They’re here! I can finally announce that I’ve written two new books:
Tell me about… Space and Tell me about… Planet Earth!
They will be published in March 2024 by Templar Books and they’re beautifully illustrated by Chorkung. Did I mention I’m excited?
There’s something wonderful about coming back to Earth and Space – I’m sharing something I’ve always been passionate about and making it accessible to young children.
My background is in Earth Science (I did a geophysics degree) and then I did a masters in communicating science – my MSc dissertation was developing and evaluating space educational materials for primary schools. I wrote a rockets show and toured it around schools along with space themed craft workshops. I was also a planetarium presenter back then too – at Tecniquest Science Centre in Cardiff.
Later I went on to write and deliver Space and Earth workshops at Dynamic Earth as Education Officer. That was all a long time ago, before I became an author and screenwriter. But it feels like my past and future are colliding somehow in these books and I like it!
Many months of hard work went into writing these books. I especially want to thank the editor at Templar Books (Rachael Roberts) , the designer (Nathalie), the illustrator (Chorkunn) and my brilliant former agent, Lindsey Fraser at Fraser Ross Associates.
It’s wonderful to open these books and I feel proud of what we’ve achieved in making them work so well for a young reader!
Tell me about… Space and Tell me about… Planet Earth explain university level science to four year olds in a storytelling style narrative.
I love the illustrations from Chorkung, she’s based in Thailand so we’ve never met but I’m a big fan of her work. Here’s a closer look at the gorgeous covers she created:
l’ll write another blog post soon with a peak inside the books but for now, I wanted to let you know they are coming and you can pre order them, from all good bookshops now.
These books are the second two books in the ‘Tell me about’ series. Plants and Human Body are already available in bookshops. They came out last year.
Read about Tell me about… Plants and Tell me about… Human Body on the blog here.
I had a lovely time at Edinburgh International Book Festival doing a Tell me about science event for families based on two new books published by Templar and illustrated by Chorkung. They’re called: Tell me about… Plants and Tell me about… Human Body.
This is Lucy from the venue and James from Waterstones – big thanks to James for selling books and to Lucy for all your help. Thanks also to the lovely audience who came along to the event itself and for being up for audience participation – there were some fab moved out there when it came to singing and dancing. This is the lovely bee my cousin Ali knitted for the event, it’s visiting some flowers:
Thanks to Kristina Pedroja, one of the parents at the event who sent me lots of lovely photos including this one of the bee.
Was feeling nervous about the event the day before but I had such a nice day. I travelled on the train and was super early (fear of being late and of loosing things made me more than two hours early) so then I had chance to get photos like this one – this is author (and publisher of one my picture books) Alan Windram from Little Door Books:
He also helped me carry my stuff on arrival – thanks Alan!
And I had lots of time to soak up the atmosphere in the authors yurt, it has such a lovely vibe. I bumped into an author illustrator I’ve admired for a long time, I even wrote a blog about one of her books. We’ve met online but never in person. This is Anna Doherty – she was absolutely lovely!
And I met a new friend called Pilar Garcia de Leaniz – she runs the Illustration Masters for Edinburgh College of Art. Pilar and is also an artist, she did a self portrait workshop at the book festival that I heard was brilliant and we’re now planning some work together. She bust me into the illustration masters end of year show which was stunning – it opens this weekend and is on for a week – I very much recommend it.
And there were other lovely friends I caught up with including Katie from Craigmillar Literacy Trust and a lovely friend from Uist who now lives in Edinburgh. But I forgot to take any photos of them!
Edinburgh Book Festival will always be a super special place for me, my very first book Can’t Dance Cameron laughed here in 2014. I was so nervous about being a new author that my hands shook for a whole week before the event, every time I drank tea. But it was an absolutely lovey place to emerge as a new author in the end – the event sold out and everyone made me feel so very welcome.
I even had a portrait taken by the famous Chris Close, here’s me heading a football pinecone (it was a prop for the event – thanks to my Dad for making that!):
And I came back every year with new books for sold out events all the way up to 2020. A real highlight was visiting prisoners and their families with the Book Festival outreach team too.
But this is the first time I’ve been back at the festival since 2020 – we had the covid years and I lived in the Hebrides then so I watched the book festival online instead. But now I’m back living in the central belt and back at the book festival. It still very much felt like the book festival always did, despite no longer being in the George Street venue. Was so good to be back and to be at the Edinburgh College of art!
