Blog

Someone at the BookTrust offices has only gone and left the windows wide open, leaving the office computers unattended, only to be hijacked by Dave and Skipper. Have a read of their guest post over on the BookTrust Blog. I love Sheena Dempsey’s illustrations including this lovely one of the two of us.

Today is the official launch of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge. The theme is ‘Animal Agents’ and Dave Pigeon is one of The Reading Agency’s selected reads this year!

Get involved with your local library, read six books, follow the clues and join in with hundreds of events across the nation over the summer break.

Team Dave Pigeon will be at North Finchley Library on 8th August and at Manor Park Library on 10th August. Come along, meet Sheena and myself and take part in our Dave Pigeon illustration and story building workshop.

Happy Reading!

I’m beyond thrilled to see Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) in today’s ‘Best New Children’s Books’ supplement in The Guardian.

The supplement is packed full of brilliant new children’s books to celebrate Independent Bookshop Week so do grab a copy if you get a chance and definitely head down to your nearest independent bookshop and show them some love.

Team Dave Pigeon visited Springwell Junior School in Heston, where we met with one hundred and twenty Year Three pupils.  We received a lovely, warm welcome and not just because it was the hottest day of the year, but because the children had been reading Dave Pigeon in their classrooms and were raring to go with creating their own Dave Pigeon stories.

We saw lots of brilliant work including monstrous pigeons, evil shelf stackers and a dangerous egg as Sheena led a villain illustration workshop.

The children then used their baddies to create new adventures for Dave and Skipper. We heard about an evil bird-napping nurse, two mischievous foxes and a toilet blocked with a ginormous poo. Sheena and I were so impressed with the creativity of these budding young writers and illustrators.

Thank you so much to the Alligator’s Mouth Bookshop, the pupils and staff of Springwell Junior School, especially Claire, who made our visit so special and the brilliant dinner ladies who made us the most scrumptious school dinner.

We were up in Leicester for the Leicester Libraries Our Best Book Award. Dave Pigeon was on a shortlist of fantastic books and we couldn’t wait to celebrate all things books and libraries with the other shortlisted authors and illustrators.

On the day of the event we were taken to the grounds of the Leicester Tigers for a huge event. We spent the first part of the morning signing more than four hundred bookmarks for all the children who were heading to the grounds for the award ceremony.

Thirty-eight primary schools across Leicester were involved this year and every single pupil could be heard as they erupted with cheers for the winner, Joseph Delaney, author of The Ghost Prison.

As part of the event the pupils had prepared performances and presentations, including this incredible papier-mâché Dave Pigeon, made by the children and staff of Mayflower Primary School.

It was so wonderful to see how the children had engaged with the books and their creativity in their work.

We then headed to Mayflower Primary School to meet more pupils and create new characters and stories with them. Sheena led a drawing workshop, creating new pigeon characters from a single shape.

And I led a story building workshop that involved Dave and Skipper escaping a prison and the evil Peg Leg Pigeon.

Thank you so much to Leicester Libraries, Creative Learning Services and all the primary schools involved in the Our Best Book award, especially the pupils and staff of Mayflower Primary School who made us feel so at home in Leicester. We had a wonderful time meeting you all and are so chuffed that you took Dave Pigeon to your hearts in the way you did.

The shortlisted authors, illustrators and winner

(Clockwise: Me, Sheena Dempsey, Cathy Brett, Tom McLaughlin, Joseph Delaney, Jo Cotterill)

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

Here at Dave Pigeon HQ, we wish you all a feathertastic day celebrating the wonders that are pigeons.

I’m thrilled to the moon and back to let you all know that Dave Pigeon has won this year’s Surrey Libraries’ Children’s Book Award. I can’t tell you how special this award is to me. Not only is the short list selected by librarians, but the winning book is voted for entirely by children. Libraries played such an important role in nurturing my love for reading as a child which makes this award all the more special to me.

Sheena and I arrived at the ceremony, held at Dorking Halls, and we were so glad to see some familiar faces from our visits to schools in the area with Surrey Libraries.

We were in for a treat. The children had prepared presentations related to all the shortlisted books. There were videos, stage play adaptations, talks, a song and a puppet show. It was incredible to see how hard the children had worked.

The shortlisted authors and illustrators were then presented with personalised photo collages to celebrate our time with Surrey Libraries and the schools involved with the award. It was following this that Dave Pigeon was announced as the winner of this year’s Surrey Libraries’ Children’s Book Award. Both Sheena and I were flabbergasted. The short list was so strong this year and full of some of my favourite reads ever.

It was an honour to receive our star-shaped awards. Today will be a day I treasure forever. I can’t say thank you enough to the school staff and Surrey librarians who took Dave Pigeon to their hearts and championed him in making the book available to as many pupils as they could. Most importantly I have to give the HUGEST and FEATHERIEST of thank yous to all the children who read Dave Pigeon, produced creative pieces inspired by the book, worked so hard on fabulous presentations and then voted for him. You are all rockstars and have the BEST taste in books.

This morning I was at Pickled Pepper Books reading from Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!). It was so lovely to meet lots of young readers and introduce them to the new characters from the book.

We then got to work making bird feeders for all the pigeons of Crouch End and the bird feeder designs I saw today were excellent.

Here are a few pictures of some of the bird feeders created today:

Thank you so much to all the children and parents who came along and made such birdrilliant bird feeders and HUGE thanks to Urmi and the staff at Pickled Pepper Books who were the loveliest hosts.

Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) has landed at Pickled Pepper Books and taken over one of their beautiful windows. To coincide with my crafts event on Saturday 20th May at the bookshop, the lovely Urmi allowed me free rein of the window and of course I went all Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) with it.

First up was the lettering…

…Then in went Skipper’s trusty typewriter, alongside a couple of Sheena Dempsey’s gorgeously illustrated pigeons…

…We finished off the window with a giant cover of the book and more of Sheena’s lovely pigeons perched on a washing line.

That’s me, looking mighty proud of the finished window.

If you would like to have a look at the window, pop by Pickled Pepper Books in the next week and a half and do join us for a Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) inspired story time and crafts session on Saturday 20th May from 11 am. Further details about the event are available directly from Pickled Pepper Books.