Showing posts with label Guest Blog Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guest Blog Post. Show all posts
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Fiona Ross, Author of Hyde and Squeak, shares her favourite (or least favourite) monsters with us - a groovy guest post!
A groovy Halloween blog post from Fiona Ross, author of "Hyde and Squeak"? Well, we don't mind if we do. Take it away Fiona!
Top 10 Monsters with Fiona Ross
This was really tough! I love anything and everything monstrous (think I needed at least a top 20!). So in no particular order:
1: Animal (from the Muppets) He’s just plain bonkers and loves music, how could he not be on this list?
2: Oddbod (from Carry on Screaming) Oh my, Oddbod used to scare the pants off me as a child.
3: Bowser (aka King Koopa from Super Mario Bros) I’m a huge Mario fan and still play Super Mario Bros. Bowser’s aim is to kidnap Princess Peach and triumph over Mario, in my opinion that’s downright dirty!
4: Beetlejuice (from Beetlejuice) This film blew me away when I first saw it, I can’t help but delight in his unpredictable, selfish, over bearing ways - he’s really gross!
5: Godzilla - I love Godzilla films and comics, it’s always a good feeling when you can root on the side of the monster.
6: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (from Ghostbusters) A big, bouncy, giant, comical marshmallow that looks cute, but I wouldn’t want to risk getting on his bad side though!
7: Audrey ll (from Little Shop of Horrors) I had to include a monster from a musical!
8: Gorgon/Medusa - Just the thought of the Gorgon turns me to stone. I could’ve chosen numerous monsters from Greek mythology but for me this one is the most terrifying visually. I’m a big admirer of Hammer Films and Ray Harryhausen, and both have successfully and brought this character to life.
9: Cybermen (from Doctor Who) Watching Doctor Who was a ritual growing up so I was spoilt for choice with monsters, I picked the one that I used to like looking at in my brother’s Doctor Who annual - I still remember the haunting black and white image.
10: Dementors (from Harry Potter) These are horrific and I can’t think of anything more horrendous and frightening.
"Hyde and Squeak" by Fiona Ross is out now, published by Little Tiger Press.
2: Oddbod (from Carry on Screaming) Oh my, Oddbod used to scare the pants off me as a child.
3: Bowser (aka King Koopa from Super Mario Bros) I’m a huge Mario fan and still play Super Mario Bros. Bowser’s aim is to kidnap Princess Peach and triumph over Mario, in my opinion that’s downright dirty!
4: Beetlejuice (from Beetlejuice) This film blew me away when I first saw it, I can’t help but delight in his unpredictable, selfish, over bearing ways - he’s really gross!
5: Godzilla - I love Godzilla films and comics, it’s always a good feeling when you can root on the side of the monster.
6: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (from Ghostbusters) A big, bouncy, giant, comical marshmallow that looks cute, but I wouldn’t want to risk getting on his bad side though!
7: Audrey ll (from Little Shop of Horrors) I had to include a monster from a musical!
8: Gorgon/Medusa - Just the thought of the Gorgon turns me to stone. I could’ve chosen numerous monsters from Greek mythology but for me this one is the most terrifying visually. I’m a big admirer of Hammer Films and Ray Harryhausen, and both have successfully and brought this character to life.
9: Cybermen (from Doctor Who) Watching Doctor Who was a ritual growing up so I was spoilt for choice with monsters, I picked the one that I used to like looking at in my brother’s Doctor Who annual - I still remember the haunting black and white image.
10: Dementors (from Harry Potter) These are horrific and I can’t think of anything more horrendous and frightening.
"Hyde and Squeak" by Fiona Ross is out now, published by Little Tiger Press.
Monday, 10 October 2016
Joining an awesome blog tour - A fantastic guest post from Lou Kuenzler, author of "Finding Black Beauty" (Scholastic Press)
In Lou Kuenzler's "Finding Black Beauty" you'll meet a young girl called Josie who is forced to masquerade as a boy to keep her dream job as a stable hand. She falls in love with Beauty, a gorgeous black horse - and vows to follow Beauty to London when he's sold off one day.
Lou is here to share with us her influences and favourite childhood books, so take it away Lou!