I’m really grateful to everyone who bought tickets and came along to the ‘Tell me about science’ event, it was a lovely surprise when I found out it had sold out a few weeks back. I particularly enjoyed answering some really brilliant questions from the children at the end of the event – they included ‘how do you make metal?’. I answered by starting from exploding a star and went all through making planets from the bits and then recycling the crust on our planet to make metal in the rocks but I now realise – I could have just started from rocks and going underground to get it. That might have been a more straightforward answer!
But the audience seemed to enjoy the explanation of how to make metal from the beginning of time (and with it being explained for the four and five year old audience). I summarised the question answer at the end with – so first you need to explode a star. Then the next question was ‘what is the surface of a star like the sun like, is it hard or soft or is it not like a surface at all?’. And so we went on!
I’m back in Edinburgh at the end of the festival on schools gala day to make articulated skeletons and to plant seeds and make fridge magnets as part of the drop in activities for schools. So if you’re visiting with your class, please do come and say hello!
I have some really, really exciting news. I’ve written a new series of first science books for four and five year olds. The first two books in the series are published by Templar in February 2023 and I’ve just got my advance copies – I love them. They’re gorgeously illustrated by the brilliant Chorkung.
I called the series ‘Tell Me About’ because I’ve written them in storytelling style. They’re not so much fact books, they’re more ‘pull up an armchair and listen to a story that’s about science’ kind of books. If that sounds a bit strange, here’s an example of one of my favourite spreads from the body book. It explains neuroplasticity of the brain (and thinking and learning) for four year olds. It’s done with the help of squirrels – I love squirrels:
I’m also super proud of this spread on feelings:
I’m a counsellor and I’ve done lots of research on feelings so I’m glad I was able to explain how we all have our own legitimate reactions and feelings, based on who we are and our life experiences. It uses the example of a dog to help. It also explains the power of empathy.
I think so many adults stuggle to understand this, they judge how someone should feel, based on their own feelings and even tell others their feelings are wrong or they shouldn’t feel that way when actually, they’re real and legitimate to the person feeling them.
Here are the lovely covers:
And the back covers:
I wanted to use this series to explain the amazing and complicated things inside us and around us but I wanted to make them easy to understand and super beautiful. I hope these books have done that. I feel really proud of them. These books were a team effort so huge thanks to my editor Ruth Symmons for believing in my voice and to the designer Nathalie and the illustrator Chorkung for all their wonderful creativity. Thanks to my agent Lindsey Fraser too.
Here’s an example from the plants book – I explain how water molecules pull each other up the stem as water evaporates from the leaves, THE DROPS ARE HOLDING HANDS:
I also love the grasses spreads because this was a spread my editor Ruth questioned (do we need a whole spread on grasses?) and then I explained how amazing grasses were and that they weren’t just green grass so then she loved this spread:
I had to read three plant encyclopaedias and lots of books on the body (including books like Anatomy for Dummies). It’s important I read adult books on the topics, so I can simplify things down and make decisions on what to include from an overall knowledge base. If I looked at children’s books on the topic, they’ve already been simplified and I risk not fully understanding the science behind things. I’d also end up making books that are like every other book on the topic for that age. These books certainly aren’t like that.
Tell Me About: Plants is a partnership with Kew Gardens. That means they reviewed the contents pages (they gave it a YES WE LOVE IT!) and they fact checked the final text and illustrations. I’m super excited to be working with them and hope do events at Kew Gardens in February when the books are published. Check out my events page for more details nearer the time.
I’ve written two more books in the series but I can’t tell you what they’re about just yet because they’re published in 2024.
There is a competition running on Twitter and Instagram to win an advance copy of plants – you have until 10th December to enter by commenting with you favourite plant! Click on the links above to be taken to the Templar Books social media accounts.
I finally got my hands on a copy of my latest book, ‘Why is the Sky Blue?’ Published by DK in November 2022. It’s a reprint of ‘Do you know about Science?’ so it’s not a brand new book but this is a lovely new cover:
The new title and cover are to help it to tie in with the rest of the series, I wrote another book in the series all about the body, it’s called ‘Why is blood red?’
This book is general science, here’s a look inside:
And finally the back cover:
Huge thanks to Blackwells bookshop in Edinburgh for taking my photo with the book. I signed their copy along with a big pile of picture books so if you’re in the area, you can get a signed book from them for Christmas!
