A Piggy Reminder!!
January 19, 2019 at 9:50 am | Posted in Book launches, Bookazine Exchange Square | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese Zodiac, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, The Year of the Pig
Ping Pong Pig is singing very enthusiastically at the top of her lungs today to remind you to register for her funny and fabulous Launch Party! It’s next Saturday at 2pm at Bookazine Exchange Square, Shop 305-07 One Exchange Square Central! You can just turn up…but it would really help planning if you would register first! Here’s the link! Just put Ping Pong Pig Launch in the subject box and say how many people are coming!
Here’s a reminder of all the fun we’re going to have!
Happy 2019! And a special date for your diary!
January 5, 2019 at 10:39 am | Posted in Book launches, Bookazine Exchange Square, Buying my books, Chinese New Year, Hong Kong events | 2 CommentsTags: Bookazine Exchange Square, Books about Chinese Zodiac, Books about the Year of the Pig, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, Year of the Pig
A very Happy New Year to all my lovely followers! I hope that Father Christmas brought everybody all they wished for, and that you look forward to your best year yet!
Speaking of which…here is the BEST POSSIBLE way to celebrate Chinese New Year, which is just around the corner, and of course the new Year of the Pig! Our annual launch party will be the BIGGEST and BEST ever, because this year, we’re launching our very last Chinese Calendar Tale in the Chinese Calendar Tales series, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig!
You’re going to love our feisty little Pig! She’s kind, she’s pretty, she loves to dance and sing…and she’s also VERY tasty! Everybody loves her, but the problem is, the mighty Yongle Emperor loves PORK even better! Come and listen to me read her funny, exciting story, set in Ming Dynasty China in the brand new Forbidden City, and then watch Harry Harrison draw his amazing pictures! And of course, you can buy your very own copy and have me and Harry sign it!
And this time, it’s a costume party! So if you come dressed up in a costume for your year of the Chinese Zodiac, you’re in the running for a fabulous new Boxed Set of Chinese Calendar Tales as first prize, worth HK$1199! Wow!
NB Please note that this year’s launch is at Bookazine Exchange Square NOT Bookazine Princes Building, as we’re expecting a big crowd!
All the details are on the invitation above, and don’t forget to RSVP on this link or by calling 2542 1133!
And if you want to purchase your very own copy of my new book to read Ping Pong’s story before her big day, just click here right away!
A wonderful visit to UISG in Guangzhou!
October 13, 2018 at 5:04 pm | Posted in Guangzhou schools, Utahloy International School of Guangzhou, workshops | Leave a commentTags: Books about China for kids, Books about Chinese Zodiac, How to Publish a Picture Book, The Chinese Calendar Tales
This week I made the train journey up to Guangzhou to visit the beautiful Utahloy International School of Guangzhou! (Utaloy is the rough pronunciation of Great Virtue in Chinese, I was told). There I was hosted by the lovely Head Librarian Chrissy Erwin (above), and we started the day with a latte on the balcony overlooking a river beside a forest, in the prettiest setting I have EVER seen for a school, in China or anywhere! It also had wonderful open air playing space for the kids, including a fabulous Dr Seuss tree for the little ones, and a pirate ship for the older kids! Here it is, crammed with P3 and P4 pirates and me!
Thanks Chrissy, and Kelly Phillips, her librarian colleague, for hosting me for a very special day of story readings from the Chinese Calendar Tales with all the primary school students, as well as the Grade 7 and Grade 8 students who learned How to Publish a Picture Book from Brilliant Idea to Final Product.
Above left, you can see me with Kelly Phillips, Chrissy Erwin, and the lovely new Primary Principal Michelle Jones to her right. On the right, you can see me with the fabulous library assistants team Betty Zheng, Haiqing Sun and Judy Li and “our” Chinese Zodiac animals! Below left, I am interviewed by the staff of the high school newspaper The Howl, while below right, you can see the wonderful Dr Seuss tree playground for the younger students.
And finally, just a couple of fun photos with the P3s – we had great fun with a Tale of Desmond Dog story reading and swearing the solemn oath to look at my website!
A Book Week visit at MLC in Melbourne!
August 28, 2018 at 7:43 pm | Posted in Australian schools, Melbourne schools, Methodist Ladies College, Story Readings, workshops | Leave a commentTags: Australian Book Week 2018, Books about Chinese history for kids, Books about Chinese Zodiac, Chinese geography, Chinese history, Ching Shih, Qin Shi Huangdi, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog
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The subject of this year’s Book Week in Australia was Find Your Treasure, and what better book to introduce to the fabulous girls of Melbourne Ladies College on 16th and 17th August than my latest Chinese Calendar Tale, The Tale of Desmond Dog, a story of pirates, treasure and an infamous Pirate Queen! On the 16th, all the girls from Grade 4 to Grade 6 joined the crew for a story reading, followed by a hearty lunch with the Book Bugs (top photo) who heard some Top Secrets about my next (and final) Chinese Calendar Tale for next year’s Year of the Pig! In the afternoon I was delighted to meet wonderful Grade 3 student Hannah Thompson, the winner of the Grade 1 to 3 Category in my Dashing Dog Story Competition earlier this year (middle photo above), followed by a delightful Grade 1 student who is already writing lots of stories in her spare time (bottom left). The future of great writing from MLC alumni is clearly bright!
