Not many days yet, and my new book FAWN will be in the bookshops. It is Book of the Week at Scholastic Book Club and is already getting good reviews. My head is now so big I have to wash my hair in the Leeds and District Hospitals Hydrotherapy Pool, which is a bit embarrassing if anyone's hydrotherapping in it at the time.
In the UK today it is Mothering Sunday, so all the ladies at church were given posies of daffodils. LYS and The Lassie were here and The Sunshines came over, so we all pitched in together to make lunch, and The Sunshines brought scones, jam, cream and cake, so we had a very English afternoon tea. Family, food teddy bears, flowers. The only thing we didn't have was spring weather, in fact it's just about at freezing point here and there's snow on the hills.
But a Sunday in spring is a Sunday in spring, and the sons ended up watching the football match on telly. (Hamilton watched it too, he likes watching footie with the boys and he finds Sir Alex Ferguson hilarious.) I glanced up at one point and saw that, while they were square eyed, Lady Sunshine, The Lassie and I were all curled up in armchairs reading books. Lady Sunshine was in the East End of London in the 1950s, The Lassie was in late nineteenth century Home Counties, and I was in medieval Wales. Reading really does open the world.
4 comments:
I was going to post to let you know that I emailed an image to you, but you already responded. I'm looking forward to receiving Fawn, and so is my 6-year-old daughter.
I also have to comment about your last line, that reading really does open the world. We are going to do an activity this week in my classroom that I made up. I call it a "Book Field Trip." Each student will read for 20-30 minutes and will then report back on where they went during their field trip.
As a class, we are currently reading The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards. I use this story to show how imagination can take you anywhere you want to go.
From a reader to a writer, I thank you for sending me to so many places.
Book Field Trip - what a great idea! May I recommend it to my teacher friends? I don't know 'the Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, but will look out for it.
Please share the idea. The kids love it, and it encourages them to read other books that they might not have been interested in.
Whangdoodles is a great book, and the kids are blown away at the end when I tell them that Julie Edwards' full name is Julie Andrews Edwards. They can't believe that we read a book by Mary Poppins. It's a fun read, with some great messages.
On a side note, I let the kids vote on what we read for the remainder of the year. Unanimously, they voted to continue the Chronicles of Mistmantle. So, after we finish Whangdoodle, we are going to read as much as we can from books three, four, and five until they head home for the summer.
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