Earlier this year I had an exciting new book published – Everyday STEM Geology. It’s written by me, illustrated by Robbie Cathro and published by Kingfisher Pan Macmillan.
It’s a book about the geology in the everyday – in your phone, plastic, cans, concrete…
Plus geology in space and a few other surprises including experiments to do at home.
I love that it says ‘science is all around you’ on the cover. I’m especially chuffed that I wrote a full spread on geophysics – that was my undergraduate degree back in the day. I adore the illustrations by Robbie too. I hope you enjoy it!
Please ask for it from your local library and tell all the 9 – 11 year olds you know.
If you would like to buy Geology in a way that supports me and your local independent bookshop, you can buy it here. Otherwise I won’t earn anything when you buy elsewhere because I don’t have a royalty contract on this book.
My art is up in a real life art gallery!! FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.
This is me at the opening event of an exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Gallery. I’m next to a mixed media piece I created called ‘Gravity and Magnetism’.
Here are two more mixed media pieces, ‘Clachan Sands’ and ‘Under the Earth’. They’re from a series of four pieces I made based on the water cycle, rock cycle and life cycle and how it all connects.
This is one of my cyaotype collage prints, of a place called Solas:
The arrows point to some of my figure drawing pieces, the one on the right is a blind drawing:
It felt amazing, to see my work on the wall and to hear such positive reactions from people who were seeing it for the first time. I loved seeing work up from my classmates too, we’ve all worked so hard. This is Nisha, Jesse and Andrew next to their paintings:
And Sif, a forth year BA student next to a local clay kiln-fired sea sponge:
Going to Art School
The reason I’ve got art up in an art exhibition is because I’m now an art student. At the beginning of September I moved to North Uist to Study Art and Design with The University of Highlands and Island.
The course I’m doing is one year full time and based at Lews Castle College in the studios at Taigh Chearsabhagh. I always wanted to go to art school so this is me finally following that dream.
It’s been really hard to be honest, being back at school and doing things that are totally new so I’m not good at them – I have to learn. I’ve felt so aware of it. Like the feeling of starting a new job but every single week. It feels exposing and vulnerable.
BUT I’m learning and improving all the time. And I’m making work I feel proud of too. All the more so, after the pain of all that effort to learn new techniques and apply them to a task we’re doing. I feel grateful to my tutor and to the other students.
I also moved five times in the first four months and I ended up in hospital with my back. And I’m working at the same time too.
So it’s been a challenging few months but I’m so glad I’m here and I’m glad I’m making art every week. Thankfully I’m now in a permanent home too – so no more moving for me.
The Launch Party
There were three exhibition all launching at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Gallery that night, all of us together. If you head there this weekend you will see an exhibition from a collective of local artists – the Uist Arts Association. Such beautiful small square pieces:
I especially loved seeing the finished paintings from Margaret Fenton – she came to see the students last year and showed us sketch books and her work in progress.
Art blog posts
I’ll share more about the process and thinking behind my work in the exhibition, along with more work I’ve been making too. I’ll do that in a series of blog posts – coming soon.
But for now, if you’d like to see some of what I’ve been up to, I’ve shared a little more work on instagram here and on twitter here.
Tiny Wonders is on CBeebies just now. It started during the Christmas holidays and it continues every day on the CBeebies channel until February. If you don’t get a chance to watch it live, you can catch up on BBC Iplayer here.
I’m super excited about Tiny Wonders because it’s the first time I’ve written a whole series for CBeebies – all ten episodes. I was also part of the development team – I wrote the pilot script, developed the characters and developed multiple episode ideas.
And after the show was commissioned by CBeebies, I wrote the storylines and scripts for each episode too.
Tiny Wonders was created by New Zealand based animator Daniel Short. He came up with the amazing concept and was also the lead animator throughout the project. The series was produced by independent production company Freakworks. Myself and Dan worked with Freakworks and CBeebies during the development and production of the show.
So what’s Tiny Wonders about? Here’s how’s it is described on the CBeebies programme page:
Join the Nogglins, Fidd, Nono, Itty, Yapp-Yapp and Hum, on a voyage of discovery to explore the Tiny Wonders of the natural world. Slow down, look closer. What can you see?
And here’s the trailer:
In its first week, Tiny Wonders was the most watched show on CBeebies and the most popular children’s show on BBC Iplayer. I think it’s gorgeous but it was really good to hear how many children in the UK enjoyed watching it too.
