Posts

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How can you be a writer during the kids' school holidays?

‘Mummy, you’ve been working forever. Stop it, now.’ This is my little boy, recently turned five, tugging at my sleeve and trying to force my laptop shut.  I explain to him that I really need to do a little more, then I promise I’ll…
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Why 'Good Ideas' is a MUST HAVE on every parents bookshelf

I don't very often read how-to parenting books. They can leave me feeling frustrated when I try to put into practice their advice but it ends up backfiring, leaving me with bad-tempered children and wondering where I went wrong. But Michael…
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Having fun with Angelica Sprocket's Pockets

  Angelica Sprocket's Pockets is an infectiously fun story book written and illustrated by previous children's laureate Quentin Blake. The wild-haired, eccentric Angelica Sprocket continually pulls one surprising item after another,…
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Phantom Tollbooth Word Market

Imagine you go to a marketplace and instead of buying fruit and vegetables you buy words. Well, this is what Milo, hero of The Phantom Tollbooth does on one of his adventures in the land of Dictionopolis. "Get your fresh-picked ifs, ands…
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Would you rather have a monkey to tickle or a bear to read to

John Burningham is such a brilliant illustrator and children's writer. His drawings and prose are iconic and quirky and one of the things I love about his books is that they are left open-ended, loose ends fluttering in the breeze, just perfect…
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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.…
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A wonderful poem to share with nine year old's

The prolific children's writer Allan Ahlberg grew up, by his own admission, with "a fair few clips round the ear, no books and not much conversation." But that hasn't stopped him from writing over 140 books for children, many of which his wife…