First of all, just to say,
a huge thank you to Read It Daddy for inviting me on to the blog (thank YOU too! - Ed)
My latest children’s book, Finding
Black Beauty, has just come out. It is inspired by Anna Sewell’s wonderful
and heart-breaking classic, Black Beauty, which I read many, many times
as a child. I was lucky enough to grow
up on a farm and have my own pony, so I always loved animal stories. Black Beauty had a very special place though
- Beauty’s adventures and the set-backs he faces really matter. It is life and
death stuff! I know, as a child, I loved that … I loved hoping and crying and
living every moment with the magnificent horse.
Even though I have read the book four or five times in the last year
alone, I still can’t turn to the final scenes with Ginger without a tissue in
hand. That sadness is cathartic - I
didn’t know that when was eight or nine years old, of course - but I did know
that I was totally immersed in Beauty’s world and always sorry when somebody
called me away from the book to do chores. (It was the 1970s - children had a
lot of chores! Especially on a farm …)
I know my own children
would list Michael Morpurgo’s heart-wrenching War Horse amongst their
favourite books for many of the same reasons. Sewell’s Beauty and Morpurgo’s
Joey share that same honest, direct, first-person-animal viewpoint which draws
the child reader in. Genius!
I knew with Finding
Black Beauty that I wanted to tell the story of the young stable lad, Joe.
He only appears in two brief incidents in Sewell’s book but both are vital to
Beauty’s welfare. As soon as I looked at
the story with an eye to developing it for contemporary readers, it was this
character who fascinated me most. What
was it like to be a servant in Victorian times?
What would his childhood be like when he had work for a living? I was
acutely aware that he is only a little older than many of my readers themselves
would be. Sewell tells us: “Poor Joe!
He was young and small, and as yet he knew very little …” He makes a
terrible mistake which nearly costs Beauty his life. This got me to wondering
why he was so inexperienced… Was it just his age? Then I had an idea! “What if
he is really a girl in disguise?” I wondered. If Joseph was really Josephine
she would never have been allowed to work with horses before (girls were sent
to the laundry or the dairy) … and from that moment on, I knew I had to write
the story from the point of view of a young Victorian girl, Josie, and all the
things that disguising her gender might open up for her at that time.
The decision to have Josie
disguise herself, instantly reminded me of one of my other favourite childhood
books. In Geoffrey Trease’s Cue for
Treason a young boy actor Kit, turns out to really be Katherine in
disguise. Kit has joined Shakespeare’s
Players to escape a forced marriage to the villain of the book. Lots of the action takes place on horseback
too - so I was over the moon, two of my greatest passions, riding and theatre
all in one book! As it turned out, I
eventually ran away from the farm (well, asked my parents to loan me the money
for a National Express coach ticket) and became a theatre director. There are
several chapters in Finding Black Beauty set in the theatre too (when
Josie comes to London). I was delighted to be able to bring those childhood
passions together and, in some small way, say thank you to the wonderful books
which inspired my imagination all those (rather too many) years ago.
"Finding Black Beauty" by Lou Kuenzler is released on 6th October 2016, published by Scholastic Press.
Don't forget to check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour!
Don't forget to check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour!
Thursday, 7 July 2016
A ho ho ha ha hee hee Holiday Ha Ha Ha Blog Tour post from awesome Candy Harper!
Along with the esteemed company of David Solomons, Joanna Nadin, Jonathan Meres, Steven Butler, Jeremy Strong, Steve Cole and William Sutcliffe, it's the sort of fantastic story compilation I'd have squealed loudly for as a bored kid in the long summer holidays.
Check out our June Chapter Book Roundup where we talk about the book in a bit more detail by the way!
Anyway without further ado, here's Candy relating a tale of youthful mischief and her own holiday memories (Candy, we have to say, we REALLY love the sound of your sister!)
The summer I was five and
my sister was seven, my parents told us that this year we wouldn’t be going on
holiday to Devon as we usually did. We were devastated. A week on the windy
(and frequently rainy) beach was the absolute high point of our entire year. Fortunately,
the following day, my sister came up with a brilliant idea to cheer us up.
My sister has always been
full of brilliant ideas: there was the time she decided we should make our own
wine from the grapes in our lunch boxes, there was the time she thought we
could make some money by selling things from around the house that were clearly
no longer needed, and there was the time she told me that I could totally pull
off blue hair (that one wasn’t very long ago). Granted, none of these schemes
actually ended in success, but I couldn’t be a writer if I wasn’t the sort of
person that gets wildly excited about a project at the beginning with no
thought as to how things will end. That’s my excuse for agreeing without
hesitation when my sister said, We should
make a bedroom beach!
