Sunday, 15 June 2025

Tyger Book Trailer!

I'm so excited that Tyger is coming to the US in July, published by Penguin Workshop - and Penguin have just shared the first book trailer they've made for it, featuring Dave McKean's stunning artwork from the book!  It's on Instagram, so please have a look there if you're on Instagram, and share it far and wide - here it is!

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Tuesday, 15 April 2025

TYGER USA!

Calling all American readers! I am beyond excited to announce that my new book TYGER will be published in the USA this July by Penguin Workshop!  It's already available for pre-order - you can find all the links on this publishers page for it - where you can also read an extract from Chapter One!


I'm delighted that it has the same cover art and interior illustrations by Dave McKean as the beautiful UK edition.  

And it has already received its first review – a wonderful starred review from ALA Booklist, who describe it as "an amazing fantasy that will change its readers"!  You can read it all on the Booklist website - and here's a screenshot:



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Friday, 7 March 2025

World Book Day 2025

Every year, I am amazed and inspired to see all the ways that people celebrate books on World Book Day!  It's a wonderful thing for a writer to see.  So here are some of the things that I've seen (and one of things that I've done!) this year...

Here's a very proud reading ambassador on her way to school!

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— Helen Smith (@wordsmith.bsky.social) March 6, 2025 at 8:28 AM


 

For World Book Day I honoured my mesopotamian feline hero Varjak Paw by @whatsfsaid.bsky.social And unlike Varjak I stayed indoors ...

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— Little Miss Contrary (@eimanmunro.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 4:33 PM

 



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Saturday, 8 February 2025

Author Visits: Ark Byron Primary Academy & Ark Priory Primary Academy

I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to the brilliant librarian Jennifer Ong and the fantastic booksellers of Waterstones Chiswick for organising my first school visit of the year – and to all the children and teachers at Ark Byron and Ark Priory Primary Academies for the wonderful welcome they gave me when I visited them last week!

I had the pleasure of talking to Years 6, 5 and 4 in both schools about reading and writing and books.  It was amazing to see that a lot of them had already read one or more of my books, from Varjak Paw to Tyger.  They were clearly fantastic readers, and I was very impressed at the range of reading they had done - a tribute to the work of their wonderful school librarian!

It was such an inspiring thing for a writer to see so much enthusiasm for books – and there were many more questions than we had time to answer on the day.  So if anyone who was at the visit has a question they would still like to ask, just leave me a comment below!

It was also a total pleasure to sign books for everyone who had ordered one, via the brilliant Waterstones booksellers.  So thank you to them again for organising this visit – and HAPPY READING to everyone at Ark Byron and Ark Priory!  




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Thursday, 19 December 2024

Author Visits: Tyndale Community School

I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to Sara Shabir, Hannah Dawson, and all the brilliant Year 6s, 5s & 4s I met when I visited Tyndale Community School this week!

Year 6 had just finished reading Tyger that morning, and I walked into their classrooms to be greeted by a thunderous round of applause – one of the nicest receptions I've ever received at a school!  I was then shown some of the fantastic work they'd been doing with the book.

There was wonderful artwork and writing of all sorts: Adam debating with himself whether to tell Zadie about the tyger; persuasive speeches to turn the mob on Sir Mortimer Maldehyde; and a brilliant account of using the power of imagination to become an oak tree!  


It was then a pleasure to talk to Years 6, 5 & 4 about reading, writing and books, and to answer lots of questions!  I even decided to read them a little bit from the latest draft of the new book I'm working on.  We didn't have enough time to answer all the questions, so if anyone from Tyndale would like to ask another question, just leave a comment in the box below. 


It was wonderful to end the day with a bookselling and signing session, where I signed books for everyone who wanted one – thanks to the brilliant Caper books for doing such a great job!  And huge thanks again to the wonderful teachers and children of Tyndale for doing such amazing work with Tyger, and for such a brilliant visit – my last of the year, and one of the very best!



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Thursday, 12 December 2024

Tyger art from Oundle School!

Last month, thanks to brilliant librarian Leigh Giurlando, I had the pleasure of visiting Oundle School, where Tyger had been chosen as this year's book for the Oundle Great Read.  As part of the Great Read, Year 7 & 8 students were asked to create Tyger book covers in their art class.  I loved the results so much, and thought they showed so much brilliant creativity, I just wanted to share a few of them here!









I'd just like to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all the children on their work – I could have filled this entire blog with their brilliant Tyger art, these are just a few examples!  And THANK YOU again to everyone at Oundle for reading Tyger, and doing such wonderful work with the book!

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Monday, 25 November 2024

Author Visits: Oundle School

I'd like to say a very big THANK YOU to the brilliant librarian Leigh Giurlando for inviting me to visit Oundle School – and to all the brilliant Year 7s and 8s I met when I visited them earlier this month!

I was incredibly honoured to learn that Tyger had been chosen as this year's book for the Oundle Great Read, where every Year 7 & 8 is given a particular book to read.  They then take part in a photo competition, showing themselves reading the book in unique locations around the world, as well as doing all sorts of activities around it in different departments. 

This was the winning picture.  I loved the way it conjured the ending of the book, with the return of the light after Midwinter Night, and the streaming of power from Adam and Zadie!  I was also blown away to see a picture that featured actual tigers in the background!  Here's a wonderful montage – you can see much more in this lovely blog on the school's website. 

