Books
H O M E | A R T I C L E S | E V E N T S
This book received the top rating in the August 2004 edition of Scholastic Press's Nursery Education magazine. Against stiff competition it was the only title to receive the maximum score for each of the magazine's review criteria.
You can find out how Wishing Bird was created by clicking here.
Whose Hat is That? (illustrated by Simon Woolford).
Find out how I planned the story of Silly Cat by clicking here.
Who Goes Buzz? (illustrated by Lydia Monks).
Find out about a festival story tea featuring these characters by clicking here.
Review from Junior magazine:
Buzzy Bee flits across the pages of this book so busily that his plodding pal Beetle can't keep up with him. Every time something of interest in the farm scene is pointed out, it has changed by the time Beetle arrives. And so begins the spot-the-difference puzzle that tests your child's powers of observation very fully.
Take a journey with inquisitive Little Bee and hopscotching QB (Queen Bee for long) to the very hub of the hive.
To Little Bee, riding her bee-bike, pushing her bee-buggy and baking honey-cakes is more than a hard day's work, until she meets Queen Bee, who opens her eyes to the real world on a tour of all things bee-like. Here she meets the 'bee-rocrats' who run the hive, and realises how hard the factory bees work to produce honey. There are many intended parallels between the structure of the bee world and the human world. Explaining the complexities of a hierarchical work system isn't the easiest thing to do in a children's book. There are puns and pithy asides aplenty to make you chuckle.
Majestic eagle Kartal and beautiful fish Balik love one another. But because of their differences, how can they be together? This is an adaptation for children of an adult story by the respected Turkish writer Aziz Nesin. Illustrations are by the Turkish illustrator Kagan Guner.
I ran two drama workshops linked to this story at the Roald Dahl Museum in February 2007.
