Spiral Staircases

Holly and I have had such fun with the challenge of illustrating spiral staircases that it seemed a good idea to share this with you. Last weekend I had an opportunity to take some photos, though space was rather constrained, of medieval stone, spiral staircases. These are an excellent economical use of space, and a very interesting exercise for architects and illustrators in getting the perspective right.

Illustrations here are the stone spiral staircase, a sneak preview from our new book 'Secrets of Wolvern Castle' and in a post below, Alex's Tree Staircase.


In my spare time (!) I'll have a go at building blocks to make a spiral staircase in Google Sketchup (without help from which the Castle Dining Room would be totally squiffy). More spiral staircase pics can be seen in a special Photo Gallery.

Polish Polish Polish!

It seemed everyone, teachers and librarians, at the 'Library and Information Show' last week wanted material in Polish. Do e-mail us and let us know how many copies of the 'Alex and Friends' audiobook @ £15.99 you would order. When we get to a total of 300 orders we'll be able to do it for you! Look forward to hearing from you............

Activities added ...at last!

Holly and I, and the team of translators, have been working on these activities for the last couple of years and at last the first few have found their way to the website. They are black and white pictures to colour and discuss, with some text in several languages, available as downloadable .pdfs. Amazing how long it takes to put these together. The pic on the right is a coloured in version of one of these black and white pictures to colour, this one is also available as a poster.

I hope lots and lots of children will have fun with these!

Alex and Friends Calendar

Just published on Lulu. It seemed an obvious way to gaze at Holly's wonderful illustrations all year.
Enjoy!

London Book Fair

After almost catching up with myself, and working out how to grab the photos from my new phone, I can now relate what a brilliant time I had at the LBF. The seminars are always worth the effort of finding where they are hidden. Notable this year were several seminars on childrens books including 'What Teens Really Want ' - so ask them: a bright idea by Penguin which you can check out at Spinebreakers. A very popular seminar was Digital Publishing: "Where is the Money". Concerns being raised for the future of publishing where everyone expects information for free.... and the Society of Young Publishers Canon Tales, fascinating snapshots from a wide variety of publishing people. It's also interesting to talk to so many different people at prearranged meetings, at their exhibition stands, and while queueing for coffee.

The Grammar and Punctuation Headache

So the English version of the story is now finalised and ready to be pasted into the booklet. Just gave it a final whiz through 'Word's' spelling and grammar checker. 'Inanimate' objects should be animals, vegetables and minerals 'that' do things. Giving the wolf and the elves names and/or personalities mean transgressing this and so they have become creatures 'who' do things. Naughty. Door post, window sill, honeybees, backpacks, bed time, daytime and night time - 'Word' wants to contract everything. I've chosen the Oxford English Dictionary version over the Word version. Sorry - editorial decision.

I know my adverbs aren't all in the right places, but have chosen common use over correct English. I've done proof reading in my time: I still think perfection is always just out of reach, and it's all a total headache.

English Recording Session

Today we finally got the English version of the book recorded onto the computer. Tania Rodrigues has a wonderful voice, a pleasure to listen to. She gave an amazingly accurate reading with very few interruptions. Well done both to Peter Rinne and Tania. Can't wait to get the CD pressed now, though I still have the booklet to coax into shape. Have to use Coreldraw, which is clumsy at page make up. Can't get high enough resolution .pdf outputs using Pagemaker and my computer is too clogged to run InDesign.

It's only April, English and French were our New Year's resolutions. We're getting there, but I think this recording was worth waiting for. Many thanks Peter and Tania!