All About Diwali with Scholastic Schools Live

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Thank you so much to everyone who joined in the All About Diwali event with Scholastic Schools Live. Please do get in touch and share your Diwali makes and bakes with me. I’d love to see how you celebrated. Happy Diwali!

International Literacy Day 2022

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The UNESCO International Literacy Day highlights the importance of literacy as a human right so it was wonderful to spend today with The Rotary Club of Dunedin talking about the books I read as a child and the journey I have taken since as a writer.

Day of Goodness with SLANZA and National Library

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Today, I got to spend my morning with the lovely school librarians in Dunedin as part of their SLANZA and National Library Day of Goodness. My entire love of books and writing started with libraries and kind librarians who put aside Sweet Valley High books knowing I would want to read them first, so it was quite a feat not …

Second place for Torn Apart!

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I’m so thrilled that Torn Apart got the Highly Commended nod of honour at the Historical Association Young Quills Awards 2022. The shortlist was incredible, packed full of authors who are my writing heroes, so it’s wonderful to see this book that is so important to me get acknowledged in this way. Thank you to the judges for taking the …

A double shortlisting!

Swapna HaddowScrapbook, The Bad Panda Club

I am thrilled to bits to see that Torn Apart has been shortlisted for the incredible Historical Association’s Young Quills Award! This means the world to me as the partition of India rarely features in young historical fiction so I’m so thankful to see Torn Apart feature on this incredible platform. You can have a look at the full shortlist …

Happy World Book Day!

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Happy World Book Day to you all! However you are spending the day, whether it is in costume, reading books, writing stories or listening to a tale – I hope you have the most brilliant day. Thank you to everyone who has shared their brilliant costumes with me. It’s incredibly special to seeing your books being enjoyed so please do …

See you in 2022!

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It’s been a bumper crop this year! I’m so thankful to be supported by the best publishing teams but also by the BEST readers. That’s you! A huge THANK YOU to all the brilliant booksellers, bloggers, librarians, school staff, fellow authors and illustrators and AWESOME readers, like you, who continue to support my books – big Christmas hugs to you …

Happy Diwali!

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It’s Diwali! Thank you so much to everyone who joined Scholastic School Live and took part in the ‘All About Diwali’ event. I had such a great time sharing Diwali stories and activities with you and I know my dog, Archie, did too! Please do get in touch and share your Diwali makes and bakes with me. I’d love to …

Talking about Series Fiction

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Today, Maisie Chan, Tọlá Okogwu and I were invited to talk about our experience writing Series Fiction. Jasmine Richards hosted the panel and it was so great to share our mutual love for writing for younger readers and find out what got us writing for the age group. Tọlá shared her feelings of the pressure to be ‘perfect’ as a …