Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

Oh what a lovely Launch!!

Phew is it busy at the moment!!! I’m so busy with lots of lovely school visits and book orders that I’m very late with my blog-posts! So, my lovely followers, you are going to receive quite a number today!

First and foremost, I want to tell you about last Saturday, and the wonderful launch of The Tale of Ping Pong Pig and our beautiful new Boxed Set of Chinese Calendar Tales at Bookazine Exchange Square! We had a fabulous crowd of fans there, old and new, including many old friends who had come to our launches at the very beginning of the series!

First we had speeches from Shonee Mirchandani of Bookazine, who with her sister Arti has hosted ALL my book launches ever since A Dirty Story back in 2004; then from my dear friend Jennie Orchard, who spoke about RoomtoRead, the wonderful children’s literacy charity for whom I am a very proud Writer Ambassador. 20% of the proceeds of sale at the launch is being donated by me and Bookazine to the RoomtoRead library in India that Bookazine is generously funding! You can find out more about RoomtoRead’s fantastic work in India here.

Then I was very pleased to talk about the series and all the wonderful people who have contributed so much to its success. First and foremost, that had to be Harry Harrison, our fabulous illustrator!

Then our designers e5 and printer KK Mok at Zhongtian Colour Printing HK Ltd, who sadly could not be with us.

Then Arti and Shonee of Bookazine of course!

Then my beautiful family – my daughters Bea and Annabel (who surprised me with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers so I cried :))

And my darling husband Philippe who has supported me in every way, through thick and thin, during the 13 years of writing and publishing the series. Here he is on the right with me, Jennie Orchard and Harry!

And last but never least, my fantastic fans, including kids, mums and dads, teachers and librarians, all over Hong Kong!

Next came my story reading of The Tale of Ping Pong Pig – our very last Tale in the series, out just in time for The Year of the Pig! The kids in the audience were such fun to read to, and they and their mums and dads enthusiastically joined in whenever poor little Ping Pong ran into trouble from her nemesis, the Minister of Most Important Things! Then Harry’s annual quiz for everyone from 2 to 102, with prizes of tiny pandas for the right answers…

And then a real treat! Harry showed everyone how he draws his characters…and then the kiddies joined in!

And finally, our traditional book signing, when it’s such a pleasure to meet our lovely fans!

My daughter Annabel got her annual finger signing from Harry and me of course!

It was such a happy, exciting and colourful event, and I’d like to give my warmest thanks again to Clemence Robine, who organised the event for Bookazine and who generously allowed me to borrow some of the photos on Bookazine’s FaceBook page. You can see more here!