobility and the Oswald Road School community has rallied to organise various fundraising activities, it has been totally heartwarming and unifying.

Highlights of our 'Poetry Power' event have been the Poetry Stop - poetry writing in the playground at lunchtime - and seeing our youngest, nursery entrant recite his poem at assembly. He will be a talent to watch as he journeys through school.

As the entries trickled in, I took such pleasure in reading them - I smiled, laughed and cried! - each one unique with individual personalities shinning through. Our theme was aptly hopes and dreams.

When I took small groups to write poems, I was struck by what an organic and nourishing process writing poetry was for many children.

We will be having a special assembly on Friday where we officially announce the winners, runners up and final 10 from each Key Stage. ALL of the poems were a joy to read....poems coming soon...watch this space!

Sent to us from Susanne Murray at Oswald Road Primary School

Pupils from Manchester Communication Academy take part in Reading & Writing!

Curtis Jobling! Bob The Builder. Those are the words I think when I hear his name: Curtis Jobling. I was utterly enthusiastic when I found out that he was coming to my school because I have watched many BookTubers on YouTube talk about him - so this was the chance where I could meet him! The experience was stupendous! I found out that he was in fact an: illustrator, animator and author of many books (they’re astounding) plus he was a passionate reader like me who first started reading when he was 3. Personally, I thought that the genre, horror, was not my type but he made it my type after 100 pages and I am 100% hooked - well done Curtis.  Another thing is that he was HILARIOUS! He made many jokes like Steamboat Willy, he said that steamboat was not a bad word however we all know it’s the word ‘Willy’.  The visit from him was wonderful and I can’t wait to read his new book duology: Haunt, Dead Scared and I know I will love it (maybe because I have already read 50 pages)

-Chi Hoang

When the sensational Curtis Jobling arrived today, I was immensely thrilled!

Hearing him talk about his passions, his hobbies and what he does for a living was an extremely fascinating experience…But, what does Curtis do? Curtis Jobling: animator, illustrator, author and avid reader – amazing. Curtis created the infamous Bob The Builder, Curious Cow & various other children/animal themed animations; he also writes books for ages  11+, the main genres being horror and fantasy. Curtis explained how he had started his career, frames in animation, his books (which are marvellous!) and who he works with. We got to buy Curtis’ books from Waterstones, he signed them – as well as a bookmark – I then found out what a pleasant and humorous man he is!

I absolutely loved Curtis Jobling’s visit and would be incredibly grateful if he could pop by again (hint!).

- Hannah Rashidi

Tales from the Wild

How gloriously exciting that the Manchester Children’s Book Festival is just around the corner, offering up 10 days filled to the brim with children’s literature events. From the 26th of June to the 6th of July, the city of Manchester will be celebrating all things bookish, with events taking place throughout the cities many libraries, theatres, museums, galleries and bookshops. 

Tales from the Wild have picked out a few 'not to be missed' events throughout the festival, including Arthur's Dream Boat, The Great Story Theft and War Horse Puppets, among others. You can read more about their festival favourites on their site: www.talesfromthewild.org.uk

Curtis Jobling heads to Wythenshawe

Year 7 pupils at St Paul's excited to get their books signed by Curtis Jobling

Author, Curtis Jobling, carried the Reading & Writing Relay baton (a gigantic pencil) to St Paul’s Catholic High School in Wythenshawe yesterday.

After sharing his inspirational employment history to the class of 90 pupils from Year 7, Curtis went on to talk about his new book Haunt and his bestselling series Wereworld.

Curtis went on to lead a motivating Q&A session, where the pupils of St Paul’s had prepared questions for him in anticipation of his visit. He explained that inspiration for his characters and storylines came from different places, and that Raa Raa The Noisy Lion came to him after a long car journey with his children.

Pupils Faye Donlly and Keeley Vesey with Curtis and
the MCBF Sea Monkeys

“[Curtis] was really good, and he’s encouraged me to read more. Now I want to go to university.” Keeley Vesey, a Year 7 pupil, told us while waiting for her copy of Haunt to be signed.

The event was a success, and the pupils of St Paul’s left feeling inspired to carry on with their hobbies. The pupils were also encouraged to enter the Comic Strip competition, which is judged by Curtis himself. The winner will receive a professionally designed framed print of their comic strip. To enter, please click here to download an application form.

Crafting Seawigs with St Mary's C.E. Primary School

As the festival draws even closer, class 5M of St Mary’s CE Primary School are working away on their Seawigs for the Parade at the Festival Family Fun Day.

The amount of materials the children were presented with would overwhelm anyone, but they got stuck in straight away, sharing all the crafts and helping one another fix all the parts together. They filled plastic fish with coloured sand, made trees and food from paper, stuck jewellery and even sunglasses on the wigs to channel the sea theme. 

