Laureate's na nÓgs first week!

The first week has been a bit of a whirlwind... but it has been brilliant fun. The messages and warm reaction to my new role as Laureate na nÓg have been really welcoming and I am looking forward to the next two years. Children's Books Ireland has gathered all the coverage here.

And I have been busy! Here's what day 2 was like:

6am-Wake up

7am- Taxi to RTE

9am- Interview on RTE John Murray's Radio Show

10am- Taxi to Brown Bag Films

12.30 Collected by the lovely Nessa who is the Laureates assistant. Fancy that!

1.30 First official event as Laureate na nÓg speaking at Barnardo's Literacy event.

2.30 Back to Brown Bag Films to work on visuals for The Hugglemonster show.

4.30- Interview Newstalk

5 pm- Attend actor records with director for The Hugglemonsters

11.30pm- Last train home and sleep. Phew!

Tomorrow, I will be giving the keynote address at The Children's Books Ireland Conference Weaving a Shared Story, which is taking place this weekend, Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th May. I've been collecting lots of old and new images to show there. The conference is always jammed packed with inspirational writers and illustrators and this year is no exception. On Saturday there is a talk by Jutter Bauer winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Medal. And Sundays line up includes one of my heroes Ed Emberley, we adore his drawing books in our house! Hope to see you there. 

David Maybury's Round Up

In case you didn't get to come along to the brilliant Children's Books Conference last weekend, you should know that David Maybury has a great round up here.

He has some notes with added doodles and roughs from my talk here (shameless plug).

Thanks David!

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.