World Book Week: Final Day: Pilgrims' School, Winchester

Into the cloistral charms of Winchester for my final talk at Pilgrims' Winchester, a beautiful school set right near to the Cathedral. One of its halls has an ancient timbered ceiling - you can well believe that Chaucerian monks, friars, merchants and other salty characters quaffed, prayed and quarrelled beneath those heavy, cobwebbed beams.

The entrance hall to the school has many sporting mementos - footballs and bats signed by sporting heroes; outside boys played in the cool sunlight.

The boys listened to two readings from The Liberators - my stalwart choice is the opening chapter, with its cliffhanger, deathly chase scenes and severed limbs; I also read to them the riot scene in Oxford Circus, when Strawbones Luther-Ross causes mayhem in the middle of the road. The questions were acute and perceptive - even the ones about squirrels. One boy asked me if I'd ever dreamed myself into one of my books - that really caught my imagination. I'm going to try tonight... it would be wonderful, would it not?

I left Pilgrims feeling extraordinarily happy - and also with wistful memories of my old school, Dorset House, which was the inspiration for my first novel, The Other Book.

Farewell to World Book Week then... until next year.

(Sort of) World Book Day: A Brace of Philips: Philip Reeve and Philip Womack in Conversation

This morning a pair of Philips descended upon the Rose Theatre in Kingston: both, incidentally, wearing tweed overcoats. One was the excellent Philip Reeve, whose 'Mortal Engines', 'Larklight' and other books have given me (and many tens of thousands of others) enormous pleasure over the past decade or so; the other was me. Philip seems to be a good name for a children's writer - there's some other chap called, what was it, Pullman or something, isn't there?

We talked (after I'd eaten an enormous croissant) in front of about 600 children, about the World Book Day Flipbook written specially by Mr Reeve and children's writer Chris Priestley. Philip Reeve's is called Traction City, and is set in the same world as his Mortal Engines series; Chris Priestley's is called Teacher's Tales of Terror. We read from each of the books (including mine), and then discussed the nature of children's writing, of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the mechanics of being a writer. We discovered that severed hands seemed to be key - they feature heavily in Mr Reeve's 'Traction City', and rather prominently in the first chapter of The Liberators. The children were delightful - they listened spellbound to Mr Reeve, and were extremely tickled (ghoulishly) by the Priestley.

Organised by Kingston Libraries, it was a thoroughly enjoyable event, and very inspiring to see so many children talking and thinking about books and writing. Three huzzahs for World Book Day (Sort of)! Now, I say sort of because in typically English fashion, 'World' Book day isn't actually today, it's some time next month; it's just that last year it fell on Easter so the powers that be - in the UK - decided to move it. So it's Sort of World Book Day, but even so. Hurrah again!

World Book Week: St Teresa's, Reading

The last time I was due to give a reading at St Teresas, the world got in the way - most of the county was snowed in, and I stayed in London. As I said to the girls, I lacked a shovel, so I could hardly burrow my way in... So I was mightily pleased to make it down there today, when it couldn't have been more different: in the most brilliant rays of sunshine, for a belated talk and reading.

St Teresas sits on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere - it's a little bit like going back in time. The staff and pupils gave me an excellent welcome, and we had a very good discussion about The Liberators. I was pleased to see so many girls wanting to be writers or journalists - keep at it, is my advice. Thanks so much to all involved.

This Coming Thursday...

Click pic to enlarge...

World Book Week: Thomas' Clapham, Reading of The Liberators

It's WORLD BOOK WEEK. Huzzah! A week to celebrate books can only be a Good Thing (although I don't especially agree with the million book give away - but that's another question.)

A drizzly, dour start to the week, but a splendidly warm welcome from the pupils and staff of Thomas' Clapham. I almost didn't make it on time, as I relied on my GPS phone working - which of course it didn't, in the wilds of Clapham (chiz chiz); luckily I'd absent-mindedly looked at a map at breakfast and was able to use my knowledge of the stars to find the school, which is a large Victorian-gothic, gingerbread coloured mansion.

I chatted to the older years briefly, and read them the first chapter of The Liberators. There were some good questions from the floor ('is Rio Ferdinand your favourite footballer?' [to put this in context, he attended {accidentally} my launch party last year]).

All in all it was a fun beginning to what promises to be an extremely dervishing kind of week. I've got two more school talks, and an event with the fantastic Mr Philip Reeve in Richmond on Thursday. Long live The Liberators!