Our MCBF volunteers were on hand to help with any glitter or glue related emergencies, and provided recycled cardboard and plastic to add to the mountain of materials. As always, the class were a delight and so creative - we were very impressed by all of their ideas. Many of the pupils went as far to make necklaces and chains to match their wigs! 

Next week the children will be visiting the Powerhouse Library to practice the parade, finish their wigs and to have a reading from Oliver and the Seawigs book itself.

Curtis Jobling Blazes a trail through Macclesfield!

Curtis Jobling continued the Manchester Children’s Book Festival Reading and Writing Relay today by visiting The King's School in Macclesfield.

Curtis spoke to an audience of 70 pupils about his new book Haunt and his bestselling series Wereworld. 

Curtis then led an inspiring Q+A session, as Curtis explained his ability to tell a story arose from playing with his friends as a child. He also went on to encourage any budding writers to enter the Comic Smart competition – judged by Curtis himself.

After Curtis performed extracts from his books, many of the children bought copies from the Werewold series and Haunt for him to sign – and the teachers even received signed Bob the Builder and Raa Raa the Noisy Lion posters for the school library.

All in all Curtis went down a storm and we can’t wait for the rest of his tour of Greater Manchester Schools.

If you would like to enter the Comic Strip competition, please click here to download an application form and a storyboard. Entries will be judged by Curtis and the winner will receive a professionally designed framed print of their Comic Strip.

2014 Manchester Children’s Book Festival 26 June – 6 July

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the Manchester Writing School at MMU are delighted to present the 2014 Manchester Children’s Book Festival. The main Festival programme will run from 26 June to 6 July with over 40 free and ticketed events on offer at venues across the city.

You can find out more, browse the full programme of activities, and book your tickets on the website: www.mcbf.org.uk or by calling the box office on 0843 208 0500.

The Festival starts with two days of activity celebrating Multi-cultural Manchester through a variety of exhibitions and taster sessions exploring music, poetry and languages – followed on Saturday 28 June with the FREE Festival Family Fun Day – a full day of interactive events and activities at Manchester Metropolitan University. The showcase Fun Day event is a special performance from Oliver and the Seawigs by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre – and you can get involved making your own seawigs and sea monkeys, and join the grand 'Seawigs Parade'.

Throughout the main week of the Festival, there are after school and early evening events all over Manchester including Guy Bass at the Central Library, Kate Pankhurst at Waterstones Deansgate, Justin Somper at the Powerhouse, Andrew Cope and the People’s History Museum and Chorlton Library, Liz Kessler at the Portico Library – and Steve Cole, Ali Sparkes and David Almond all appearing at Manchester Metropolitan University, reading from and talking about their books, and meeting readers and answering questions from the audience.

The Festival concludes with a weekend of big events. On Saturday 5 July Cathy Cassidy will be welcoming guests to a vintage afternoon tea with the Chocolate Box Girls at the Midland Hotel, Michael Morpurgo will be at MMU for a special performance of Private Peaceful, and Darren Shan will also be at MMU for an evening event showcasing his Zom-B series. On Sunday 6 July, Tom Palmer will be launching his new book Over the Line with a dual-venue event at the National Football Museum and IWM North – and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy hosts the official Festival closing event: musical afternoon tea at the Townhouse Hotel – with special prizes to be won in a book quiz.

There are also lots of ways to get involved ahead of and during the Festival with Trailblazer arts and crafts activities and International Reading and Writing Relay, as well as an extended programme of workshops in schools, with many free and subsidised places offered to groups on projects such as Tweets from the Trenches, Migrating Passions, Mother Tongue Other Tongue, Comic Smart and Walking in their Shoes: Responding to Anne Frank.

You can find out more, browse the full programme of activities, and book your tickets on the website: www.mcbf.org.uk or by calling the box office on 0843 208 0500.

Content sourced from LoveReading 4 Kids. Original content can be viewed on their blog: blog.lovereading4kids.co.uk

An Email from Stuart Reid

By Stuart Reid

Can't believe I'm emailing MCBF just before 9pm in the evening and I've got to be up at 3.30am tomorrow morning (groans) to drive to Manchester, bringing the most awesome, amazing, enthusiastic, energetic and inspirational author event ever to two Manchester primary schools. 

I'll be presenting book reading shows at Rackhouse and St Andrew's Primary Schools, as well as hosting a few creative writing workshops. My presentations are inspirational, educational and enthusiastic; engaging pupils with audience participation, fun and energy. These sessions are designed to inspire and enthuse children, especially boys to want to read and write more stories, more often. 

