Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Last week I went to Italy and met Giulia Cregut. She’s the Italian illustrator for my new book ‘Crime Squirrel Investigators the Naughty Nut Thief’. Here we are:

Little Door Books found Giulia’s lovely illustrations at Bologna Book Fair here, a year ago:

It’s called ‘The Wall’. It’s actually several walls where illustrators from all over the world put up posters and leave contact details. That way, people like Alan and Susan from Little Door Books and this random man can find them.

Alan and Susan were looking for an illustrator to match the Naughty Nut Thief text from me, they found Giulia’s work and a year later… we have a book!

Here we are showing off that book by Giulia’s poster that got her the job:

I found the book fair quite overwhelming, it’s huge. It’s the biggest children’s book fair in the world. A book fair is different to a book festival although my Mum uses the titles interchangeably when she’s usally referring to book festivals.

For clarification, book festivals are places where the public come to see authors and illustrators do book related events. Book fairs are where industry professionals come to do business. Publishers, agents, rights people – it’s a very different ball game. They both include books but that’s it.

This is the Publishing Scotland Stand, Little Door Books and the other Scottish Publishers displayed a selection of their books and did meetings:

To give you an idea of scale, there are over 1000 stands like this one with publishers from all over the world. I felt like a very small person in a very big industry! I wondered around and took photos of the illustrations I found inspirational, here are just a few of many that stood out to me:

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, I drunk coffee and consumed bread based products. This is the face of a person who’s eaten croissants, pizza, Panini and Bolognese bread (yep – that’s a thing) for 3 days:

There aren’t many authors at the fair but Publishing Ireland had a party so I got to meet Chris Haughton, he was really nice:

Bologna is a UNESCO city of music and the oldest university town. It’s also famous for its meat. Hence the sausage chandelier in an eatery I visited with Little Door Books:

And our very lovely food, with more bread:

If you would like to read Crime Squirrel Investigators The Naughty Nut Thief, you can on 1st May when it gets published. Or come to the launch on 2nd May at Waterstones, Edinburgh. With woodpecker hiphop, science, songs and a water squirting squirrel. Get your tickets here.

Thanks to Imago for the chance to visit Bologna (Gill) and a non bread based meal (Simon). Thanks to Little Door Books and Giulia for being yourselves. And to Lindsey Fraser for support from afar. 

Pre-order Crime Squirrel Investigators: The Naughty Nut Thief from all good book stores.

 

CSI: The Naughty Nut Thief Cover Reveal

I’m super excited to reveal the front cover of my soon to be published book!

It’s beautifully illustrated by Italian illustrator Giulia Cregut and published by Little Door Books on the 1st May 2019.

Rosie’s secret hazelnut store has been ransacked and her best friend Charlie agrees to help her to find the naughty nut thief. The crime squirrel investigators only have left-over nutshells as a clue, so they watch the different ways the three main suspects eat hazelnuts to try to solve the crime. Help the two squirrels discover the naughty nut thief and learn about the different ways animals eat nuts along the way!

I hear I’ll get advance copies of the book any day now (so excited!) and I’m all set to record the audio book in a couple of weeks. You’ll be invited to the book launch in Edinburgh in May. It will include water squirting squirrels, science and songs!

If you can’t make that I’ll be at festivals and events throughout the year so you’ll hopefully see me and the squirrels soon!

Crime Squirrel Investigators: The Naughty Nut Thief can be pre-ordered now from all good book stores.

UPDATE: Get tickets to the book launch on 2nd May here.

 

DK Find Out: Energy

Just a quick blog to let you know I’ve got a new book out this month!

DK Find Out: Energy is all about Energy (no surprize there!) and it’s for 6 – 9 year olds. Here are a couple of inside spreads:

To see the rest of it, buy it or order it from your local library!

If you like science you might want to come to see me at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. On the 11th August I’m doing an event called ‘Powerful Forces’ for age 7 – 10 years. It’s all about volcanoes, tsunamis and wind. Get tickets here.

 

Tunneling Under the Forth

I recently worked with two brilliant men, Rab McKenzie and Alistair Moore to help them write and share their mining memories. I’m really excited to share them with you here…

Tunnelling Under the Forth
There are three iconic bridges crossing the Firth of Forth, between Edinburgh on the south side and Fife on the north side. But did you know that deep beneath the Firth of Forth is a mining tunnel that crosses over too? Alistair Moore is the chartered mining surveyor responsible for making two tunnels meet in the middle, back in the sixties before we had GPS. Here’s how he did it:

Press play above or click here to watch on YouTube.

The Valleyfield Colliery Disaster

In 1939 there was a mining disaster at Valleyfield Colliery that claimed 39 lives. Tragically it could have been prevented. Robert McKenzie shares what happened using his extensive research on the disaster, he says mining is in his blood. His story commemorates the lives that were lost:

Press play above or click here to watch on YouTube.

Digital Stories

Digital stories are true stories that last 1 to 3 minutes. They’re first person and in the story makers own voice with still images or video over a story sound track.

I worked with Rab and Alistair over several workshops while they crafted and shaped their stories. They also chose images and I recorded their voices and put everything together in these YouTube videos.

We also had help from Kirsty McAlister at the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative.

Earlier in the project, I worked with primary school children, their stories were factual but we broke the rules when they used their imagination and told the story from the perspectives of pit ponies and canaries!

You can read more about that part of the project here.

Other Projects
If you’re interested in digital stories and local history, you might like some of the other projects I’ve worked on, just click on the links below.

Working with the Arnol Blackhouse and children on the Isle of Lewis to share stories from the Blackhouse (including a story told by a chicken and a piece of peat!)

Working with Trinity House Maritime Museum to share maritime memories of Leith and Newhaven

Working with the Govan Reminiscence Group and Britain from Above to create memories from Govan

 

Bluebell and Blue Cat

I forgot my stylus on a visit to Strathclyde Country Park so I had a go at sketching using using my finger:

I love bluebells! I was pleased with how it turned out.

And here’s a sketch from earlier this month when I did have a stylus, it’s my lovely cat! He didn’t stay still long but I’m trying to loosen up a bit and add some fun into illustrations. Once he’d moved it forced me to use my imagination and here’s what happened:

 

Cover Reveal: DK Find Out! Energy

I’m excited to share the cover of a new science book I’ve written for DK. It’s out in July and it’s all about energy:

You can pre-order it here. Woooo!

 

Sketching on Skye

I’m going to draw more. I’ve set a goal of posting a new drawing on here every other week, this week it’s the black cuillin, sketched on my ipad from the middle of Loch Coruisk on the Isle of Skye:

Loch Coruisk is described as the most magnificent of Scotland’s freshwater lochs by Walk Highlands. It’s also supposed to be home to a water horse – a kelpie! I was excited when we got the boat towards these misty black mountains, from Elgol:

We passed some seals on the way:

And clambered over lots of slippery rocks:

And I stopped here and sat to sketch:

Here’s where I was, from the other side:

It really is one of the most magical places I’ve been too. I wanted to capture the feel of the mountains – they seemed almost angry. With their snow capped peaks. And the mist too – that’s hard to draw! And all that orange tufty grass:

And I only had twenty minutes and at one point I got attacked by a cloud of midgies so I’m pleased with how it turned out. But more then that, it helped me to take my surroundings in, to really experience the place I was. Here’s the sketch with a filter on it:

And a goodbye from me on the boat trip home: