Four fabulous new friends in Taiwan!
February 28, 2023 at 9:08 pm | Posted in Taiwan Schools | Leave a commentTags: Books are a Brain's Best Friend, Chinese Zodiac, How to Write a Riveting Story, Hsinchu International School, Morrison Academy Kaohsiung Taiwan, Morrison Academy Tai Pei Campus, Morrison Academy Taichung, Storm Whale, The Tale of Pin Yin Panda, The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit
I was so excited to visit Taiwan on my first post-Covid Schools Tour this month! After a great week visiting schools in Hong Kong, I flew to Taipei’s Taoyuan Airport, where I was met by the lovely Charles and Di Farrell, Library Media Specialist and Library Assistant at Morrison Academy Taiwan, Tai Pei Campus, who very kindly drove me to my hotel!
Monday 13 February: Morrison Academy Taiwan, Tai Pei Campus
We commenced the visit with a fun reading for the Grade 2 and 3s of – you guessed it – The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit, book du jour, or should I say année, for the new Year of the Rabbit! The kids were fascinated to learn about the mighty Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, who united China over 2,000 years ago, but at a rather horrible cost to the people who stood in his way!
Next, I met the Kindergarten and Year 1 students, reading them my story Storm Whale. I have never been asked so many questions about whales afterwards, including some VERY tricky ones about, for example, “How high is the water spout of sperm whale?” for which I had NO CLUE of the answer! Thank you Charles for rescuing me with a wonderful book about whales from the library!
After a tasty lunch, I met the Grade 5s and 6s with my workshop How to Write a Riveting Story, then capped off the day with a fun session with the Grade 4s, An Introduction to Poetry, in which the kids narrowly escaped a fate worse than death (aka horrible school reports) as they used the first letters of Mr Farrell’s name to describe him in the Acrostic exercise!
My warm thanks to my hosts Charles and Di Farrell for their welcome and for hosting me in one of the most beautiful, artistic school libraries I have ever seen! Photos below!
Tuesday 14 February: Morrison Academy Khaosiung Campus
After my very first High Speed Rail trip from the top to the bottom of the island, I spent the next day with the lovely Christine Stowers and her support staff, visiting the kids of the Khaosiung Campus of Morrison Academy.
After an excellent opening session with Grades 6 to 8, explaining How to Publish a Picture Book from Brilliant Idea to Final Product, the Kindies to Grade 2 heard my story Storm Whale, then after a fabulous lunch, I met the Grades 3 to 5 students who heard…da da da…The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit! Finally, the fabulous teens in Grades 9 to 10 heard all about my path to becoming an author and publisher, followed by a serious talk about why reading print books is not just the most important tool for a writer, but also the way to ensure the very best life, in my presentation The Writing Life.
Thank you Christina for sending me the wonderful photos below!
With Christina Stowers and tech expert Dan Kim! 
The children meet my Billy Boy…who gobbles noisy kids! 
And discover that my bunny is an undercover BEAR! 
A sad and lonely night for the Storm Whale… 
But there is hope in the morning! 
Thank you for a delicious lunch with the English teachers! 
The students are fascinated to hear the history of Qin Shi Huangdi and The Great Wall of China 
The teens find out how I became an author and publisher 
Ready to leave after a fabulous day!
Wednesday 15 February: Morrison Academy Taichung Campus
On Wednesday, at long last, I met Scott Pagel, the reason for my trip to Taiwan!! Scott and I have been in contact ever since he sent his students’ entries into my Clever Competition many years ago, and we’ve always thought it would be great for me to come and visit! We even planned a trip to all three campuses back in 2020…which sadly had to be cancelled due to…you guessed it…the dreaded Covid 19! So it was amazing to meet him in the flesh at last at the Morrison Academy Taichung Campus!
We kicked off with a story reading of Storm Whale for Kindergarten and Grade One, followed by my workshop on How to Write a Riveting Story for Grades 6, 7 and 8. I included a very serious talk on the huge benefits of reading print books for leisure and pleasure in order to write well – as well as to live your best life! And, of course, how vitally important it is for the brain to limit time spent on digital games and social media.
After lunch, Grades 3 to 5 had a fun Introduction to Poetry, where we had a lot of laughs as they completed a poem called “Let’s Destroy the School” in perfect rhyme and verse! Parents and teachers beware!!
The day ended with my popular talk about How to Create Bookworms in the Digital Age, for the MAC parents and teachers, where we discussed the latest scientific research on reading print book and the brain.
Thank you Scott for a fabulous day at Morrison Taichung…at last!! Photos to come!
AND FINALLY…
Thursday 23 February: Zoom visit to Hsinchu International School
Sadly I was not able to visit Hsinchu International School in Taiwan during my trip, but I WAS able to visit them by Zoom a week later, which just happened to be their Book Week! We had two fun sessions!
The first, for the little ones from Pre-Kindergarten to Year 2, was a reading of The Tale of Pin Yin Panda, to meet my cheeky panda character Pin Yin, to find out how all the animals got into the Chinese Zodiac, and to discover why pandas aren’t in the Zodiac!
For the rest of the school, I spoke about How I Became an Author, then explained all the latest science about why Reading is Good for the Brain.
Huge thanks to Grade 4 teacher Eddie Costello, who invited me in, and librarian Isabel Slabbert who expertly hosted me for the visit! Eddie and I first met when he sent in his students entries into my Clever Competition some years ago. I can’t wait to see entries from Hsinchu International in my current Competition!
Three fabulous Camp Asia stories!
April 27, 2022 at 9:04 pm | Posted in Camp | Leave a commentTags: Camp Asia, How to Write a Riveting Story, Sarah Brennan's Story Planning Workshops, Writing Challenges for Kids
My blog followers will know that I recently spent 2 fabulous weeks giving Story Planning Workshops for Camp Asia in Hong Kong by Zoom. The optional final challenge was for the participants to complete writing up their stories from their Story Plans! I was delighted to see that three talented and hard-working participants took up the challenge – well done Yate Chee, Riya and Christy! Their stories were fantastic: click on the Camp Asia link here to read them! Before you do, just a heads-up…you might find some of the characters in these stories rather unusual! That’s because I picked them out of a hat for our courageous story-planners, who then HAD to use them in planning their stories! I thought this would add to the fun – read the stories and YOU be the judge :)!
Two fabulous Story Planning weeks!
March 29, 2022 at 4:05 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Camp Asia, How to Write a Riveting Story, Sarah Brennan's Story Planning Sessions, Story writing courses for kids
I’ve been having a blast this week and last, working with the fabulous kids enrolled in my Story Planning Sessions with Camp Asia! We’ve been working on all the essential ingredients for a fantastic story, including Story Idea, Characters, Settings, Plot, and of course brilliant beginnings and memorable endings!
To the kids in Week One, aged 8 to 10 – you were fantastic! You worked so hard to produce some great Story Plans, and I can’t wait to see the stories you write based on your plans!
To the students in Week Two, aged 11 to 12 – I’m having such fun working with you! Keep up the good work so far!
You can see more fabulous photos from Week One on Camp Asia’s Facebook page at this link!
That was a BUSY week!
March 6, 2022 at 12:43 am | Posted in Hong Kong Schools, mainland China schools | Leave a commentTags: A Terrific Tiger Tale writing competition, How to Write a Riveting Story, Stories about Chinese history for kids, Stories about Hong Kong history, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah, The Tale of Chester Choi, The Tale of Temujin, Writing Competitions for Kids, Writing workshops for kids
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!
Meanwhile on Thursday, I finished my four sessions with my old friends at Stamford American School Hong Kong with a visit to 100 fabulous Year 5s in their homes, where I explained all the fabulous history and real-life mystery behind The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah (A Mystery in Hong Kong)! Thank you Aric Cherry for being such a fun host, and as ever, to Lisa Olinski for all the fantastic organisation!
And today, I slept in…for a long, long time :)!
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!
A terrific visit to NAIS Guangzhou!
May 10, 2021 at 11:18 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guangzhou schools, How to Become a Great Writer, How to Write a Riveting Story, Writing workshops
Last Thursday I had the huge pleasure of visiting (via the internet) the students of Years 5 to 8 from Nord Anglia International School in Guangzhou! We had 3 fabulous sessions, where the students learned all about How to Become Great Writers and How to Write a Riveting Story. And even though the internet gremlins did their very best to interrupt our sessions, we all had a lot of fun! Many thanks to Wendy Crichton for hosting me on the day, and to librarian Dr. Solomon Basimilla for inviting me! Photos to come!
