A Visit to Corporation Primary

Last Friday, Denise, Kelvin and I made a quick stop to Corporation Primary School for a story reading to primary three students.

The kids all agreed that I was a genius, but that was after I asked them to say that I was. Of course I had to reward them with stickers. 

I brought my elephant puppet, Ella with me for my reading of Emma's Elephant. The kids always think it's funny to see a grown man toting around an elephant puppet. As mentioned, my reading was interrupted by several announcements over the PA system.

Once that was done, I immediately launched into reading A Day with the Duchess. Then it was time for the treasure hunt that Denise and I had planned. Thank goodness we had enough prizes for the winners.

Thanks to my fantastic distributors Denise and Kelvin of Closetful of Books for arranging yet another great visit.

Artwork for The Lion Dance

My wonderful illustrator, Soefara keeps out-doing herself. These are her latest pieces from our upcoming book, The Lion Dance.

A Fun Day with the Kids and Teachers of EtonHouse Preschool

Today Soefara, Denise and I headed on down to EtonHouse for a visit and boy did we have a  lot of fun. The principal, Gabrielle, met Soefara and me at the entrance and led us up to the classes we would be visiting: The K2 Bandicoots and the K2 Kangaroos.

I have to say that the kids were brilliant, so smart and a lot better behaved than I was at their age,  or even  now!  After reading If I Were a Blue Kangaroo and At the Night Safari, I discussed what you need to write a story: characters, setting, and plot, while Soefara talked about how she transforms the words of a story into pictures.

Then it was time for the kids to come up with a story of their own. We decided they would write about a character named Ferjerbert.  

The Bandicoots decided that Ferjerbert was a six-year

-old space alien monster with a pet named Flubber who got stuck 
on a very sticky moon.

Soefara's sketch of me reading to the K2 Kangaroos

The K2 Kangaroos had a different idea of who Ferjerbert was. They said that he was a 100-year-old boy with a space alien head and a dinosaur tail who loved eating curry rice ice cream. Yum! He crashed landed on the moon after the rockets on his space ship fell off!

Then two kids from Bandicoot shared their stories about Ferjerbert. Some kids said the moon was sticky because it was made of caramel. I thought this was brilliant! One of the kids, Nico, said that when Ferjerbert and Flubber got stuck on the sticky moon, Ferjerbert tickled Flubber until Flubber burst into tears of laughter and the tears washed away the stickiness! Genius!

Two kids from Kangaroo shared their original stories about a Princess party and a trip to the beach. The stories were amazing! I also have to say I was very impressed by K2 student Eito's drawings. He's so good and he's only five! And his friend Bun does a great job too! 

At the end of the session we handed out stickers to everyone and the two kids who shared their stories received limited edition paper dolls from our latest book, A Day with the Duchess. Thank you to the kids and teachers of EtonHouse for a wonderful morning! Let's do it again!

For the passengers and crew of MH17 and their families

There are no words for this tragic event today. Prayers for the passengers and crew and their families. 

A Weekend at the Bookstores

I spent most of my weekend visiting bookstores around Singapore. Thanks to Bookaburra, Times Centrepoint and Playdate for hosting my visits. Also a big thanks to my distributors Denise and Kelvin from Closetful of Books for arranging my in-store appearances.