Congratulations to the winners of the Story of a Sassy Snake writing competition!

April 28, 2025 at 7:41 pm | Posted in Books about Chinese Zodiac, Children's Chinese Zodiac Books, Hong Kong International School, Stamford American School Hong Kong, The Year of the Snake, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a comment
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Congratulations to the winners in my Sassy Snake Story Competition! Charles Bruser Zarin, from Hong Kong International School, placed first in the Grade 4 to 6 Category, while Sera Leya Abraham from Stamford American School Hong Kong placed first in the Grade 1 to 3 Category. They each win a signed copy this year’s Chinese Calendar Tale, The Tale of Sybil Snake, as well as TWO further books available on my sales website here. You can read their fabulous stories on my Clever Competitions Page right away!

Just 6 weeks to go in my Story of a Sassy Snake Writing Competition!

February 25, 2025 at 6:37 pm | Posted in Challenges and activities, Clever Competitions, The Tale of Sybil Snake, The Year of the Snake, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a comment
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Rodney Ram in The Tale of Rodney Ram, illustration by Harry Harrison

Hello all you brilliant primary school-aged writers out there! This is a quick reminder that there are less than six weeks to go to enter your story into my latest Clever Competition! It’s a really fun one, with ingredients including an evil Emperor, a sad spider and a mighty flood! Not to mention a splendidly sassy snake…just like my Sybil Snake! So click on the competition link and get those creative juices flowing! I can’t wait to read your story!

Ssssssss! Welcome to the Year of the Snake!

January 29, 2025 at 9:34 pm | Posted in Children's Chinese Zodiac Books, Chinese New Year, Chinese New Year Activites, Special Offers, Writing competitions for kids, Year of the Snake | Leave a comment
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Sybil Snake, from The Tale of Sybil Snake, illustrated by Harry Harrison

Kung Hei Fat Choi from Sybil Snake, the sixth and sassiest of all the Chinese Calendar Tales characters! It’s time to start off a fabulous new Year of the Snake with lots of fun and some great offers!

(1) A sssensssational new writing competition on the Clever Competitions page!

This fun writing competition is open to kids of primary school age all around the world! Take a look at the Clever Competitions page for all the details. The deadline is Friday 4th April, so start planning your story NOW!

(2) Some ssseriousssly sssuper new words to impresss all your friendsss!

Click here on the Wicked Words page to learn three fabulous new words inspired by Sybil Snake – then stun your family, teachers and friends with your newfound vocabulary!

(3) A sssensational Snake Mask to make and wear!

Chinese New Year is a great time for making animal masks! Click here for a fun free download from Education.Com for a sssuper Snake Mask to wear at your Chinese New Year party!

(4) A sneak peek at your favourite sssnake ssstory!

If you want to find out a bit more about this year’s Chinese Calendar Tale, and why I wrote the books, take a look at this youtube video!

(5) Ssstay up to date by sssubssscribing to my blog!

If you want to keep up with more news and fun about the Year of the Snake ahead, just ssscroll down this page on the right and enter your email address (of course, you should check with mum or dad first)!

(6) Two sssuper sssasssy dissscountsss on our sales website!

Go to the Chinese Calendar Tales website right away for two ssseriously sssasssy discount offers on the Complete Set of Chinese Calendar Tales and this year’s special story, The Tale of Sybil Snake!

Enjoy!

Just 24 days left to enter my Practically Perfect Pig Tale story competition!

April 17, 2019 at 8:55 am | Posted in children's literacy, Clever Competitions, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a comment
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the pig dancing but not including the stage_lo res

Ping Pong Pig and I would like to remind you all that there are just 24 days left to enter your story in my Practically Perfect Pig Tale Competition! Now Easter’s coming this weekend, which gives you loads of lovely time to sit down and write your story! It’s got some fabulously fun ingredients this time – so grab that pen and get writing! All the rules and how to submit are here!

And if you still haven’t bought your copy of The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, just click on this link!

I’m posting the Competition Results today!

November 18, 2018 at 10:18 am | Posted in Clever Competitions, Poetry competitions for children, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
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village - pigs

I’ve been busy as Run Run Rat going to the market in Harry Harrison’s wonderful illustration above! See The Tale of Run Run Rat

Huge thanks, and apologies, to my loyal writer fans who have been waiting so very patiently for the results of my Perfect Pet Poem Competition! I’ve been HUGELY busy the last two weeks, with my lovely daughter Annabel sitting her final IB exams (which requires a lot of mother love and attention!) and a very busy time at work getting ready for the release of my next Chinese Calendar Tale, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, into the shops! So I’ve had not a moment to finalise the results! But today, the house is quiet, I’m putting the final touches to my judging – and you’ll hear from me later today! YAY! Thank you so much for your patience!

