Tag: writing

  • I’m working with Michael Morpurgo again!

    Twenty nine years ago, I illustrated a book for an up and coming author called Michael Morpurgo. He’s done quite well for himself since! The book was Mossop’s last Chance, a sad story about a farm cat that was past his expiry date. Fiona Kenshole, my editor at A&C Black, had a vision that she…

  • Questions for a Children’s Author

    I visited St Paul’s CofE Primary School in Gloucester last week and some of the children still had questions to ask when our time was up. I asked their teacher Mrs Bevan, to send me an email with the questions I hadn’t answered, and promised to make a video for her and her class 5.…

  • Full Stop. Comma, new Paragraph – all you need to write anything.

    Sometimes, when I hear of the complicated grammar that primary children have to learn, I want to cry. The grammar that the curriculum requires them to learn is not to help them read or write, but to help academic examiners tick boxes. Reading and marking a piece of writing is a difficult and subjective process. It…