Yes, you can register for our Challenge in mainland China!
February 26, 2020 at 4:21 pm | Posted in Challenges and activities, Great Year of the Rat Challenge 2020, mainland China schools | Leave a commentTags: Google Docs, The Great Year of the Rat Challenge 2020, The Tale of Desmond Dog
Picture Credit: Harry Harrison, from The Tale of Desmond Dog
Hello everyone! The first registrations are coming in, and I’ve just sent out our Challenge Information Pack and Challenge Checklist to 15 fabulous parents and kids in Hong Kong! But a librarian in Mainland China has just written to advise that her students cannot access Google Docs to register.
Problem solved: Rat Challenge 2020 – Parental Permission Form_2020年鼠年大挑戰 – 家長同意表格
If you or your student/child cannot access Google Docs, please print off the above form and scan to me and we’ll get them sorted!
Dogs of New York!
October 15, 2019 at 3:56 am | Posted in New York | Leave a commentTags: Dogs in New York, Stories about dogs, The Tale of Desmond Dog
Now my visit to New York was very busy, but I couldn’t resist taking photographs and recording videos as I went to and from my meetings! So in my next few posts I’m going to show you some of the fantastic things I saw and heard on my trip, which will inspire you to visit The Big Apple just as soon as you can!
Dogs of New York
A gorgeous mosaic of a very dapper dog in the New York subway!
Have you ever seen so many dogs being walked in one go? Professional dog walkers walking dogs to Central Park!
Dogs in a shop window!
The ultimate in Dog Fashion!
Dog Ambulance!
Dog Day Care, grooming, walking, whatever you want when money is no object! Near Wall Street of course!
If I ever come back as a dog, I think I’d like to be a Dog in New York! And Desmond Dog does too! Woof!
Illustration by Harry Harrison
A quick visit to Excelsior Public School!
August 19, 2019 at 4:18 pm | Posted in Australian schools, Awards, children's literacy, Clever Competitions, Excelsior Public School, Sydney, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a commentTags: Sarah Brennan's Clever Competitions, The Practically Perfect Pig Tale Competition, The Tale of Desmond Dog
This morning I had the huge pleasure of presenting books to some talented writers at Excelsior Public School in Sydney! You can see me above with Caitlyn, who placed Second in the Grade 4 to 6 section of The Practically Perfect Pig Tale Story Competition, as well as Gary and Isabel who also entered the competition! You can read Caitlyn’s wonderful story if you scroll down the page here!
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!
The Results are out in my Perfect Pet Poem Competition!
November 18, 2018 at 4:36 pm | Posted in children's literacy, Clever Competitions, poetry, Poetry competitions for children | Leave a commentTags: Perfect Pet Poem Competition, Sarah Brennan's Clever Competitions, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog
Desmond Dog rescues a cat in The Tale of Desmond Dog! Illustration by Harry Harrison
Thank you all so much for your wonderful entries into my latest Clever Competition! And what a lovely time I’ve had reading about your Perfect Pets! There were 48 fabulous entries this time, from 15 different schools in 7 cities on 4 different continents! There were entries from Melbourne in Australia; from Shanghai and Zhuhai in mainland China; from Hong Kong; from Chicago and San Diego in the United States of America, and, for the first time, from Colombo in Sri Lanka! There were real pets, like cats, hamsters, pigs and a red panda! There were fantastical pets, like dragons, seahorns and snickerdoodles! Most were cute and cuddly, some were downright scary! But most of all, there were DOGS – to which, as a dog lover myself, I can only say of course!
Special congratulations to Hannah Thompson, of Grade 3, Methodist Ladies College, Melbourne, Australia, who won the Grade 1 to 3 Category in the competition, and Madeline Painter of Grade 6, South Middle School, Illinois, Chicago, USA, who won the Grade 4 to 6 Category. They each win a signed copy of one of my books sent to their school for presenation in assembly. Well done girls!
Go to my Clever Competitions Page right away to read all the fantastic place-winning entries!
The deadline’s on Sunday!
October 26, 2018 at 1:06 pm | Posted in children's literacy, Clever Competitions, Poetry competitions for children | Leave a commentTags: Perfect Pet Poem Competition, Sarah Brennan's Clever Competitions, The Tale of Desmond Dog
Woof! You have just two days to go to send in your poem in my Perfect Pet Poem Competition! So if you haven’t sent it yours yet, take a look at all the information and rules here, and GET WRITING!!!
Beware!! Just 11 days left in my Perfect Pet Poem Competition for Primary School kids!
October 17, 2018 at 3:14 pm | Posted in Clever Competitions, Poetry competitions for children, Writing competitions for kids | Leave a commentTags: Ching Shih, Perfect Pet Poem Competition, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog
Ching Shih, the real-life pirate queen in my story The Tale of Desmond Dog, would like to warn you that you have just 11 days left to enter your Perfect Pet Poem in my latest Clever Competition! The deadline is 28 October – and you can enter from anywhere in the world! But beware! If you miss the deadline, Ching Shih might just chop your ears off!! Read all the details of the competition here!
A memorable visit to QSI Zhuhai!
September 29, 2018 at 11:00 am | Posted in QSI Zhuhai, Story Readings, workshops, Zhuhai schools | Leave a commentTags: Chinese history, Chinese Zodiac, How to Become a Great Writer, How to Create Bookworms in the Digital Age, How to Publish a Picture Book, Introduction to Poetry Workshop, Nailing the Narrative Curve, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog, The Tale of Pin Yin Panda
Thank you so much to fabulous primary school teacher Heather Domenico, for hosting me for two very busy days at QSI in Zhuhai on Wednesday and Thursday this last week! We had sessions for absolutely everyone from ages 2 to 18, as well as an after-school talk to the mums and dads!
The littlest ones met my crew of stuffed toys in a funny re-enactment of Lord Buddha’s Race – and proved they were extremely good at counting up to 12!
The 5 to 6 year olds proved they were old hands at the Chinese Zodiac when I read them The Tale of Pin Yin Panda while the 7 to 8 year olds became fearsome pirates as they heard The Tale of Desmond Dog!
The 9 to 11 year olds learned all about How to Publish A Picture Book from Brilliant Idea to Final Product and even got a sneek peak at my final Chinese Calendar Tale for the Year of the Pig, which is currently in production!
After school on Wednesday, I talked to a lovely group of parents about How to Create Bookworms in the Digital Age. Here are just a few of them, with their kids!
And finally, the 12 to 18 year olds and I spent almost the whole of Thursday together, in three different workshops: How to Become a Good Writer, An Introduction to Poetry and, finally, Nailing the Narrative Curve, where we had tremendous fun writing a story plan for the tragic story of three teenagers caught in a love triangle…in a paradise entered through a school locker portal!
And in between I met some fabulous kids, parents and teachers when I signed the books they bought from my wonderful distributor, Aaron Tearne at Obido Educational Services! If anyone missed out on buying a book, you can still do so, with some great discounts for multiple purchases here!
More photos to come!
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
![20180816_093331[1]](https://sarahbrennanblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/20180816_0933311.jpg?w=271&resize=271%2C132&h=132#038;h=132 "20180816_093331[1]")
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!
Friday: Hutchins School Visit!
May 30, 2018 at 9:33 am | Posted in Australian schools, Hobart, The Hutchins School, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Books about whales, Chinese history, National Simultaneous Story Time, Storm Whale, The Chinese Calendar Tales, The Tale of Desmond Dog
My Hobart visit kicked off with a fabulous morning with the boys at The Hutchins Junior School! It just happened to be National Simultaneous Story Time that very morning, so we started off with a fabulous story from the Headmaster, Dr Rob McEwen! He was a spectacular story-reader! Then the Grade 1 to 3 boys listened to me reading Storm Whale and simply didn’t stop asking questions and making some great observations about whales afterwards! Before my second session, the Grade 4 to 6 boys and I listened to the Deputy Principal Alan Jones (wearing a very interesting hat!) reading yet another story to the kids, after which I introduced them to the evil pirate queen Ching Shih and some fabulous Chinese history with The Tale of Desmond Dog! Many thanks to my dear friend, and head librarian, Kate Read, for inviting me again! More photos to come!
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