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It’s the middle of the week and I hit my first tour hiccup today: I woke up this morning and my voice was gone! Several honey and ginger teas later, I managed to get enough of my voice back to talk to Years 3 and 4 and the Year 5 Kid Lit Quiz Team from St Ignatius School.

But with two more visits to go, I didn’t know how my voice would hold up. It was Peter to the rescue and he offered up noxious lozenges that did the job (though anaesthetised my tongue for most of an hour). Cornwall Park District School got the full voice experience when I visited Years 3 and 4 and served up delicious molten chocolate muffins just as my tastebuds recovered.

With Ben heading home, we were back to four on the road and I have to admit, with Ben’s departure and thoughts of Dunedin, I was starting to feel a bit homesick. A quick video call home with my dog, Archie put me right and I headed to New Windsor School to meet Years 0 to 4 for an afternoon of Grizzly Bear fun.

My favourite question of the day: how old were you when you got your glasses?

It was day two of the tour today and we had an epic trip planned travelling all the way from West Auckland to East Auckland with stops at seven schools along the way and a new member of the band joining us: Ben Brown, Te Awhi Rito New Zealand Reading Ambassador.

I started my morning at Woodlands Park School, making a mad dash to the hall in the sudden thunderous downpour and I met over 400 children from Years 0 to 6. Now you may be wondering how does one engage an entire group of children aged all the way from 5 years old up to the grand old age of 11 years old? Well, simple – it’s My Dad is a Grizzly Bear to the rescue!

I read the book and everyone joined in with their bearilliant acting skills and then we drew some Dapo-inspired grizzly bears.

Heather, Andrew, Raymond and I were reunited after our first school visits of the day and Peter drove us to the centre of Auckland to visit Freeman’s Bay School.

Whilst Raymond spoke to Years 3 and 4 and Andrew spoke to Years 5 and 6, Heather and I got to share our picture books with the children in Years 0, 1 and 2. I can confirm now that almost all the children I met were convinced they lived with a grizzly bear who ate far too much honey.

After a delicious lunch of hot sandwiches and tea, we then headed East to Orere School where I rounded off my Grizzly Bear marathon and, by my estimation, we added 24 more grizzly bear illustrations to the 518 pawsome drawings created by all the super-talented Auckland pupils I met today.

My favourite question of the day was addressed to Heather (who announced to the Orere Infants class that she did not like the colour purple): why are your trousers purple, then?

Heather Haylock, Raymond McGrath, Andrew Crowe and I took to the road today, ably commandeered by Libby Limbrick and Peter Mercer to visit seven schools and a library in South Auckland. This is my very first time on a Storylines Tour and my first time meeting the other authors and I was nervous. But I needn’t have been. Libby, Peter, Heather, Raymond and Andrew made me feel part of the Storylines family straight away.

On my leg of the tour I started with a visit to Bombay School where I met with 120 children from Years 2 to 4. We talked about creativity, books and my author origin story which everyone agreed was bananas.

Next up, Heather and I stopped off at Mauku School where we both spoke to over 100 kids from Years 2 to 6. I loved hearing Heather read from her picture book ‘Granny McFlitter: A Country Yarn’ so much so that as soon as we were dropped off to our hotel in Auckland, I popped to Little Unity Bookshop to get myself a copy.

My absolute highlight of this event was hearing one of the pupils say they were inspired to write their very own book.

My final visit of the day was to Waiuku Library where, after a delicious humungous egg mayonnaise, chicken, tomato, coleslaw and lettuce sandwich lunch, I spoke to 30 children from Sandspit School. This was a group of budding young authors, aged 9-11 years old, who came armed with questions about agents and advances, ready for book deals of their own!

My favourite question of the day: what is your fattest book?