Before I tell you about writing for Tiny Wonders, I want to share some of the wonderful art and crafts children and parents have been sharing.
Tiny Wonders Art:
Some gorgeous Fimo Nogglins from Angus and Anna:
Tiny Wonders Art from Angus:
A brilliant wooden noggin, made by Mahboob Raja for his four year old boy:
And a tray of play dough nogglins from Rhona, Sarah and Craig Lamont.
These are all so lovely!! Thanks for sharing them with me.
Writing Tiny Wonders:
Here’s a bit more about the development process, from my perspective as the screenwriter for the show.
Hired:
Daniel Short pitched the initial Tiny Wonders idea to CBeebies, along with a company who wanted to make it with him, Freakworks. CBeebies liked it so much they gave Freakworks some development money and that’s the point when they hired me. I was brought on board to develop the characters and episode ideas, and to write the first episode script.
They found me on a children’s media database I’d forgotten I was even on. And we happened, by wonderful chance, to all be based in Leith in Scotland. So I went to meet Chris Marks the producer and we clicked. I’d written episodes for CBeebies before (Nina and the Neurons) and I’ve worked in-house for BBC Scotland in development – storylining episodes and developing new science series for children’s television. Freakworks had made lots of shows, but nothing for 3 to 6 years so this was a good fit.
Coming up with lots of small and wonderful ideas:
We all contributed episode ideas, until the list grew to around 30 wonders-of-the-tiny-world. We needed natural objects that had something surprising or interesting about them. We wanted a mix of urban and rural locations. Objects had to look different (and not too obvious) when you were close up and exploring them as part of a macro world.
Two of my ideas that later became episodes were geode and litchen. I’d seen an amazing fence post that had a whole host of lichens growing on it – it was really stunning. And I’ve always been fascinated by geodes – that boring looking round rocks can contain a dazzling crystal world inside them.
I wrote short paragraphs pitches for every episode next. These were important because they showed CBeebies what was Tiny (and Wonderful) about each episode and they showed the potential for a story. Here is an example:
GEODE (natural)
Inside the rock egg there’s a secret place, it’s purple and sparkling…
Location: Bottom of cliff
Developing Characters
The characters, designed by Dan, were shaped in ways that corresponded to how they moved. Fidd is an ice hockey puck shape and slides quickly about. Hum is a floaty cloud shape and glides slowly. The characters started as 2D drawings that later became 3D shapes.
I was given illustrations of the characters, names and basic descriptions for how each character moved along with their main characteristic – chatty, bossy, fast and so on.
I used the enneagram as a framework to develop the characters further, giving them more personality and depth. The enneagram is a type of personality profile that was used in ancient communities to make sure there were different types of people within a community and to show how everyone learns from (and needs) each other.
Each enneagram personality type changes under stress or aspires to be someone different at their best – so it was a perfect way to determine how each character would respond to the challenges presented in the episodes. It helped determine how they relate to each other too. It’s also pretty hipster, the enneagram. Not that I’m a hipster. I just like it.
Here’s an example of one of the character profiles, after my development:
HUM
The reflective, thoughtful, sensitive one.
Hum is distracted, drifting, musical. She is sometimes a little sad. She is in her own world, observing and taking things in from a unique perspective. Hum keeps calm in a crisis. Sample line: It’s all round and shiny, like a tiny moon!
Group role: Younger sister. Independent bystander. Notoces things the others don’t see. Movement: Floats along slowly Character type: Investigator / Observer. Investigators have a need for knowledge. They are introverted, curious, analytical, and insightful
Here are all the characters with their enneagram types:
Fidd: Type 7, The Adventurer / Enthusiast (red)
Yapyap: Type 3, The Achiever (orange)
Itty: Type 8, The Challenger / Asserter (purple)
Nono: Type 6, The Questioner / Loyalist (green)
Hum: Type 5, The investigator / Observer (blue)
It took a lot of thought to match profiles to the already assigned characteristics I’d been given. I had to include:
the way they moved
their already defined age relationship
name and a basic assigned characteristic (chatty, distracted etc)
And I needed to make sure all the characters were sufficiently different to each other.
At the time I was studying counselling one day a week at college so I’d explored the enneagram personality profiling in depth and I knew, for example what the child versions of profiles were too.
Every interaction I would write between the nogglins, every observation about their world, the way in which they respond to the jeopardy and solve a problem – they are all based on characterisation so it was really important that I knew who they were
I also wanted the series to represent neurodiversity and encourage child viewers to celebrate the differences within themselves and those around them.