It’s time for a new Clever Competition!

August 19, 2018 at 6:15 pm | Posted in Book Week, Clever Competitions, Poetry competitions for children, Writing competitions for kids | 4 Comments
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Desmond saving catHello all my lovely followers out there! I’ve been away on summer holidays with my family, and have just had a fantastic time in Melbourne for Book Week, and now I’m back on deck here in Hong Kong! So it’s high time for another challenge for you budding writers!

This time you must write a poem about a Perfect Pet! It can be your pet, or a pet you’d love to have, or even somebody else’s pet! It can any sort of pet – from an ant to an elephant, so long as it’s a pet you’d love to have!

It can be any sort of poem too! Go to my Clever Competitions page here to find out how to enter and to check out all the rules!

The deadline is Sunday, 28th October, so get out your pen and paper, and start writing now! I can’t wait to read your entry!

The results are out in my Dashing Dog Story Competition!

May 2, 2018 at 3:40 pm | Posted in children's literacy, Clever Competitions, writing competitions | Leave a comment
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Desmond holding child

At long last I’ve finished the judging of my Dashing Dog Story Competition! I had some important family matters to attend to over the last month, and as we all know, family comes first – even when there’s an exciting competition to be judged! So thank you all so much for your patience! There were a very impressive 66 entries in all, from students in 17 different schools in 7 cities around the world: Beijing, Changzhou, Chicago, Doha, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Shanghai. The overall standard of the stories was very high, making it extremely difficult to pick the order of the winners!

Special congratulations to the first place winners in each category:

FIRST PLACE in GRADE ONE TO THREE CATEGORY: Hannah Thompson, Grade 3 Methodist Ladies College, Kew, Melbourne, 8 years old

FIRST PLACE in GRADE FOUR TO SIX CATEGORY: Aoife Mary Walshe, 4th grade, SUIS HongQiao Campus, Shanghai, 9 years old

And to the ten other place-winners! If you’d like to read their fabulous stories, click here right away!

Enjoy!

Two fun-filled days at Shatin Junior School!

March 2, 2018 at 11:03 am | Posted in Hong Kong Schools, Shatin Junior School, workshops | Leave a comment
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Thank you to my dear friends at Shatin Junior School for two fabulous days on Wednesday and Thursday as part of their Book Week celebrations! You can see three fab teachers above, getting into bossy, huggy trouble!! Desmond Dog and I met the whole of primary school in two BIG story reading sessions, then I worked with all the Grade 4s in 5 fab How to Write a Riveting Story sessions! I hope to see LOTS of great entries in my Dashing Dog Story Competition – details here! And an extra big thank you to my wonderful host, and friend, Karen Hubbard! More photos to come!

Ahoy there! Just 31 days left to enter your Dashing Dog Story in my Clever Competition!

February 20, 2018 at 2:38 pm | Posted in Clever Competitions, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a comment
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Short pic of Ching ShihChing Shih would like to remind you all that you have only 31 days left until the deadline of the Dashing Dog Story Competition! She would also like to remind you that failure to enter might just result in your being tied in knots and hoisted overboard!!!!

So heave ho me hearties, and send those stories in! It’s very chilly at the bottom of the South China Sea! All the details you need are here!

It’s time for a Dashing Dog Story Writing Competition!

January 14, 2018 at 5:17 pm | Posted in children's literacy, Chinese Calendar Tales, Writing competitions for kids | 5 Comments
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Desmond holding child

Are you a primary school student anywhere in the world? Do you love DOGS? Do you love writing stories? Then it’s time to enter my latest international Clever Competition, The Dashing Dog Story Competition!

Introducing Desmond Dog, the latest loveable character in the Chinese Calendar Tales series! Like all Chinese Zodiac dogs, he’s brave, noble and kind, and he LOVES protecting his little village, keeping everybody safe from harm! And of course, his Year of the Chinese Zodiac is just around the corner!

So it’s about time that we had a story writing competition all about DOGS! This time I want you to write me a story about a typical Chinese Zodiac Dog, like Desmond. I want him to be brave, kind, honourable and above all, DASHING!! You also must have

  • a title for your story, the more interesting the better!
  • a Chinese setting – be that a village, a city, a river, a lake, a mountain or even a Chinese planet in the future! So you’ll have to do a bit of research, and make sure to include lots of details which make the setting typically Chinese!
  • a scary typhoon!
  • a flying fish with golden scales
  • a wise philosopher
  • an evil cat
  • the colour mikado – and if you don’t know what colour that is, you’ll have to look it up!

Go to my Clever Competitions page here for all the details, rules and information.

The deadline date is Friday 23rd March, so pick up that paper and pen and get ready…get set…WOOF!

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