I really enjoyed my afternoon on Saturday! Broadwater School, Worthing had arranged a Meet the Author event with 7 local authors taking part. I was greeted very warmly by Rachael, who had organised it and kept us authors informed of events beforehand. A very kind man carried in my suitcases of books as if they weighed nothing and I set them out on my allocated table. I was shown round the school, especially the two rooms where I would be giving my talks/readings. My helper for the afternoon was Marina, who kept an eye on my table while I was busy with groups of children, brought me coffee and helped me with sales.

My first session was with younger children – Early Years and Key Stage 1. I introduced myself and some of my books then brought out Toad swims for his Life, which I read to them. I had great response from the children and parents/carers/grandparents present, who helped tell the story, held the big cards portraying the characters and asked/answered questions. I also did a quite show and tell with Luckily! the story of Sir Ben the Bold who rescues the king’s favourite teddy bear from the dragon.

Here we are in the school library:

My second session was with a small group of Key Stage 2 children and adults at the end of the afternoon. I talked about writing, famous diaries in particular (Pepys, Anne Frank, Wimpey Kid, etc) before introducing Sophie’s Secret War, the diary of a fictional girl in 1939-40 northern France. It was a good session with some great questions and comments from the audience.

I’m happy to say that I sold 36 books! Some were bought by children and their adults, but quite a few were also bought by the school for class readers or the library. I’d like to say a big thank you to the school for having us there, to Rachael for organising it and to Marina for helping me out.