Yep. That was my sister’s
plan.
To get started, what we
really wanted was some sand, but we didn’t have any sand. What we did have was
talc. One tube of Lily of the Valley (Mum’s present from Nan last Christmas)
one tube of Cherry Kiss Shimmer Shine (from our eldest sister’s dressing table)
and one tube Avon’s Black Suede for Men (my dad’s, it smelt like the dentist’s).
They were all sprinkled gaily across the wooden floorboards of our bedroom.
Next, we needed somewhere to paddle. In the end we thought it best to contain
our ocean and settled on filling a drawer from our dresser with water. Our
beautiful beach was complete and now it was time to enjoy it. We were couldn’t
find our swimming costumes, so my sister came up with a substitute for bikinis:
a matching set of my mum’s underwear. They were a bit big, but you’d be amazed
by what you can hold up with an entire packet of plasters.
We then proceeded to have
as much fun whilst making a terrible mess as only small children can. My mum
was busy occupying our baby sister downstairs so we splashed and frolicked
happily for some time. Until we realised that water was leaking out from the
joints in the drawer. Our lovely powdery ‘sand’ was slowly turning into a thick,
grey paste. My sister insisted that this would only make it easier to build
castles out of. As she reached forward to demonstrate she bumped the drawer
hard and a wave of water sloshed over the edge making a small lake in the
middle of the room. She looked at me and I looked at her. It was the look that
siblings give each other when they know they are both in deep trouble. (The
look you give your sibling when it’s just them in trouble is quite different).Suddenly
the beach didn’t seem like such a wonderful idea.
It was at this point we
heard my mum’s steps on the stairs.
I won’t repeat exactly what
was said when she found us. All I can say is that it wasn’t nearly as bad as
when she found the bedroom ‘ice rink’ that we made that Christmas.
More about Candy Harper
Candy Harper is a graduate of the Bath Spa MA in
Creative Writing for Young People. She grew up in Oxfordshire as the fourth of
five sisters. She has been a Waterstone's bookseller, a teacher and the person
who puts those little stickers on apples.
Follow Candy on Twitter @CandyHarper__
Don't forget to catch up with posts on the other Blog Tour stops!
Friday, 20 May 2016
Continuing our "Harold's Hungry Eyes" blog tour stop with the man himself, Kevin Waldron and five things that inspire him.
But what of Harold's "Dad"? His creator Kevin Waldron has come up with a devilishly good guest blog post on five things that inspire him.
Kevin Waldron grew up in Dublin and studied in London. He
now lives in New York with his wife. He shares a studio with Oliver Jeffers and
Jon Burgerman also from the UK. Waldron won the Bologna Opera Prima Award in
2009. He has published four picture books to date; The Owl and the Pussy-cat, Tiny
Little Fly, Mr Peek and the
Misunderstanding at the Zoo and Pandamonium
at Peek Zoo.
Take it away Kevin!
Five
objects that inspire my work by Kevin Waldron
1. My bike
I cycle in and out of the studio everyday over the
Manhattan Bridge. When I’m cycling all I think about is not getting run over -
I don’t think about work or bills or deadlines.
2. Music
I listen to music all day long! Sometimes the only
reason I work is to have something to do while listening to music. Here are
four albums I’ve been wearing out this month:
3. Animated shorts
Recently I became obsessed with animated shorts. I
have always been interested but the deeper and deeper I explored, the more
rewarding I found it. This sidetracked me for a while but I really think it has
helped my occupation.
4. Movies
I don’t go to the cinema very often but I get through
about five movies a week from the library. I’ve been enjoying the work of Karel
Zeman recently:
5. Books
I almost exclusively read fiction. I never leave the
apartment without a book. Here are the last four books I read:
Up in the Old Hotel (1992) Joseph Mitchell
Under the Net (1954) Iris Murdoch
Madame Bovary (1857) Gustave Flaubert
The Street of Crocodiles (1934) Bruno Schultz
Thank you so much for a brilliant guest post Kevin, and we're wishing you all the best and continued success with "Harold's Hungry Eyes"
Please do check out the rest of the stops on the "Harold's Hungry Eyes" blog tour as there are still more fantastic stops to go!
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