Giant shoes to fill...

What a weekend!

I had booked into The Children's Books Ireland Summer Conference yesterday and was really looking forward to seeing Michael Rosen and the UK Children's Laureate Anthony Browne speak.

I was digging out my books to bring in to get signed when I heard my phone blip. It was a message from CBI to say unfortunately Anthony Browne couldn't make it Dublin because of volcanic ash and would I speak instead.
After scraping myself off the ground I put some of my images on a key drive and thankfully Conor the Walker Books rep collected and drove me into the National Art Gallery.

Nerves didn't stop me from really enjoying Michael Rosen's talk, I especially loved his idea of a poetry friendly classroom, that there should be a poetry corner available in every class. I have lots of poetry books at home and I was thinking of having a poem friendly corner in my own house where my kids can dip into poems,and where they can hang up their poems.

I loved when Michael's read at the end of the session; he was funny, touching, and he painted great images with his words. The brother with a ruler trying to scratch into his brothers room...'scrape,scrape, scrape, scratch, scratch, scratch!'

I was so lucky to have fellow writer Sarah Webb chat to me, she did have a difficult job of keeping me on track! The audience were wonderful and my highlight was getting everyone to their feet jumping and shouting to the Hugglewug Song!

David Maybury has some excellent insights into the conference over on his site in case you missed the weekend.

Many thanks to Mags, Jenny, and Tom of Children's Books Ireland. I am honored that they even considered me and thank you to the wonderful Sarah Webb and to Conor Hackett for helping me to stay upright and always going beyond the call of duty!

And lastly huge thank you to the CBI audience who where very supportive of my appearance yesterday.