For example, Hum is distracted and gets lost because of it in ‘Bark’. Distractedness in Inattentive ADHD is due to noticing (and thinking about) other things. It’s about noticing too much at once and being hypersensitive to things like sound and light. So HUM gets lost when distracted but is found by using music – humming sounds. In other episodes, I was careful to make Hum the character who spots things others don’t. For example in ‘Geod’, Hum is the one who finds the crack and follows it to reveal the crystals. The others haven’t noticed it. So in writing the episodes as I did, I show both the helpful and unhelpful sides of distractedness.
Yapyap is the chatty character. But in ‘Lichen’, Yapyap needs to quieten down during a game of camouflage hide and seek. Being talkative causes Yapyap to be spotted easily when the others hear them talking excitedly. But I was really conscious that we don’t suggest that Yapyap needs to learn to be a quiet Nogglin. Yapyap will grow up to be a chatty adult Nogglin and that’s okay, they just learn in that episode that sometimes, it’s a good idea to be quiet.
When I’d finished all the character descriptions and explained the enneagram to Julia Bond, (Executive Producer at CBeebies) she said “This is amazing, it stops them being just blobs, now they’re blobs with depth and this could be what makes this show stand out as different.” What a relief to have such a positive response after all that hard work. She really understood my ambition for the series.
The Noggins are voiced by real children and I wanted them to behave like authentic children too.
A lovely part of the Tiny Wonders concept was to include real children’s reactions to each of the wonders. So when I was writing scripts I’d write the sorts of things I knew children would say. For example “It looks like a tiny volcano” when describing the barnacle. Next to some of the lines of the script I added a star. These were lines that could be swapped out and replaced with real child reactions when they were recorded at a later date.
But most of the lines were too important to be changed. They were absolutely necessary to the viewer’s understanding of the story. So the child actors read all the lines in the script I’d written but they were also showed pictures of objects and they responded in real time with their own descriptions. Some of those lines were later chosen by the producer, Chris Marks, to be included in the final episodes.
For the development script ‘Dew drop’, I wrote a long list of questions for the children, to try to prompt reactions when looking at a dew drop image, these included:
What does it remind you of?
What do you think is sounds like?
What does it look like?
What do you think it wants?
All the time I was writing the script and developing the characters there were visual changes being added too, by the animation and production team. For example, glasses and monocles were added to the Nogglins to give them more character and to make them look similar to their craft, the bee sized Noggin.
I love the Noggin – Dan’s idea for the spacecraft. It has interchangeable appendages so it can hover or float or fly, depending on where it landed. A sort of cross between steam punk and nature. Nature Punk – if that’s a thing!
After weeks of hard work from everyone, the script, character descriptions, episode ideas and pilot animation were pitched to CBeebies and we got a yes!
This was super exciting news but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone because it was all confidential. And then we had to wait 6 months before production began too. And it was more than a year after that before it came out on TV – that’s a very long time to keep a secret!
Creating Stories
Once we’d been commissioned and production began, my next challenge was to write each episode idea into a proper story. I collected information from all our meetings until I had a long list of all the things I needed to do as the writer. Here’s the list I came up with, to make sure I was doing what was expected. Every episode needed:
Awe and wonder at the natural world – introduce beautiful and surprising things in nature
An authentic child-based perspective and way of seeing the world (from the nogglins)
A initial moment to slow down and notice things, narrator introduced
A second moment of slowing down for the Nogglin of the day (who hadn’t previously slowed down much) to use mindfulness to solve a problem, without the narrator saying to do this
Increased jeopardy in each episode
At least one funny part in each episode
A problem set up and resolved, featuring that episodes nogglin of the day
A problem caused, in part by a characteristic of one of the nogglins (e.g. being fast, being distracted)
A problem caused in part by the Tiny Wonder environment
A life lesson learned from the solving of the problem – if it’s one that was learnt as a result of a characteristic (e.g. being stubborn) the lesson is universal to children (for example, it’s important to listen to your friends) rather than very specific to a perceived negative characteristic in a child (for example you need to be less stubborn / chatty / distracted).
At least two different scripted macro shots plus the landing shot
A section where the nogglin of the day is solo and uses mindfulness to discover something. But they have to discover this by talking to themselves (no narrator or other character dialogue) or by visually showing this somehow – and then they re-join the others and share what they’ve learned.
