Me with the fabulous teachers (to my right) and students of Carmel Leung Sing Tak School
The students met my ferocious tiger Temujin and spoilt princess Precious!
The kids gave great answers to my questions about famous Chinese inventions!
Yesterday I visited the fabulous Carmel Leung Sing Tak School in Hong Kong with StoryTellAR to read the kids my Tale of Temujin and tell them some of the juicy history and other details they can find if they download the StoryTellAR app! The students were so engaged, answering lots of my questions and asking some of their own! It was a lot of fun!
My second Zoom visit last Friday was to my old friends at Glenealy School! World Book Day was in full swing, with everybody dressed up as their favourite book characters! It was great to see so many fantastic costumes, not least from the staff! After a great assembly presentation of WBD activities and challenge results, Temujin the Tiger came to visit in a fun story reading, with lots of roaring and screaming to rock the school! Take a look at the fun slideshow below! Huge thanks to lovely librarian Gisele Stones for inviting me, and thanks to the school for the lovely photos!
A host of fun story characters, a.k.a. the teachers!
Last Friday I celebrated World Book Day with two fun school visits in Hong Kong by Zoom!
My first visit was to San Wui Commercial Society YMCA of Hong Kong Christian School in Cheung Sha Wan. I introduced my Chinese Calendar Tale for the Year of the Tiger, The Tale of Temujin, to the students and told them the extraordinary real life history of Genghis Khan, who was the inspiration for my tiger! The kids had a terrific time roaring like tigers and screaming like spoiled princesses and the teachers had an equally fun time blocking and unblocking their ears :)! We had a lot of fun!
Many thanks to Sarah Cha, primary librarian, for inviting me! Sarah wrote me a beautiful testimonial for the visit which you can find on my Teacher Testimonial page!
Here are some more fun pics! Thank you Sarah for sending them!
Once far away and farther on the vast Mongolian plains…
Time for a deafening ROAR!!!
The Imperial family in the Grand Imperial Palace (minus that horrible Princess Precious!)
The kids meet my toy tiger Tarini (gentler cousin of Temujin!)
Today and yesterday morning I Zoomed in to visit my old friends at Kennedy School in Hong Kong! We had four fabulous sessions with Years 1 to 4! The Year 1s enjoyed my show and tell story reading of The Tale of Pin Yin Panda, and were brilliant with their knowledge of the Chinese Zodiac Animals and the Legend of Lord Buddha’s Race! The Year 2s met my hungry Chester Choi and his friend Jimmy Lee, and the Year 3s and 4s roared like tigers and screamed like VERY spoiled princesses as they listened to me read The Tale of Temujin! We had a blast!! Huge thanks to Library Assistant Susan Mifsud for hosting me, and the PTA for inviting me in! It was lovely to see you all again! Here are some more photos below!
I introduce my toy panda to the Year 1s!
The Year 2s meet my toy dragon Billy Boy, cousin of Chester Choi!
Jimmy Lee and his friends the centipede and the cockroach go fishing!
This week I had a fabulous time Zoom-visiting schools in Hong Kong and mainland China in the early hours of the morning from here in France!
On Tuesday, I visited the Year 4 students at Yew Chung International School in Chongqing with my writing workshop How to Write a Riveting Story! The kids used my story planner as I explained the importance of characters, setting and plot sequence, and by the end of the session had some fantastic story plans ready to go for their first draft! I can’t wait to see the results! Thanks to my lovely host, English co-ordinator Becca Roden for inviting me!
On Wednesday I visited the Kindies at Sias International School of Zhengdong New District, Zhengzhou to introduce them to my Chinese Calendar Tales with a fun reading of The Tale of Chester Choi, with my toy dragon Billy Boy looking on, then on Friday I visited the whole of primary school during assembly, where I talked all about How I became an Author and the crucial importance of reading books in the digital age, following which they roared like tigers and screamed like spoiled princesses while I read them this year’s Calendar Tale, The Tale of Temujin! Many thanks to librarian and media specialist Elizabeth Baker and tech wizard Tom Kerrigan for making the visit possible!
The fabulous and focussed Year 5s at Stamford American School Hong Kong
It was a real pleasure to be working with such enthusiastic and focused students! I look forward to seeing lots of entries from you in my latest Clever Competition, A Terrific Tiger Tale!
Last week I had two fabulously fun sessions zooming in to visit my friends at Stamford American School Hong Kong! The kids were all at home (thanks to Covid … grrr… ) but they and their teachers were all on deck. The Grade 1s roared like tigers and screamed like spoiled princesses with great enthusiasm during my reading of The Tale of Temujin (sorry, all you Mums and Dads at home with the kids!) while the Grade 3s participated with lots of fantastic suggestions during my new workshop: Turning Historical Research into a Story. We all had a lot of fun! I look forward to seeing some fabulous entries with excellent background research in my latest Clever Competition, all you fabulous Grade 3s!
Huge thanks to Ms Lisa Olinski, Ms Kirsten Struble and Ms Maria Evans for hosting me!
Wow that was fun! On Thursday and Friday I spent seven fabulous internet sessions with my great friends at Stamford American School Hong Kong with the kids from Grade 1 right up to Grade 5! We celebrated the Year of the Ox with story readings of The Tale of Oswald Ox and the Legend of Lord Buddha’s Race with The Tale of Pin Yin Panda. We had two great sessions with the Grade 3s (who are creating their very own picture books) learning How to Create a Picture Book from Brilliant Idea to Final Product. And we had two fantastic sessions introducing all the students to the fascinating Hong Kong history and even more fascinating TRUE Hong Kong mystery featured in my new chapter book for pre-teens, The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah! The kids all went crazy for the World War II history in the story, and especially those real Hong Kong WWII tunnels which lie to this day in and under the hillsides of Hong Kong! Some of them even decided that they were going to solve the mystery! Watch out Hong Kong!!
Huge thanks to Lisa Olinski for inviting me, Lisa Choy for her fabulous technical supervision, and the other lovely teachers who hosted me for the sessions. It was such a treat to work with you all, and I hope you enjoyed our time together as much as I did!
What a perfect Panda! Here is a photo of one of my lovely fans dressed up as Pin Yin Panda for Book Day at Kellett School in Hong Kong today! Isn’t she cute? Thanks so much mum Melanie for sending! And a big hello to all my fans at Kellett School – I hope you had a wonderful day!
Thank you David Wong, Director of Operations at one of my favourite reading charities, Kids4Kids Hong Kong, who has just sent me this photo of a fabulous bunch of kids from Po Leung Kuk Wong Wing Shu Primary School in Hong Kong, each holding a copy of my book The Tale of Ming Kee Monkey! I was delighted to donate the books to this wonderful charity a few months ago, and it’s great to seemy mischievous little monkey spreading some happiness and fun to the kids of Hong Kong!
I was so happy to receive 13 wonderful book reports about my book The Tale of Run Run Rat, and equally great pictures from Class 3R at Glenealy ESF School following my Zoom visit there recently! Here are just a few pictures, from Ludovic, Chloe, Samaira, Dylan, Freda, Henie, Burhan and Adhiraaj. Aren’t they fantastic?? Thank you so much, Class 3R, for making my day!