Zoom visit to Shrewsbury International School Hong Kong this morning!
June 1, 2020 at 1:22 pm | Posted in Shrewsbury International School Hong Kong, Virtual visits, Writing competitions for kids, writing workshops for children, Zoom visits | 2 CommentsTags: How to Write a Riveting Story, Sarah Brennan's workshops for primary school kids, Writing workshops
This morning I spent a fun hour with the kids of Shrewsbury International School Hong Kong who learned all about How to Write a Riveting Story! Clever competition winner James Bruser Zarin starred as the main character in an adventure story I told the kids to demonstrate all the vital steps to make a story a reader won’t want to put down! I can’t wait to see more Shrewsbury entries in my next Clever Competition! Thanks to Beth McNeilly, librarian and my lovely host for the session!
A Writing Workshop at St Clare’s Primary School!
May 9, 2019 at 10:31 am | Posted in Hong Kong Schools, St Clare's Primary School, Writing competitions for kids, writing workshops for children | Leave a commentTags: How to Write a Riveting Story, Sarah Brennan's Clever Competitions
Here are the fabulous girls of Grades 4 to 6 at St Clare’s Primary School in Sai Ying Pun in Hong Kong preparing to contribute their clever ideas in my How to Write a Riveting Story Workshop on Tuesday this week! They had some fantastic ideas for stories! They learned all about the vital elements in a story, and how to make a story plan that makes a perfect skeleton story. I also explained some of the current science about the extraordinary importance of reading for leisure and pleasure if you want to have a creative and successful life – and the very real problems for the brain if you spend your spare time on digital screens, especially social media and digital games. Thank you to lovely English Panel Head, Ms. Sandy (with me below right), and to School Principal Elsa Hui (below left), for inviting me. The girls were a delight and I look forward to working with them again! And, of course, to their entries in my Clever Competition!
Four fabulous days with the Bookworm International Literary Festival in Beijing and Hangzhou!
April 8, 2019 at 8:00 am | Posted in Beijing Schools, Books about Chinese Zodiac, Bookworm Cafe Beijing, China photos, Dulwich College Beijing, International School of Beijing, Storm Whale, Story Readings, writing workshops for children | Leave a commentTags: Antoinette Portis, Books are a Brain's Best Friend Workshop, Bookworm International Literary Festival, How to Publish a Picture Book, How to Write a Riveting Story, Morris Gleitzmann, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Chester Choi, The Tale of Desmond Dog, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig
With Antoinette Portis and Sandra Greenwell at the Bookworm International Literary Festival
Huge thanks to Peter Goff, David Cantalupo, Karen Tong and the team at The Bookworm Bookshop in Beijing for inviting me to take part in The Bookworm International Literary Festival 2019! Sadly I wasn’t able to appear at my scheduled event at the Bookworm featuring The Tale of Ping Pong Pig on the Sunday due to illness…but by Monday I was ready to fly up!
On Tuesday 26th March: I visited Dulwich College where I spent three fun sessions with Years 3 to 5, introducing the Year 3s to my hungry, lonely dragon Chester Choi; the Year 4s to Ping Pong Pig and the Yongle Emperor, and the Year 5s to Desmond Dog and the infamous pirate queen Ching Shih! Many thanks to the lovely Sandra Greenwell who was my host for the day, and to Lit Fest helper Inna Gafurova who looked after me and sold lots of my books after the sessions!
With some of my fabulous Junior School audience!
With my lovely host head librarian Sandra Greenwell (left) and library assistants Imee Acosta and Lita Tupaz (right)
Bookworm Festival helper Inna Gafurova and Sandra at the aptly named school coffee shop (right) and with some fabulously inventive pigs made in art class (right)
On Tuesday evening: New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Antoinette Portis and I spoke at The Bookworm with journalist Wendy Tang about the enormously important subject of Raising Kids to Read in the Digital Era. We had a full audience of very interested parents who were keen to hear all the recent science on the subjects of the huge benefits of reading for the brain, and the correspondingly huge problems with kids being overexposed to digital screens (and it doesn’t take much…). If you want to read more about this, take a look at my other blog,
Just because the subject was serious didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun! Here I am with Sandra Greenwell (from Dulwich College) and the lovely Antoinette Portis, my fellow panel member, with Sandra’s very naughty husband behind us!