Every episode had to be under 3 minutes long and 1 minute of that was arriving and leaving the tiny world and there was always a section of live action too. So it was a massive challenge to get so much into so few words and construct a fully resolved story. All the noggins needed to participate in each episode, they all needed to respond in ways authentic to their character and the situation and there needed to be lines that could be swapped out for real child reactions. I wanted it to always sound like real children having real conversations.
Because it was a new show, things were still being worked out as I wrote the storylines and scripts. So for example I had to write some of the episodes without the actual Tiny Wonder image. I knew what it would be (for example a barnacle) but it hadn’t been taken yet.
Other episodes had to change because of the limits of animation, or in terms of movement of characters or the Tiny Wonder itself. So there were lots of changes.
We came up with initial story ideas during a writers room day, with myself, the producer Chris and later the animator Dan too – we really needed him to check our ideas were possible in terms of the animation.
I then wrote storylines for each episodes (a plan of what happens, it’s a bit like a book synopsis) and these were sent to various people for notes in including the producer, the lead animator and to the CBeebies exec. They all sent me notes.
I made changes to the episodes in response to the notes – but sometimes I came back to explain why something needed to be a certain way for the episode to work. Then they were sent back to CBeebies for the final sign off. Once a storyline had been signed off, it came back to me and I wrote the script – the lines of dialogue and lines of action for the episode.
The scripts went through a similar process of circulation and notes in response, and I rewrote them multiple times. Once we had a template script for one episode and rules for the Tiny Wonders world, it was much easier to write the next episodes but sometimes we’d need to change something in one episode that would affect all of the episodes.
We kept all the characters genderless. That was challenging from a writing perspective – to never use ‘he’ or ‘she’ in any dialogue, but always make all the dialogue sound like four year olds talking naturally to each other.
As changes happened I worked super hard to maintain the authenticity of each character – so if a change was needed visually, I’d make sure the character responded in a new way that was authentic to them. With so few lines, any small change – even to a single line – would change the whole script. I needed to make sure each character got an equal amount of lines and lines in keeping with their character. I also had to think about the lines for the narrator – if they’re speaking to the Noggins or to the viewer because this changes the ways things are said.
I have lots of experience working with four and five year olds, doing workshops and storytelling. I often show them a giant pinecone and without fail, every time I get it out, wherever I am, children react in the same way. The reaction is always a big amazed noise that turns into a collective wow. Here’s a photo of that moment in an outdoor classroom:
I included the collective ‘wow’ as an authentic shared expression in my scripts – a bit like a family having a catchphrase or in-joke.
At times I had lines suggested to me as quick fixes to solve a visual problem but more often then not, they didn’t work because they were explaining something from the viewers’ perspective, looking in or looking down on the tiny world. The Noggins are in the Tiny World looking outwards – they can’t see what what the viewers’ can. That was yet another thing to consider and I wanted to keep it consistant.
Writers need to take notes they are given on board and make requested changes. But I said when I believed something was really important and when I believed a suggested changed could damage the integrity of the show. Ultimately – there were lots of compromises but I am hugely proud of the end result.
Conclusion
Well that’s me shared a little bit about my role as a writer for Tiny Wonders. There were so many people involved that I haven’t mentioned. People at Freakworks who did things like taking beautiful photos of the tiny worlds, filming on location, animators, the voiceover actors (a big shout out to the children -they were so good) and so many more besides them. We’re all really proud of what we achieved together. If you haven’t seen it already, I really hope you enjoy it.
Libraries across Scotland worked together to commission children’s authors for an online book festival called ‘Stream My Story’. The book festival went live at the end of term and schools watched events in class, as an end of term treat.
The author videos stayed online over the holidays. Now there’s just a few days left to watch the festival before the videos are taken down so I wanted to share this video with you.
I was asked to do an event around 20 minuets and I’m proud to say I did it in all one take. It’s filmed it in a hazel grove on the Isle of Skye. It seemed like a good place to film, since the story, Crime Squirrel Investigators, is all about hazelnuts! It’s also where I live (Skye, not a hazel grove).
Thanks to my friend Joyce for tech support and for coming along with me too. I’m glad I wasn’t dancing about in front of a camera, by a loch, in a hazel grove, all by myself!
You can see all the brilliant stream my story book festival events here for a few more days. Hope you enjoy them!
