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Wonderful news Dave Pigeon fans! ‘Dave Pigeon: How to Deal with Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers’ has been translated into braille and audio for the RNIB Library as part of the Summer Reading Challenge.

Both Sheena and I were chuffed to bits to be working with Discover Story Centre at Manor Park library this afternoon.

We met with lots of children in the packed library, who were all taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge and got to work creating a flock of brand new pigeons and a brand new adventure for Dave Pigeon and Skipper. The story saw the two friends lost in Madagascar, when they are captured by Dr Evil, the evilest of pigeons. They had to escape via a trap door and secret tunnel thanks to help from local friendly pigeon, Jake.

It was such a wonderful afternoon and it was so heartwarming to see a library with staff librarians who knew so many of the children who came, thanks to a shared love of books and stories.

Thank you to Michael, Claire and Jane from the Discover Story Centre and the brilliant librarians Deborah, Guiseppe and Andrew who looked after us all afternoon. We had a pigeontastic time!

As part of the Summer Reading Challenge celebrations, Barnet Libraries invited Sheena and I to run our Dave Pigeon workshop at North Finchley library. This meant an awful lot to me as libraries were my favourite places as child (and still are now, quite honestly) and this was my first event at a library in my home borough.

We created a host of brand new super villains with the young writers and illustrators who turned up, including robots and firebirds and dodgy dustbin men and slimy grimy monsters. We then created a new adventure for Dave Pigeon with ideas from everyone. We met Doktor Triangle and his evil twin at the Baddest of Baddies contest where Dave Pigeon had unwittingly signed up, having accidentally been dropped from a helicopter whilst carrying a drill. It was a brilliant collaboration and mash up of ideas.

Thank you to everyone who came along and a HUGE thank you to the staff at North Finchley Library and Ruth and Neil from Barnet Libraries who made us feel so at home in their lovely library.

Today, Team Dave Pigeon were at the literary home of the great Roald Dahl. If you have ever met me, you will know how much I loved his books as a child and what an inspiration he continues to be to me now that I’m a grown-up writing children’s books.

It was a dream come true to be in Great Missenden where Roald Dahl lived for thirty-six years. And where he wrote some of the greatest children’s books of all time in the famous Writing Hut.

Sheena and I ran three workshops were we met with over sixty budding young writers and illustrators for an illustration and story-writing powwow in the Upper Babbling Room.

They created three new villains including the infamous ‘Pyjama Piranha’, the evil ‘Stinky Big Head Pants’ and the grimy pigeon-napper ‘Gangster Man’. The children then went onto create three brand new phizz-whizzing-ly, pigeontastic tales involving Dave and Skipper escaping beneath the sand on a beach in Australia-Egypt, calling Super Pigeon on their iPigeons and a visit to Legoland. We heard about a villainous ice cream van, a supersonic baseball bat that could whack a pigeon into outer space and a penguin-eating shark.

Thank you to all who came along and got involved. And a HUGE thank you to the brilliant staff at The Roald Dahl Museum who made us feel so at home during our time at the museum.

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.