On Wednesday 27th March: I visited my old friends at International School of Beijing, which I visited last year for a week in residence! This time I had 3 noisy sessions reading The Tale of Ping Pong Pig to Grades 3, 4 and 5. Echoes of “Run Pig, Run!” and “Stay Pig, Stay!” could be heard echoing around the playground at lunch time as the kids re-enacted Ping Pong’s mad dash around the Forbidden City, pursued by the cunning Minister of Most Important Things!
It was wonderful to catch up with my librarian hosts, and friends, Bec Taylor and Paul Wong (right). And thank you Hunt Liu from the Bookworm for looking after me!
We all had great fun, kids included!
It was lovely to be in such great company with other author visitors including famous Australian author Morris Gleitzman and New York Times best-selling Antoinette Portis!
That night I flew down to the pretty city of Hangzhou, 175 km south west of Shanghai, to stay at the aptly named Blossom Water Museum Hotel, seen in the photos below. Aren’t the gardens and the pagoda lovely?
On Thursday 28th and Friday 29th March: I visited Wellington College International Hangzhou, a new school with a very beautiful campus! We had workshops galore, with the Grade 5s learning the science behind why Books are a Brain’s Best Friend; the Grade 6s finding out How to Write a Riveting Story and the Grade 7s and I getting stuck into rhyming verse, haikus, acrostics, limericks and free verse in An Introduction to Poetry! I look forward to receiving some fabulous stories from lots of WCIH students in my latest Clever Competition! A big thank you to head librarian Bethan Amena for all her hard work hosting me and for the magnificent book sales!
Here I am with Bethan Amena (Head of Library, to my left), Piers Matthews (Director of Marketing and Admissions) and Lizzie Yang, librarian. Thanks for a lovely two days!
Workshops galore with the Grade 5s to 7s
Many thanks to WCIH’s official photographer July Qi for these lovely photos!
Ping Pong Pig visits Japanese International School in Tai Po!
February 11, 2019 at 3:39 pm | Posted in Hong Kong Schools, Japanese International School, Story Readings, writing workshops for children | Leave a commentTags: How to Write a Riveting Story, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, The Year of the Pig
Today my plump little Ping Pong Pig and I dashed into Japanese International School in Tai Po, just up the road from my house! We met the gorgeous Grade 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s in two funny story readings, then the Grade 5s and 6s had two workshop sessions where we explored How to Write a Riveting Story! It was so great to see you all again! Many thanks to my lovely hosts below, Principal Simon Walton (who also fixed my car at lunchtime when the battery ran out!), and Cath Wan, librarian and PYP co-ordinator, to my right, as well as to the terrific staff including support teacher Angie Bilbow on the far right in the picture! I had a lot of fun!
Another great visit to Stamford American International School…with an SCMP journalist!
January 23, 2019 at 8:32 pm | Posted in Hong Kong Schools, media articles, School visits, Stamford American School Hong Kong, Story Readings, writing workshops for children | Leave a commentTags: Books about Chinese history for kids, Books about Chinese Zodiac, How to Write a Riveting Story, South China Morning Post, Sunday Post, The Tale of Chester Choi, The Tale of Ping Pong Pig, The Year of the Dragon, The Year of the Pig
Ping Pong Pig and I continued our funny and fabulous Hong Kong School tour on Tuesday afternoon with a visit to my friends at Stamford American International School in Ho Man Tin, where I am proud to be a Global Mentor. And this time I was accompanied by Fionnuala McHugh, a journalist for the South China Morning Post, who is writing a feature article for the Sunday Post for Chinese New Year!
After photos in the Activity Room, our terrific host Lisa Olinski introduced me to some lovely parents and younger kids who heard me reading my “youngest” book, The Tale of Chester Choi, and enthusiastically joined in with contributions as to how you chop off a dragon’s head, especially if it’s threatening your Dad! Then a lovely roomful of older kids and their parents heard my Tale of Ping Pong Pig, together with a whole lot of fascinating history about the third Ming Dynasty Emperor Zhu Di and his best friend the explorer Admiral Zheng He and his seven epic journeys in huge Treasure Boats as far as Africa!
Lastly, I gave my popular How to Write a Riveting Story workshop to the hardy mums and children who stayed on after the story reading! It was a busy, fun day, and wonderful to see this lovely school again! More photos to come!
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