I’m excited to share this lovely new illustrated nonfiction book with you.
Water Cycles is Published by DK and it’s the sequel to ‘Life Cycles’ (which is DK’s most popular book!). The gorgeous illustrations are by Sam Falconer.
I’m the contributing author of the biology spreads. So if you’d like to know how a camel survives dehydration or how water moves through a plant, you can in some of my spreads.
Should you choose to accept it: Read the story, complete challenges and do experiments to continue the adventure and send Fizz the Alien, home.
This is how ‘Help There’s an Alien in My Park!’ begins…
On the next page, the reader is introduced to their team members, Ben and Jaz. They make their own team profile by drawing a self portrait and annotating it with their skills, likes and dislikes:
Then the story starts. Chapters are interspersed by science challenges that move the story forwards. The children stick in stickers to complete each of sections and there’s a certificate and competition at the end of the book.
Team Work
I was commissioned to write ‘Help There’s an Alien in My Park’ by the Science Art Writing Trust (SAW) in Norfolk. They usually visit schools with science workshops but this stopped due to covid.
Dr Jenni Rant, the SAW programme manager had the brilliant idea to make a book instead. A book could be gifted to children so they could catch up on science they missed over the summer holidays. It would be science engagement AND a lovely gift.
Six partner organisations contributed challenge ideas and information and each challenge was based on the partner organisation’s area of research. The challenges topics were:
Food
Immunity
Biodiversity
Plants
Insects and pests
Climate change
Here’s details of the contributing partners, they’re all part of the Norwich Research Park:
Fun and Engaging
We worked to make the challenges fun and easy to do for children, even without parental support. We wanted to engage children who don’t like reading or science to help them to catch up on the science they missed due to covid and school closures.
Short easy sentences, clear instructions and humour all helped make the book fun and accessible. All the challenges can be done at home or outside using household items.
A theme of energy runs through the story. Fizz the alien needs energy to fly home and the challenges help Fizz learn about energy on Earth.
The school curriculum areas covered by the book and it’s challenges include:
Art and design
Health and wellbeing
Mathematics
Food (nutrition)
Expressive arts (drama)
Technology
Reading and writing (including creative writing and descriptive writing)
Science (including light, food chains, food webs, energy and forces, plants and photosynthesis, global warming and climate change, biodiversity including insects, the body organs and the digestive system
Eco schools topic of waste and energy
Feedback
I was lucky enough to be there when a friend was reading the first two chapters to her son. It was wonderful to see him laughing and doing spontaneous impressions of Fizz the alien (Fizz laughs with a honking sound!). This was my reward (who needs stickers?).
I spent the last few months working on the text while Atom Boy (Daryl Blyth) was busy drawing the gorgeous illustrations:
Others working in the Team include Beth Sherman, who worked on the challenges as part of a PHD internship. Jenni Rant and Sami Stebbings at SAW worked with the research partners on the challenges too. And Kaarin Wall worked on the book design. I think it looks brilliant – I’m now a fan of an A4 landscape layout!
Gifting Books
The books were gifted to over 5000 children in Norfolk and Suffolk, aged 8 and 9. Prince George even got a copy!
And now it’s about to be gifted to four primary school in the North end of Skye. That’s where I live so I asked the trust if we could gift some books here too. They kindly said yes! The schools go back in Scotland this week, so they will get signed copies as a back-to-school treat. I really hope they enjoy reading it and doing the challenges.
Feedback
I gave a copy to a lovely 9 year old neighbour (who doesn’t like science) and she popped round to tell me she’d finished her bug hotel – wow – it’s an epic hotel indeed! It’s good to see the book working, a non science fan is enjoying science! Here’s her hotel and Daryl’s drawing from the book:
My bug hotel building neighbour made this gorgeous card too. It’s in the style of the book cover, but with me on the front:
My nephew is 9 so I sent him a book too. His Mum sent me a video of him touring the body map he’d made, with toast travelling through a digestive system. It’s one of the challenges in section one of the book and it involves socks! If you’d like to see it and find out more, I’ve shared it on my author Facebook page here.
Getting a copy
If you’re age 8 or 9 but don’t live in Norfolk, Suffork or in the North End of the Isle of Skye, sadly you won’t have been gifted a book.
But you can still get your parents to buy a copy from one independent book shop, The Book Hive in Norwich or from Waterstones online. It costs £10 and 100% of profits go towards next year’s book project.
auntyemily 