How I Celebrated Empathy Day Can an outrageous act of everyday kindness change someone’s life? I put this question to the Year 2 class at Vinehall School, Robertsbridge, E. Sussex, to kick off our Empathy Day workshop. Empathy Day is a bold experiment spearheaded by Empathy Lab, a grassroots UK educational organisation dedicated to using literature to foster […]
An Alpha-ntastic Birthday Card
Remember the frisson of creative anticipation you felt, as a kid, when you constructed an indispensable something-or-other for your parents out of shoe boxes, milk carton caps and pipe cleaners? It turns out that you can re-experience the thrill as an adult, by making birthday cards for the children in your life. This year, I […]
Something Old, Something New
Why Authors Love Writing Fractured Fairy Tales Almost As Much as Children Love Reading Them !! Leave a comment below to enter a prize draw for a fractured fairy tale by Caryl Hart or Leigh Hodgkinson !! In the Princess and the Peas, by Caryl Hart, a doctor concludes that a young girl with an aversion […]
My First Day of School – As a Visiting Author
Yes Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My reaction was unequivocal when my daughter’s Year 1 teacher invited me to read a picture book manuscript to her class. I had initially approached Mrs. R for feedback about a fractured fairy tale I was working on, and her thoughts on how a teacher might use it with a class. The opportunity to […]
A Thank You Poster for our Nanny
If I had been one of the good fairies bestowing gifts to Sleeping Beauty at her baptism, I wouldn’t have bothered giving her clear skin or musicality. Instead, I would have given her a strong capacity for gratitude. There is no greater source of joy, and it’s the ultimate renewable resource: The more you express […]
20 Tips for Writers from SCBWI
On the weekend of November 18-20, I attended my first ever creative writing conference organized by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) UK in Winchester. It was welcoming, invigorating, informative, humbling, encouraging and inspiring. I joined SCBWI upon the recommendation of several of the profiled on Mums Write and can now wholeheartedly add […]
Prize Draw: Picture Books Beyond Primary School
Rediscovering picture books — favourites from my childhood, and stacks of new ones — has been one of my great unanticipated joys as a parent. I devoured picture books as a child, and would read myself hoarse at bedtime during my my babysitting years. So why did I stop reading them in the decades leading to the birth of my […]
Collaboration with Jane Whelen Banks
I’ve always loved collaborative art forms — playwriting, journalism, and now picture books, where author and illustrator drive the story forward together. So I was thrilled when author, agreed to produce some illustrations for my Family Lexicon of words that my family has introduced to the English language. But as with all effective collaborations, I […]
Picturebook Review: I Loathe You, by David Slonim
I’ve always been a little creeped out by Sam McBratney’s classic, Guess How Much I Love You. The one-upmanship in matters of the heart strikes me as manipulative and inflected with guilt. So I was delighted to discover David Slonim’s wacky alternative, I Loathe You. Little Monster and Big Monster — entirely loveable (or loath-able?) beneath their jagged teeth and […]
Play Doh Doctor Drill N Fill: Decent Play Value, but no Educational Bite
The Play Doh Doctor Drill N Fill (ages 3+, retailing for £13.99 on Amazon.co.uk) is a cleverly designed, reasonably entertaining toy. Disappointingly, however, Play Doh passed up a valuable opportunity to integrate education with play by teaching kids a little about their teeth and how to look after them. Paging all Junior Dentists My five-year-old […]
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