One of my Year 6 test readers, read part of my book 'Paper Magic' out loud to his little sister in Year 2. Then he gave it back before she found out how it ended.
Over the last week or so, Mr Peter's Year 2 class has been doing writing. He reads sections from classic children's literature then as a class have disected the writing to help the children improve their own writing and comprehension skills.
While Mr. Peter's was reading from the Hobbit, the above mentioned student commented, "You should read Mr. Doherty's book. It's better than this!" She then continued to bother him enough that he finally asked me if I would read my book to his class.
So I spent the afternoon talking about writing, and rewriting and how when you finally have a book you are happy with, how you go about trying to get it published. That's when the fun started. I read the first half of the book, did some magic along the way and helped the kids make paper frogs.
I have been booked for a return engagement tomorrow afternoon to finish the story. The first part of the story went down really well. Even some of the wriggly boys sat listening for a good forty-five minutes. I was impressed. I have a little bit of magic tucked up my sleeve for tomorrows reading. (When I finally get published, school visits are going to be my favourite part of the job).
I was a little embarrassed about being held up above Tolkien (certainly not my claim - but it made my day all the same).
I thought, to make my book just a little bit more like a 'proper' book, I'd throw together a sample book cover. It definitely needs work - doesn't capture the tone of the story yet - but here it is.
