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Happy Pigeon Appreciation Day everyone! Dave Pigeon and Skipper are back to explain what it’s all about.

Have a feathertastic day celebrating all the international pigeons!

Sheena and I visited William Patten Primary School with Stoke Newington Literary Festival, as part their fantastic Schools Day outreach. The programme aims to make sure every pupil at a primary school in Stoke Newington is invited to a free author event.

We met with over two hundred year 3 and year 4 pupils from William Patten Primary School, Grasmere Primary School and Betty Layward Primary School.

In addition to creating more than two hundred super villains, the pupils helped Sheena and I to create a brand new criminal mastermind, the wretched Stinky Pants, and a brand new story for Dave and Skipper. Our pigeon heroes had to escape the evil Stinky Pants from a swimming pool burger bar, whilst creating a humungous water wave to distract the pigeon-hungry villain.

Thank you so much to all the staff and pupils who joined us today and to Kate, Molly and Team Stoke Newington Bookshop for looking after us during our wonderful visit.

Flumpin’ featherations! Dave Pigeon has had an incredible week. Not only has he joined the Tom Fletcher Book Club, he’s also been selected as one of the winners of the Lancashire Fantastic Book Awards 2018.  I’m thrilled to bits and so thankful to the FBA team, educators and librarians who got Dave Pigeon into the hands of the pupils who voted for this award. A HUGE feathery thank you to all you brilliant readers from Team Dave Pigeon!

Tom Fletcher is back with his second book club, in association with WHSmith, and he has selected ten brilliant books, aimed at 7 to 11 year olds, including our very own Dave Pigeon.

Today, saw the launch of the book club at Wilmington Academy. Many of the authors and illustrators, including me, came along to meet four hundred pupils and celebrate the launch of a fantastic collection of books. Here are some snaps from the day:

Thank you so much to Tom Fletcher and the WHSmith team for selecting Dave Pigeon and to all the staff at Wilmington Academy who made me feel so at home. And a HUGE thank you to all the pupils who came along to celebrate the joy of reading with us all.

There’s lots of exclusive book club content available on the WHSmith blog so pop along and enjoy the titles in this pigeontastic selection.

Hurrah and featherations! Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) has been shortlisted for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Crystal Kite Award 2018. It’s an honour to share the list with all the brilliant, shortlisted books, voted for by our peers.

It’s the Chipping Norton Literary Festival this weekend and Sheena and I were invited along to run our Dave Pigeon Character Design and Story-Building workshop. Despite the rain and grey skies, the Cotswolds were as beautiful as ever and Chipping Norton was in high spirits, donned in full festival bunting and flags.

The budding young authors and illustrators who joined us today helped us create a brand new pigeon-eating villain, the infamous Mr McGuffin the Everything Swallower, who with the help of his sidekick shark were intent on destroying Dave and Skipper’s holiday in Australia. Thankfully, a handy rocket saved the pigeons who made it safely to the end of the story.

Photo courtesy of @Roboepicguy

Thank you to Milly, Jenny, Chris and all the staff who made us feel so at home in Chipping Norton. And a huge thank you to everyone who came along to our workshop. You are all pigeontastic!

The pigeontastic Hooked on Books theatrical company have been taking Dave Pigeon into schools in Gauteng, Johannesburg & Cape Town in South Africa! I’m so thrilled to hear that the children and actors have greatly enjoyed seeing Dave Pigeon on the stage.

Thank you Hooked on Books. Dave is clearly very much at home in South Africa!

Photos courtesy of Hooked on Books

Sheena and I were back at the Road Dahl Museum today, creating stories and characters with three brilliant groups of chiddlers and their human beans.

The ideas and imaginations of all the budding, young authors and illustrators who joined us were bubbling away in the Upper Babbling room where we created three brand new stories that saw Dave and Skipper battle a vicious beast with a lassoing tongue, escape Tina and her hooves of dread in a hopping race through the jungles of a outer space forest planet and retrieve a magic hammer from a chest in order to smash a basketball court to pieces.

Thank you so much to everyone who came along and took part in our workshops and to all the staff, especially Jo and Natalie, who looked after us during our visit. We had a truly splendiferous day.

This week was Book Week at St Elizabeth’s Primary School and we were invited along to join in the celebrations.

Sheena and I met with all three hundred of the school’s pupils at assembly where the children helped Sheena create a pigeon worthy of the St Elizabeth’s school badge.

We then went on to create villains and stories with Years 2, 3 and 4. Dave and Skipper found themselves at a creepy haunted house that belonged to an evil pigeon-eating villain and they had to escape with the help of a robot stuck in a box in the haunted attic. The hopeless pigeons also found themselves stuck in a rocket in space, where they used their electricity know-how, along with the help of a friendly alien, to get themselves back to Earth.

We had such a pigeontastic time with the staff and pupils of St Elizabeth’s. Thank you to Michelle and the Alligator’s Mouth bookshop for all your support and organisation.

Sheena and I spent our wintry afternoon today making kites at the brilliant Alligator’s Mouth bookshop.

After a reading from the brand new Dave Pigeon book, we were assisted by a group of young illustrators to create a brand new racing pigeon character, inspired by Dave Pigeon (Racer!).

The children went on to create their own characters on kites which I’m sure will be flying high in the skies of Richmond once the snow stops.

Thank you so much to everyone who came along and to Margaret, Tony and Helen at The Alligator’s Mouth who always make us feel so at home in their gorgeous bookshop.