Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

TASIS was TERRIFIC!

Rhonda Rabbit and I bounced into TASIS The American School in England in the depths of the beautiful Surrey countryside for two days this week, and what fun we had celebrating Chinese New Year! The visit kicked off with an assembly including a very exciting lion dance from the Nam Yang dance company, followed by readings to the Kindies and Grades 1 and 2, then on Thursday some great workshops on writing and publishing with Grades 4 to 6 and even a reading with the little Pre-Kindies! Thanks so much to the wonderful Jordan Kaminsky, Lower School librarian, for his generous and enthusiastic support, to the dedicated staff and the fabulous kids of TASIS School! Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Here’s the Lion Dance!

And here I am with the lovely kindy kids….

And the great Grade 4 kids!

Rabbit rhymes and Bunny ballads are starting to hop in!

Hello all you budding writers out there! Get your pencils sharpened and get hopping! Some fabulous poems are bouncing their way into my Rabbit Poem competition already! If you want to be part of the fun – and have the chance to have your entry published on my blog so kids can read it from as far away as London and Beijing and Singapore -or even win one of my signed books! –  you’d better get that poem in! All the rules are on my Clever Competitions page above!

A great afternoon at Parish Nursery School in Croydon!

A big thank you to Stefania, Elaine and all the lovely staff and kids of Parish Nursery School in Croydon where I spent three happy hours on Monday afternoon! We all had a lot of fun, and luckily most of the kids liked dogs better than cats (you’ll need to read my latest book The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit to find out why!!) .

Thank you to the kids and staff at Valence and Godwin Primary Schools!

Wow – that was such a great day! Rhonda Rabbit and I hopped along to two fabulous primary schools in Essex on Friday – Valence Primary School and Godwin Primary School – and met all the wonderful kids and their terrific teachers! There were some fantastic Chinese New Year displays in the halls and corridors, and we had so much fun talking about the Chinese Zodiac and the mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his many wicked ways, not to mention the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Warrriors, and that evil cat Alice! Thanks kids and teachers for a memorable day!

Here’s me with some lovely kids from Valence Primary School!

And me with Julie Phillips, head teacher at Godwin Primary School, with some Godwin bunnies!

Kung Hei Fat Choi – it’s officially The Year of the Rabbit!

Do you love delicious pork, duck, fruits and Chinese delicacies? Do you love getting gifts of money in little red envelopes? If so, Chinese New Year is the celebration for you! Chinese New Year begins on the first day of the New Moon (which this year happens to be today, 3rd February!) and ends 15 days later with the famous Lantern Festival. It’s a joyous time for families, and all the members of  a Chinese family will meet up to eat delicious Chinese food and catch up with the news and also honour their dead ancestors. Shops, houses and streets are decorated with wonderful glowing red Chinese lanterns, and laissee (or money) is given out in brilliant little red and gold laissee packets as a seasonal gift to children and the elderly! Dragon and Lion Dances abound, to scare off the evil spirits of the past and welcome in the New Chinese Year. And best of all, everyone says to each other Kung Hei Fat Choi! Which means…Happy Chinese New Year!

Congratulations to the winners of the Most Unusual Christmas Competition!

Congratulations to all those great writers who entered my Most Unusual Christmas Competition in the last month, but especially to Li Yan Wa of Grade 5, Canadian International School Hong Kong who won the 8 to 11 Years Age Group and Lucas Platter of Grade 2, Singapore American School who won the 5 to 7 Years category! Go to my Clever Competitions page to see their entries, as well as the three runners-up in each group!

It’s the last lucky day to enter my story competition!

Hello from London! Well, entries are coming in thick and fast at the last minute for my January writing competition! So if you want the chance to win a signed copy of one of my books, delivered straight to your door, you’ve only got a few hours left!! Make sure you check my competition page for all the rules, and hurry, hurry!

London here we come!

Yippee! Rhonda Rabbit and I are flying to London tomorrow to launch the Chinese Calendar Tales – and Rhonda Rabbit especially – on the unsuspecting kids of England! They’d better lock up their carrots pretty quickly, as Rhonda’s keen to get her teeth into some hearty British vegetables! We’ll be visiting schools and shops and talking to the press – so watch this space for more news soon!

That was a very Bouncy Launch Party!

The Rhonda Rabbit launch party at Bookazine Princes Building on Saturday 22 January was great fun, with lots of kids, lots of noise and lots of delicious carrot cupcakes! Here are a few photos. See my website in a couple of days for a whole lot more! 

 Here’s that Ru-Lin Rabbit, favourite cousin of Rhonda Rabbit, with her own very special secret! Shhh… don’t tell anyone!

And here’s Harry Harrison and I, very proud of all our books!

 And last but not least, here’s the most important people of all – the lovely kids, mums and dads who came to the launch!

Thank you Kowloon Junior School Rose Street Campus!

Rhonda Rabbit and I hopped along to Kowloon Junior School, Rose Street Campus today for some fabulously funny readings and classroom chats with the Grade 4, 5 and 6 kids! It was so much fun seeing all my KJS friends again – and I’m looking forward to seeing some great entries from KJS into my Clever Competitions in the coming months!