DFB Story Blog whip-cracker Tilda (pictured right) has requested us Storybloggers to write about our favourite stories of the year.

Well that’s a really tough call for this author who’s read (and LOVED) gazillions of stories this year.

So I thought ’twas more like the season to wax nostalgic for all those stories I have adored in Christmases past.

This past year there has been some controversy about school reading schemes vs ‘Real Books’ … but growing up in the Philippines at a time when there was hardly any local publishing for children, I discovered many of my favourite stories in reading schemes. These were imported from the United States and so featured no Filipino characters whatsoever (but that’s another story) … so it was all fantasy to me.

My Christmas favourite was a short story that never failed to bring a tear to my eye called A Tree for Nick by Mary Lou Brown (originally published in 1959).

A Tree for Nick was about a brother and sister decorating a tree for a Christmas tree competition. Except they couldn’t help thinking about their eight year old brother Nick, who was blind.

So they left out the shiny, sharp edged foil stars and the electric lights that burned Nick’s hand when he accidentally touched them last year. Instead, on went the soft fuzzy sheep and candy canes and the old horn that hooted when you blew it and the old tinkling music box. The tree they ended up with wasn’t pretty – but you could feel and taste and hear it.

‘Wheee!’ breathed Nick, his face shining with happiness. ‘This is the prettiest tree I’ve ever seen!’ Read the rest of this entry »

Talking of stories, Candy Gourlay – author of TALL STORY and blogger extraordinaire – is here to spark off our first wave of storyblogs. Thank you Candy!

‘Tilda

I love taking pictures but I hate having my photo taken. I can happily go for years without having a single picture taken of me.

But last year I became an author.

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you heard of Hay Fever?..

Several DFB authors and illustrators authors caught it this year! Sarah McIntyre, Candy Gourlay and The Etherington Brothers all went down with bad cases of the contagious fever this year, from attending Hay Festival 2011.

Symptoms?

Shivers of excitement, blistering friendliness and a rash of book-lovers..

The cure?

A strong dose of workshops, talks and festival antics, taken with a marquee-ful of your favourite authors and illustrators!

So what did these lovely DFBers get up to all weekend?? Well…

Robin & Lorenzo Etherington(AKA The Etherington Bros) -  sold out their workshop(!), and it sounds like they had a blast monkeying around with their 200+ fans(!!). . When I asked Robin what his festival highlight was, I was  hit with a wave of enthusiasm and a list as long as my arm. But I think that ‘Finally getting to perform our show for our respective wives and see them really enjoy it’ and ‘getting papped by ten year olds and knuckle bumped by a legion of new readers’  were probably two of their more memorable experiences! Check out what else they got up to on their awesome blog here. Or for more details of what these boys can teach and show you, have a look around their new Comic Club site..

Sarah McIntyre and Candy Gourlay appeared as part of a triple-decker event alongside a favourite author of theirs, Geraldine McCaughrean – what a treat for the audience!  And beforehand, when Sarah heard the weather forecast, she drew this fantastic picture of how their trio might end up -

 - but, of course, the event was far from a wash out.

And, needless to say our fantastic authors didn’t leave it at that, they also ran their own their own talks and workshops! You can read Candy’s hilarious blog about the group experience, and of course her own workshop here. Candy’s writing workshop was all about legends… and there were some brilliantly silly ideas.

Sarah was also full of fun and seemed to meet up with nearly ALL the festivalgoers at Hay – even the Duchess of Cornwall!! For the lowdown on how Sarah a)wangled and b)handled this, check out Sarah’s blog, here.

Hooray for Hay, and for our truly brilliant authors who helped make this year’s festival such a success!!

(And if all that wasn’t enough, see how much fun was had by the many celebrity and non-celebrity attendees here.)