     

As well as all this, the author of the Great Read book is invited to visit the school and talk about their books.  I loved talking with Years 7 and 8, and answering their fantastic questions – there were so many, and they were so thoughtful!  And it was then a total pleasure too to sign books for everyone at the end of the day.  So THANK YOU again to everyone involved for a fantastic visit, and for doing such amazing things with Tyger!


UPDATE: You can see some of the amazing artwork created by the students after the visit in this blog post!

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Friday, 8 November 2024

The Children's Bookshow

 I'd like to say a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to all the amazing children, teachers and librarians I met when I visited Coventry with The Children's Bookshow this week – and I'd like to thank everyone at The Children's Bookshow for inviting me to work with them, and for making this all possible!

The Children's Bookshow is a brilliant charity that works very hard to inspire children around the country with a love of reading and books.  They organise huge events where children from many schools come together to see writers and illustrators talking about their work.  Every child is then given a free copy of a book – and some of them then go on to do creative workshops in their classrooms!

So this year, I did an event at the Warwick Arts Centre attended by 500 children and their teachers, from schools around Coventry.  It's a fantastic theatre space, and I loved being able to talk to so many people at once about reading and writing and books – and then to hand out a copy of Tyger to every child who attended, thanks to the generosity of The Children's Bookshow!  

We then went on to do workshops at Cannon Park Primary, Spon Gate Primary, Newdigate Primary and Little Heath Primary.  I worked with the children through the process of having ideas for stories, writing first drafts, and then editing them, and they produced some fantastic pieces of writing!  

It was a total pleasure to do this, and the whole experience was one of the most exciting and inspiring experiences I've ever had as an author – so THANK YOU again to everyone who was part of it!



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Saturday, 15 June 2024

The Writing of Varjak Paw

This piece was written for the British Library's Discovering Children's Books website, and will hopefully be viewable there again soon.  
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I started writing Varjak Paw in January 1997, inspired by watching my own cat's adventures as he went out into the world for the first time.  Every time I begin a new book, I make a deal with myself: no-one else will ever see my first draft.  That way, I can be completely unselfconscious, safe in the knowledge that however bad it is, only I will ever know!  This is a vital part of my working process, so the earliest document I can share is the 2nd draft of Varjak Paw.  

2nd Draft

This is the first page of the 2nd draft, written in February 1997.  I always write by hand on early drafts, as I find it flows better that way.  At this stage, I imagined an opening in which Varjak climbs a curtain at home.  The only thing that remains from this scene in the published book is a reference on page 35: "even Varjak, who could sometimes make it half way up a curtain before Mother or Father shouted him down."  But some of the description found its way into the scene of Varjak climbing the wall in Chapter Five, which is the pivotal scene of the book.  So although this opening was deleted, the work wasn't wasted; it was all part of the process.  

8th Draft

As other parts of the book developed, the opening remained focused on curtain-climbing until the 8th draft, which was the first one I sent to publishers and agents.  This is the first page of that draft, which dates from late 1997.  By this stage, I was writing the book on my computer as a Word document, which I would then read through and edit on printouts.  

9th Draft

Varjak Paw was rejected by every publisher and agent I sent it to.  However, an agent gave me some very useful feedback on the 8th draft, as a result of which I rethought it, and went back to hand-writing the 9th draft as if it was the first draft all over again, to free myself to reconceive it.  This is the first page of that draft, written in March 1998.  It's a total mess, but this is the first version where you can glimpse the outlines of the opening as it ended up in the published book, so it was a crucial draft.

11th Draft

After three drafts of rebuilding the book from the ground up, I felt confident enough to send it out again.  This is the first page of the 11th draft, which dates from Autumn 1998.  It was another crucial one, because this was the draft that was read by my agent, Celia Catchpole, who took it on and showed it to my publisher and editor, David Fickling.  It was on the basis of this draft that he offered to publish Varjak Paw, while making it clear that he thought it could be improved.  Of course, he was right!

15th Draft

This is the opening of the 15th draft, written in July 2001.  David Fickling believes that you should keep working on a book for as long as it takes to make it as good as you possibly can.  So we had worked very hard on it, and it was getting closer to its final shape, now opening with Varjak's desire to go Outside.  But big things were still changing; it's interesting to see my note to myself to change 'Mum' and 'Dad' to 'Mother' and 'Father', establishing the tone of Varjak's life at home.  

16th Draft

Finally, in October 2001, I wrote a draft that opened with the Elder Paw telling a Jalal tale, as the published book does.  It had been a long, hard process of trial and error, and many things would still change on the 17th draft – but when I wrote the words "The Elder Paw was telling a story," I think I knew it would be hard for me to find a better opening for my book.  

Published



I continued to work on Varjak Paw until October 2002, bringing the total time I spent on it to almost 5 years.  The 17th draft was the last official draft, but it continued to change even after that, as it went through galleys and proofs, and as Dave McKean worked his magic on the text, transforming my Word document into the beautifully-illustrated book that was finally published in January 2003.  Everything had changed, yet the spark at the heart of the book remained the same: the adventures of a cat going out into the world for the first time.



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Friday, 8 March 2024

World Book Day 2024

Every year, I am blown away by all the amazing things that people do to celebrate books on World Book Day! I love it - it really is an incredible thing for a writer to see their books being celebrated in that way.  So here are some of the highlights I've seen this year...

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