It’s almost time for Alice Day this year! To celebrate Team Return to Wonderland is asking you to vote for your favourite character from Wonderland and the winner will be announced on Alice Day on the 4th of July. Look out for ways to vote on Macmillan’s social media channels in the run up to Alice Day. All the characters from …
Publication date changes
Dear readers, 2020 promised to be the launch of many lovely new books, including my debut picture book with Dapo Adeola and a brand new ballet series with Binny Talib, under my pseudonym Swapna Reddy. As you can imagine, the COVID-19 pandemic has effected the publishing industry and many publication dates have been delayed. Sadly, this includes a few of …
King Cat on YouTube
Thank you so much to Josie Soden for her brilliant reading of King Cat. You can have a listen here.
Torn Apart: The Partition of India, 1947 in The Bookseller
Huge thanks to Fiona Noble for including Torn Apart: The Partition of India, 1947 in her round up of August children’s book releases. I can’t wait for you all to meet Ibrahim and Amar.
The Book of Hopes
I’m so honoured to be part of Katherine Rundell’s new collection of poems, stories and art called ‘The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain Children in Lockdown‘. Completely free for all children and families, the extraordinary collection edited by Katherine Rundell, features stories, poems, essays and pictures and has contributions from more than 110 children’s …
Writing Young Fiction Workshop with Stay-At-Home Lit Fest
Thank you so much to everyone who joined the session. It was an absolute delight to spend an hour in the company of so many writers. Here are the notes for my ‘Writing Young Fiction’ workshop with Stay-At-Home Lit Fest on Friday 10th April. What is ‘Young Fiction’? ‘Young Fiction’, also known as ‘Junior Fiction’ or sometimes ‘Early Readers’ are …
Dave Pigeon in The Guardian
It’s lovely to see Dave Pigeon mentioned in Lucy Mangan’s round up of books to keep kids entertained during lockdown. If you are at home and looking for something to do, do feel free to download the worksheets in my ‘Fun Stuff‘ section. I’ll be posting more activities over the next few weeks. And if you can send me pictures …
Torn Apart: The Partition of India, 1947
I’m so proud to reveal the cover for my new book Torn Apart: The Partition of India, 1947, designed by Jamie Gregory and Two Dots Design Studio. It’s October 1947 and two young boys find themselves thrown together during the dramatic changes of Partition. As the new India and Pakistan are born, can a friendship between these two children rise …
Happy World Book Day from New Zealand!
It’s World Book Day and I wasn’t going to miss out on all the fun back in the UK so I was chuffed to be invited to speak to the Writing Extension group at Kaikorai Primary School, where I met with sixteen brilliant young writers. We talked about planning stories and shared ideas on writing. And then we played a …
The Wild Imaginings Children’s Writers and Illustrators Hui
I’ve just had the best sort of weekend for me – a booky weekend. The Wild Imaginings Children’s Writers and Illustrators Hui took place in my new hometown of Dunedin last weekend, with the WILD in Wild Imaginings standing for Writers and Illustrators Love Dunedin and it turns out we certainly do. Team Wild Imaginings put on a fabulous weekend …