Then on the 17th, the Grade 6s took part in my brand new workshop entitled Geography is History: How topography shaped China’s remarkable history! We talked about China’s grasslands in the North (from which invaders came on horseback); its mountains and deserts in the West and North West (which formed a natural barrier both inwards and outwards); its fertile deltas in the East (which formed the first united China under Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi) and the seas beyond (from which trade came and went, and ultimately the incursion of foreign powers, and invasion of the Japanese navy, which together precipitated the End of Empire). I hope the girls found the subject as fascinating as I did!!
Huge thanks to my friend, and fabulous Junior School Head of Library, Tracey Ricchini, who you can just see at the back of the Book Bugs in the top photo! She made a fantastic Ching Shi, the evil (and real life) pirate queen from The Tale of Desmond Dog! More photos to come!
Temujin the Tiger visits Book Week in Panama!
March 10, 2018 at 10:03 am | Posted in Book Week, Fabulous fans!, Panama schools, The International School of Panama | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese Zodiac, Books about tigers, The Tale of Temujin, The Year of the Tiger
Wow! Just look at the photo I just received all the way from Panama! Here is a fabulously fierce young tiger, a.k.a. Renzo Gomez Schumacher, who went to Book Week at the International School of Panama dressed up as Temujin, the terrifying tiger who marauds through Mongolia and China eating human beings left, right and centre before meeting the equally terrifying Princess Precious in the Imperial Palace in The Tale of Temujin! I bet the kids at school kept a very respectful distance! A big thank you to Renzo and his Dad Luis for sending it in!
Woof! Desmond is a best seller in Hong Kong!
February 28, 2018 at 9:47 pm | Posted in Best sellers, Bookazine Festival Walk, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese history for kids, Books about Chinese Zodiac, The Tale of Desmond Dog, The Year of the Dog
Woof! It’s official! The Tale of Desmond Dog is one of the Top 5 January Books at Bookazine, Hong Kong’s leading bookshop! Here’s what I found on their new Festival Walk shop screen last weekend!
A hugely happy day at AISHK!
February 22, 2018 at 12:26 pm | Posted in AISHK, Hong Kong Schools | Leave a commentTags: Books about China for kids, Books about Chinese Zodiac, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog, The Tale of Oswald Ox, The Year of the Dog
Desmond Dog and I had the BEST day yesterday at my old friends, Australian International School Hong Kong, when I warmly and expertly hosted by primary librarian Nicole Atkins (above)! All the classes from Prep right up to Grade 6 met my dashing dog in four fun story reading sessions – not to mention also meeting that extraordinary pirate queen Ching Shih and her Red Flags! It’s been 9 years since I first read The Tale of Oswald Ox to the AISHK kids, and I’ve visited them almost every year since with each new Chinese Calendar Tale! It’s wonderful to think that my series has grown up with this lovely school and its teachers and students and gives me many fond memories. More photos to come, but in the meantime just look at the number of books in the photo below that Harry Harrison and I and our terrific team have created over the last 12 years!
A fabulous family of fans send this photo!
February 14, 2018 at 8:13 am | Posted in children's literacy, Fantastic fans! | 2 CommentsTags: Books about Chinese Zodiac, Reading With Your Kids, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster
I was very honoured today to receive this lovely photo of one of my young fans, Osman Pasha, with last year’s book The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster! Osman’s mum Janana tells me that Pasha and his older brothers have grown up reading my Chinese Calendar Tales and they love them! She tells me that, being of Russian speaking background educated on Pushkin and Lermintov, she really appreciates the rhythm and rhyme in my poetry – thank you so much Janana for your lovely message and for allowing me to post this photo! I’m delighted to meet you and Pasha and please do send my warmest wishes to your boys!
More fab photos from Desmond Dog’s Woofy Launch Party on Saturday!
February 12, 2018 at 12:56 pm | Posted in Being an Author, Book launches, Bookazine Princes Building, Bookshop event, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese Zodiac, Chinese New Year, Harry Harrison, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Year of the Dog
Many thanks to Bookazine Events Organizer Manon for these lovely photos!
Here’s Harry Harrison and me before the launch!
Here’s our fun book reading with some avid fans!
My gorgeous daughters Bea (left) and Annabel (right) have been holding up the pictures for the last 14 years now! Thanks Bea and Annabel!!
A busy book-signing!
Harry and the Quiz, me and Harry – and the man himself with his fabulous book covers!
My wacky daughter Annabel continuing her annual ritual of a finger-signing by Harry and me!
A touching gift from an old(ish) fan!
February 11, 2018 at 5:56 pm | Posted in Book launches, Canadian International School Hong Kong, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese Zodiac, Books about pandas, Books2Eat contest, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Pin Yin Panda
I was so very touched yesterday when the Fox family attended my launch yesterday, and Jess, who is now a very glam teenager (pictured above right some 6 years ago and below left) presented me with the lovely thank you note on the left! Jess and her sisters Liliana and Emerson had made a Pin Yin Panda cake from The Tale of Pin Yin Panda for the Books2Eat contest at Canadian International School way back in 2012, and their mum sent me their cute photo. All three (plus mum) were out in force to support the launch yesterday – the sisters are here below! We all teared up when Jess gave me her gorgeous note! Thanks Jess! Fans like you make my life very happy!
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