
Benjamin Zephaniah's Imagine Nation
Benjamin Zephaniah. Wow, what an inspiration. Highly dyslexic, he left school at 13 being unable to read or write, had constant brushes with the law before turning his hand to poetry and making it accessible to all kinds of people in all kinds…

Creating catchy newspaper articles with kids
I did a really fun writing activity recently with a group of children. I cut out lots of pictures of people from magazines and then asked the kids to chose one picture each. After discussing what a journalist does, I split the group into pairs…

It's all about reading
I love these two little pictures that my daughter drew recently, just because she felt like it. I couldn't agree more, it really is all about reading. I say time and again to the children I work with that my number one tip for being a good…

Ben Okri's ten and a half inclinations
The Royal Society of Literature once asked 10 writers to suggest the 10 books that children should read before leaving school. Instead of writing a list of books, this is what the writer Ben Okri wrote. Pure brilliance.
1. There is a secret…

Creating new worlds
I am very lucky indeed to be able to hold my after school club in one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. I don't know what it is about that hour between 4 and 5pm here in Nairobi, but even if it's ben cold and rainy during the day,…

Favourite things
The school where I do my voluntary creative writing workshops throws up a whole new set of interesting challenges. Yesterday the two major challenges I had to contend with were that firstly the lighting was really, really poor in the classroom,…

Teacher, teacher rhyme time
When I'm doing poetry with children, I try to encourage them to be open to not making a poem rhyme. Because they don't, of course, have to. And some of my very favourite poems are non-rhyming which is of course very different from being non-rhythmic.…

Physical Descriptions
If I've learnt anything through writing with children, it's to keep the premise of the sessions simple and then watch as the magic unfolds under its own steam. I'm currently rediscovering the wonder of The Hobbit with my eldest daughter and…

An anthem to childhood
This year marks the centenary of the birth of wonderful poet and playwright, Dylan Thomas. Several months ago, I discovered a new poem by him called Being But Men. Astonishingly, Thomas never rated this poem highly himself and declined to have…

Wilde Words
Illustrated by Lisa Congdon