Hooray! Maggie and Methuselah is short-listed for the Golden Dragon Book Awards 2021-22!

January 13, 2022 at 10:14 pm | Posted in Book Awards | Leave a comment
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I’m so excited! The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah has been short-listed for the Golden Dragon Book Awards 2021-2022! The three other short-listed books look amazing, and I’m so honoured that my book is listed up there with them! Thank you Hong Kong ALESS! If you want to purchase your own copy of my book, just click on the link above!

Oh what a lovely launch!

October 26, 2021 at 12:17 am | Posted in Book launches | Leave a comment
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Thank you so much to Arti and Shonee Mirchandani and the team at Bookazine Landmark Princes Building for hosting the launch of my new chapter book The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah on Saturday! It was a fabulous event, and even though I couldn’t be there in person, I was there by Zoom for the whole launch and didn’t miss a moment!

Here are some slideshows of the event, from photos contributed by artist Charly Cheung and her friends, as well as my lovely daughters in Melbourne (who joined my zoom presentation) (you can see their faces on some of the pictures)!

First my publisher Pete Spurrier from Blacksmith Books started off by welcoming the lovely crowd which included some of my very dear old Hong Kong friends, as well as some fabulous young fans!

  • The launch begins, as Pete Spurrier introduces my new book!
  • The dream team! Publisher Pete Spurrier at Blacksmith Books, illustrator Charly Cheung, and me!
  • The kids had the chance to enter through our creepy secret tunnel – just like the tunnels in my book!
  • The cobwebs, spiders and bats on the secret tunnel were pretty creepy!
  • A lovely display of my books – including my Chinese Calendar Tales!!
  • Pete, Charly, me on the screen, and my friends Shonee and Arti Mirchandani from Bookazine!
  • An absorbed young fan…

Then I gave a talk by Zoom about the fascinating history behind the REAL Hong Kong mystery which inspired by story!

  • My presentation begins!
  • Introducing the remarkable Sir Paul Chater, creator of the valuable Chater Collection which so famously went missing!
  • Introducing the main characters in my story!
  • A brief summary of the events preceding Chapter 6! (You can see my lovely daughters Annabel (second from top) and Bea (at the bottom) at the side of the picture.
  • From Chapter 6: the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941
  • The chapter continues as Maggie and Edmund decide to search for the missing Chater paintings…
  • Some of my lovely listeners! Thanks so much for coming along!

Publisher Pete Spurrier then ran a fun quiz, where he asked the kids tricky questions about my presentation! The kids who got the right answers won some creepy spiders, snakes and bats worthy of the tunnels in my story…as well as upcoming Halloween of course :)!

  • Pete begins the Quiz with a tricky question!
  • It was fun for me to listen in!
  • Urgh!!! Pete throws a bat at a young fan when she answers a question correctly!

Then illustrator Charly Cheung taught the fans how to draw an African Grey Parrot, just like Methuselah!

  • Charly teaches the kids how to draw Methuselah, the African Grey Parrot!
  • A busy drawing class!
  • A young artist…
  • And another…
  • And some more!
  • And the youngest artist of all!
  • Charly presents the artist with the best drawing with an original Charly Cheung print!
  • Charly and some young fans…

Finally, everyone lined up to have their books signed! I’d already signed a book plate for my lovely readers, and Charly added her signature, while the kids had a chance to chat with me at the same time!

  • It was great to be able to say hello to our fans while Charly signed their books!
  • Lining up to get books signed…
  • Saying hello to my lovely fans, including my young friend Lauren (front centre)
  • A fun book signing…

Thank you so much to Charly and Pete for all the wonderful work they put into the launch, with some fantastic decorations and special effects! And a HUGE thank you also to Arti and Shonee Mirchandani at Bookazine, for their fabulous hosting of the event!

And if you’d like to buy your copy of the book, signed by both me and Charly, I believe that there are still some signed copies available at Bookazine Princes Building! Or you can purchase your own (unsigned) copy by clicking HERE!

Meet Trevor, a maths-obsessed stay-at-home Dad!

October 20, 2021 at 2:16 pm | Posted in new books | Leave a comment
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Trevor is Dad to Maggie, one of the three heroes of my new book The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah! He met Maggie’s mum, Ursula, back when he was working as an animal conservator at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London. He’s shy, he’s kind, and he loves his daughter Maggie to distraction! But he also loves MATHS PROBLEMS! In fact, his ambition is to solve the world’s greatest maths problems, which is one reason why he loves being a stay-at-home Dad, especially when Maggie is at school and he can work on his computer!

If you click on the link here you can see a fun animation by our fabulous artist Charly Cheung of Trevor busily taking notes back at the museum! Isn’t it fun?!

You can find out more about Trevor and the rest of the characters in my book THIS SATURDAY at the official launch! Make sure you register on this link, and REMEMBER TO BRING A CLIPBOARD!

You are invited to a Kids4Kids event tomorrow in Hong Kong!

October 6, 2021 at 10:59 pm | Posted in Hong Kong events | Leave a comment
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If you’d like to take part in a fun virtual event at Kids4Kids tomorrow afternoon at (HK) 5.30pm, just click here to register or scan the QR code! See you there!

At last I get to hold my new book!

September 18, 2021 at 9:24 pm | Posted in new books | 1 Comment
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I’m so excited to hold my new book – at last! It’s taken weeks for it to arrive here in France!! It’s so hard not being in Hong Kong right now to celebrate with illustrator Charly Cheung and publisher Pete Spurrier at Blacksmith Books – not to mention all of you, my lovely fans! But as soon as those l-o-o-o-o-ng HK quarantine rules disappear, I’ll be back to see you all in a flash! And in the meantime, wait up for some more funny animations by Charly to introduce you to the characters in my book in the coming weeks! And if you want to join Maggie and Methuselah on their exciting Hong Kong adventure, you can buy your own copy at Hong Kong bookstores or by clicking here!

Remember to bring a torch!

August 28, 2021 at 6:13 pm | Posted in new books | Leave a comment
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A big THANK YOU to Charly Cheung who created this fabulous poster for my new book! Isn’t it fun! And so are all her 80+ fantastic illustrations inside the book! The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah is out in bookstores now – and available all over the internet too! You can buy your own copy here!

Maggie and Methuselah, Oswald Ox and Pin Yin Panda visit Stamford American School HK!

March 22, 2021 at 9:13 pm | Posted in Hong Kong Schools | Leave a comment
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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!

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