Frankfurt Book Fair

It seems almost unbelievable that we've been home a week. The bookfair was certainly an experience. Several football stadium sized halls filled with stands of publishers from all over the world.

The 'veterans', returning each year have back to back meetings each scheduled for half an hour throughout the day to discuss deals to sell their books in new territories, new languages and new formats throughout the world.

We had several meetings and look forward to following up .. and of course, being in the middle of the meeting season, there is the National Honey Show to look forward to this coming week......... From the Kids Section on the NHS website, you can download a free bee picture for children to colour, and spot the difference.

Inside a Beehive

The new book is well underway. You can look through the brood box of a real beehive from the comfort of your armchair, with no risk of being stung. Amazing.

New book: 'Alex and Friends' text in English and in French

We have now published the text of the 'Alex and Friends' story in both English and French. Yay! It is a little pocket book which will fit into the DVD case alongside the CDs. All made possible by Lulu.

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!