Nottingham Telling Tales Festival • CLOCKWORK DRAGON event

If you live in or near Nottingham and are interested in children's storytelling you might like to come along to this year's Telling Tales Kid's Festival of Imagination on Saturday 10th October.

Aimed at children from 3 to 13 years, the festival is a great day out for all the family, with a varied mix of ticketed and free drop-in events. As well as author and illustrator events, there are filmmaking and claymation workshops, face-painting and plenty of other art and craft activities.

If you come along to my event at the Poppy and Pint pub you can hear me read The Clockwork Dragon, my picture book with illustrator Elys Dolan. I'll also tell you how the story came about and you'll get a chance to make your very own pop-up dragon mask.

Here's a quick description of the story …

The Kingdom of Rodney is being terrorised by Flamethrottle the dragon. Fortunately Max, a young toymaker, and Lizzie, an armourer, are more than a match for this man-eating monster and the two of them come up with a clever plan to drive it away.

Here's a trailer for the book …

And here's me wearing one of the masks we'll be making. Just think, you too could look just as handsome as this!

EVENT DETAILS

10.00 - 11.30 am Saturday 10th October

Poppy and Pint Pub 


Pierrepont Road, Nottingham, NG2 5DX

Suitable for children aged four to eight
Children's tickets - £5
Accompanying adults - FREE

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS

You can find out about the other events and activities at the festival website:

nottinghamtellingtales.org.uk

And keep up to date with the latest news and updates by following the festival on 

Facebook and Twitter

Children's Book Week • Notts TV 630 Show appearance

Last week was Children's Book Week and my local TV station Notts TV marked it by having me as a guest on their 630 Show along with Tim Ryan, one of the organisers of Nottingham's wonderful Telling Tales Festival. Notts TV didn't know it when they invited us, but Tim and I are old friends; we both came to Nottingham to study architecture at the University and went on to work side by side in the same Nottingham practice for a couple years.

I'd originally been invited on to the show to talk about my own books, but I offered to recommend a couple of recent favourites by other authors and illustrators. And then I realised that I ought to take the opportunity to promote the Summer Reading Challenge which was launching the following day. So in the end I didn't have time to talk about any of my own books, but there's an image of one of them, The Silver Serpent Cup, on the screen behind me.

The show went out live and the half hour seemed to fly by. Before I knew it we were finishing with a great performance from Rich Howell of Nottingham music collective RJMarks.  Thanks to Notts TV and 630 Show presenter Nicola Beswick (who's a big fan of kids' books) for having us on.

The books I recommended on the show were:

The Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff written by Andy Seed illustrated by Scott Garrett

The Sleeper and the Spindle written by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Chris Riddell

The Telling Tales Festival is on 10 October 2015. You can find out more about it at nottinghamtellingtales.org.uk.

And you can find out more about this year's Record Breakers Summer Reading Challenge at summerreadingchallenge.org.uk

HERE BE MONSTERS - Now out in paperback + Nottingham Event

I'm delighted to announce that Here Be Monsters, my third picture book with illustrator Poly Bernatene, has just been published in paperback by Macmillan Children's books!

When greedy Captain Cut-Throat hears of an island strewn with giant gem stones, he and his villainous crew set sail immediately to take the treasure for themselves. According to the map the misty waters that surround the island are teeming with hungry monsters – but that doesn't bother the Captain who assures his crew that "monsters simply don't exist." However as the ship nears the island, the unfortunate crew learns otherwise. Will they be able to convince their greedy Captain before it's too late?

"Here be monsters!" said the first mate.
"Monsters hiding the mist!"
"Nonsense," said the Captain.
"Monsters simply don't exist."

The hardback edition has had some great reviews. Here's a couple of them:

"Raucous rhymes, playful visuals, and great gobs of wicked humour make Here Be Monsters a wildly imaginative adventure. The road to ruin has never been so fun"

Donna McKinnon, 32 PAGES

"What a brilliant book to read aloud. Dare you to read it and not burst out a pirate accent! The rhyming is divine and the plot adored by young listeners."

Carrie Gelson, THERE'S A BOOK FOR THAT

To mark the publication of the paperback, I've created 3 new activity sheets – a Here Be Monsters Crossword, a Misty Monsters drawing sheet and a Spot the Monsters sheet – which you can download by clicking on the images below.

Here Be Monsters Crossword

Misty Monsters Drawing Sheet

Spot the Monster's Sheet

You can also download and print out the Munching Monsters Card Game featuring the Poly Bernatene's wonderful character illustrations from the book.

Here's a couple of spreads and the trailer for the book.

And, if you live near Nottingham, you might like to come along to my Here Be Monsters event at the Telling Tales Children's Festival on 11 October. I'll be explaining how an ancient ostrich egg and a five-hundred-year-old sea map helped to inspire the story and we'll be drawing monster-infested treasure maps. If X marks the right spot – you could win a signed copy of the book!

UPDATE: This event has now sold out, but if you don't have a ticket, you can still come along to my un-ticketted "drop-in" storytelling event at 3.15pm to hear me read The Princess and the Pig and Pigs Might Fly.

Read my post explaining how this book was inspired by a five-hundred-year-old sea map

Click here to find out more about the book on my web site

Follow Jonathan Emmett's board Here Be Monsters on Pinterest.