But be warned! My books are a bit on the yucky side... about bums, bogies and big bottom burps... about poo, pee, pumps... pooping and parping and porridge. My first book was published in 2011 and entitled Gorgeous George and the Giant Geriatric Generator. This has been followed by two other books in the Gorgeous George series: Zigzag Zit-faced Zombies and Unidentified Unsinkable Underpants. Book 4 will be out later this year. 

This year I'm celebrating my third year as a full-time author, and I believe I have the best job in the world, presenting at over 500 schools, libraries and book festivals, as well as working with BBC Learning, ITV's Get Britain Reading campaign and Channel4 in the last two years! 

I've been to a few schools in and around Manchester already and they're always brilliant fun. As an author, I think I've got the best job in the world - I get to read for a living. I get to talk about poo in front of teachers, and I get to throw false teeth at small children. 

And if this blog post wasn't already one big long advert, I'll be hosting 25 shows at the Edinburgh Festival in August - the world's largest arts and culture event. Reading Rocks! 

Right, time for bed. Nighty-night everybody ;-)

Crafting Seawigs with St Mary's C.E. Primary School

MMU Volunteers at St Mary's C.E. Primary School

Preparation for the Family Fun Day on June 28th has commenced! The stars of the Seawig Parade, from St Mary’s C.E. Primary School, have started to create their Seawigs for the big day. Debra Conroy from Community and Cultural Services at Manchester City Council will lead the creative sessions along with the extremely talented Ann Lam and Manchester Metropolitan University volunteers Colette, Rachel and Rosie. 

On Friday 6th June, class 5M designed their Seawigs with colourful pictures and labels shown in the picture below. There were so many fantastic ideas, from diamonds and treasure, to goggles and seaweed hair. The children will be using decorations provided by Manchester City Council and recycled materials to bring their drawings to life. The classroom was a hive of activity, we can’t wait to see how sun hats and starfish will look on the blue and green curly wigs the children will model in the parade at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Class 5M will also be writing book reviews on Oliver and the Sea Monkeys as part of their homework assignments. You will be able to read many of the reviews here – so be sure to keep an eye out for more of St Mary’s wonderful work! 

Walking in Undead Skin

By Jeff Norton

There’s an important quotation in Harper Lee’s wonderful To Kill A Mockingbird, where Atticus Finch tells Scout that: “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

In my new book, my main character Adam Meltzer is studying that book in school, but he’s not a regular schoolboy at all, he’s a zomboy. 

Yes, he’s a zombie. 

I’ve been fascinated with the rise of zombie culture over the past few years, from The Walking Dead TV show to Darren Shan’s blood-splattered Zom-B book series, but I wanted to understand the world of the living from the point of view of the living dead.

Adam Meltzer is twelve-years-old and has early-onset OCD. So when he dies and later crawls out of the grave, you can imagine his disgust at not only the filthy grave dirt, but also his own decomposing skin. The germs he’s afraid of may not kill him (he’s already dead!) and so he grapples with his newly undead incarnation. Adam teams up with a vegan vampire and a reluctant chupacabra (think: a Mexican werewolf, but lizard-like) to solve his own murder.

You see, authors like Darren Shan or World War Z’s Max Brooks paint zombies as raging, cannibalistic creatures, who deserve their second death at human hands, but what if zombies just wanted to get their old life back? 

What if they wished for life as it once was?

As a new parent, and feeling like a sleep-deprived zombie most of the time, I made a short film about a zombie who just wants to put his family back together. You can view it online, and it provided the initial spark to take a more empathetic look at the living dead.

I hope Atticus Finch would be proud.

Jeff Norton is the author of the award-winning MetaWars saga (Orchard Books) and the upcoming Memoirs Of A Neurotic Zombie (out 7th August from Faber). He is also a filmmaker and is currently developing his first feature film, The Chosen. Jeff Norton is on twitter at @thejeffnorton and on the web at jeffnorton.com. Originally from Canada, Norton now lives in the UK.

Darren Shan will be reading from and talking about Zom-B, his epic 12-book series about B Smith, a teenager who must learn to survive in a world of racism, zombies and darkness, on Saturday 5th July. For more information, and to book tickets, please visit the MCBF website.

Reading & Writing Relay is back for 2014!

To celebrate the 2014 Manchester Children's Book Festival we are pleased to announce that we will be re-launching the Reading & Writing Relay on Thursday 5th June! Join Curtis Jobling, author of the Wereworld series, at Manchester Central Library for the official launch of the Relay!

The Reading & Writing Relay will run until the end of July, and we would like to encourage anyone who is enthusiastic about children's books, authors, or who writes themselves to send us photographs, video clips, blog entries, or samples of their writing, to be featured on our blog. To enter, please email us your material to MCBFschools@mmu.ac.uk

TRAILBLAZER! Curtis Jobling at Manchester Central Library on Thursday 5th June will begin at 10am, tickets cost £5 and are available here.