Archive > August 2009
Getting Lost in a Book
The science of reading seems to me about as well developed and researched as the science of extracting gold from the stone of a mango, so any sniff of extra study or information is welcome. What’s your brain doing when you read a story? Have a look at this article and you might find some [...]
Take it. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. It’ll change your life …
The title of this post is a quote from Black Books – a comedy series set in a bookshop that is a must for adult readers/booksellers/authors. But let’s not get sidetracked here … ‘Your Daddy’s a mummy! Ha ha ha!’ Heart of the Mummy is the third in Tommy Donbavand’s fantastic Scream Street series, and [...]
Bite This!
I like vampire novels. A lot. And I TRIED reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. No, I really did! It just wasn’t my kind of thing (and I’ve had to rewrite that sentence quite a few times, I can tell you!) In fact, after completing Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak series, I was beginning to wonder [...]
WHISPERS FROM THE PAST
I know we are here to talk about new exciting books (such as our own!) but I know that one thing we all get asked a lot when we visit schools is what books inspired us when we were kids. I’ve got a whole list of them of course, but if I had to just [...]
When Zombies Come In Threes…
Due to a monster library delivery that was coated in phlegm, I’ve taken a break from reading children’s books recently, and given three titles written for grown-ups a go – and they’ve all been about zombies… ** Please note – the following books feature some gruesome stuff and aren’t suitable for younger readers! ** WORLD [...]
Free Books!
I don’t know why, but I’ve been getting a lot of emails recently asking for free books – some from the type of organisations that contact authors on a regular basis, but increasingly from children asking me to send them a signed copy. Without wishing to sound harsh, my response is always in several parts: [...]
BBC: Science Ponders ‘Zombie Attack’
Found this while scouring the BBC News pages for any mention of our ongoing predicament. If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively. That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada. They say only frequent counter-attacks [...]
WHY EVERY SCHOOL SHOULD GET AN AUTHOR
I was up at Oxford University Press this week, representing author-kind to heads of libraries from all over the UK, explaining just what it is that authors do when they get to a school (Andy was doing this at the last librarian’s get together, apparently, and some of them are still lying under a damp [...]
Snack Attack
It’s Friday in the caves, and the monsters are celebrating the impending weekend with some brain cupcakes. I hear the ones in the pic above are made with red velvet raspberry cake with French vanilla cream cheese frosting and a chocolate brain. The ones that the monsters are eating… are not. Mark? Ali? Tommy? It’s [...]
