chief minister's reading challenge visit

I had the great pleasure of visiting Rosary PS here in Canberra today, as part of my role as an Ambassador for the Chief Minister's Reading Challenge. What could be more fun than talking books, showing how books are made, celebrating books, sharing books, laughing about books, and reminding children how much fun they are (not to mention how they make their brains and hearts grow super huge).

Chief Minister's Reading Challenge 2017

The Chief Minister's Reading Challenge is a glorious literacy initiative in the ACT, and yesterday I had the great pleasure of visiting Maribyrnong Primary School in Canberra to chat to the kids about books, books, books--and how very much squirrels love books. These are smart kids. They agreed.

What a beautiful, warm welcome and what a clutch of bright, curious, book-loving kids (a sure sign there's some phenomenal teaching going on). Kids never, ever fail to astound and delight me with their knowledge and the way they think. It was wonderful to spend time with them, and it's great to see so many schools participating in the CMRC every year--from Canberra and our region. I love it when schools place literacy as such a high priority... it's a vital life skill, after all, and can really, truly change lives.

After a wonderful introduction, I took the kids through book type, genre and the book creation process.

I have this REALLY scary shark picture in this brilliant 3D book, which I try to scare the kids with. They never scare. They just laugh. It's so annoying.

This book, Metropolis, always elicits oohs and ahhs. It's 10 feet long. Who wouldn't ooh and ahh? Who wouldn't go bananas over books, in general? They are just that good.

Big thanks to Hannah and Jo from the CMRC for organising this visit, and for coming along. If you want to learn more about the Reading Challenge for your school, just click on the poster below. It's wonderful stuff.

Chief Minister's Reading Challenge - school visit

One of the great joys of being a children's author, is chatting with kids about story--and hopefully, just hopefully, having them fall in love with books.

In my role as an ambassador for the Chief Minister's Reading Challenge for 2016, I get to have that chance even more than I regularly do. I also get to visit brand new schools, like Charles Weston school in the far west of Canberra--a brand new, state-of-the-art school, with fabulous kids eager to learn and grow.

I talked to them about books--about writing books, illustrating books, reading books, loving books. I talked about how much fun books can be, and how important story is. The kids were so receptive and so curious. They giggled and commented and asked questions and threw themselves straight into the pages of the books I'd brought along, the very moment they could. Now--that's what we want.

One of my favourite moments was showing them a 3D story called Jim Curious. These three little poppets (below) donned their 3D glasses, only to be met with a rather ferocious shark! They loved it--and they were so brave! (Note the little one biting her nail!)