Reeve & McIntyre at the British School of Brussels
This week Reeve & McIntyre took the Eurostar to take part in this year's Book Festival hosted by the British School of Brussels. It was mega! There were visiting authors and artists all week, but I got to spend time with this group: Sarah Crossan, Karl Nova, Momoko Abe, Philip Reeve and Julian Sedgwick. Julian referred to it as 'Author Camp', and while we weren't roughing it in any way (no sleeping bags or having to light fires with wet sticks), it really was a lot of fun getting to hang out with our colleagues all together!
I was invited to the Book Festival before Covid lockdown, and Ceri Seymour took over organising my visit, but it only happened in 2021 as a Zoom event, so I was excited to meet everyone at last and do real events in person! Thanks for all your hard work making this happen, Ceri and team!
We were welcomed in the school library with lots of lovely drawings and posters the children had made. (Hey, look, it's us!)
The school setup was brilliant, really good venues where Philip and I were able to speak to the whole range of primary (and some secondary) students. Here's Philip giving a talk about his books, including some of his Mortal Engines drawings and news about his latest Utterly Dark books.
Usually at book festivals I don't get enough time to see other authors' events, so I was very pleased to be able to see Philip's talk and also one to the oldest students by Sarah Crossan, talking in a very interactive way about poetry and why it's so relevant to us now.
Sarah was very brave! I find it much easier talking to the little ones, because they're absolutely brimming with ideas and laugh like drains if I draw something silly. They loved Dinosaur Firefighters and Dinosaur Police and we had a good time talking about a made-up world where there are pizzas and schools and fire stations, all populated by dinosaurs (and the occasional mouse or worm or giraffe, etc).
We loved seeing all the posters in the library, some of them were very detailed!
I think I ought to take some style tips from this one:
It was great seeing them so familiar with all of our books!
Love the patterns on this Grumpycorn poster:
"I want to have a breakfast with you, because I would like to know more about how you became an author and illustrator." And we did indeed get to have breakfast together!
Thrilled to see Max and Kevin the Roly-Poly Flying Pony putting in an appearance!
I love this picture book by Momoko Abe, When the Sun Goes Home. Especially the bit where the sun gets tired of being cheerful all the time: 'Smiling was just too hard.' The sun is very relieved to be tucked up in clouds sometimes, so it can have a little rest!
And here's Momoko in our break room, showing some of her sketchbook for another book she's been working on:
Selfie with Sarah Crossan! Sarah brought a little safe with her, that she uses to lock up her mobile phone so she can get work done. That made a lot of sense!
I watch Karl Nova host a Poetry Slam with the older students in a great outdoor venue, sort of like a fire pit (but the fire of poetry! Not an actual fire). Anyway, Karl was definitely on fire, it was great to meet him. You can see a video, 'Belgian Waffles', that he made about the event here on Twitter or over here on YouTube!
And I hadn't seen Julian Sedgwick since a comics event absolutely ages ago, so it was also great to catch up! Apparently he used to juggle knives in his school event (but I'm kind of glad for his sake that he's stopped!).
Here's Learning Assistant Sarah Eykholt, who spent so much time looking after us and making sure we got to the right place. Thanks for being so organised and helpful, Sarah!!
It took a whole team to run this amazing Book Festival, and it was a wonder to behold! Big thanks to everyone who took part!
And thanks for your support, Primary Head Neil Ringrose!
Here's a group photo from @bsb_libraries on Instagram. Spot my husband Stuart, and Sarah Reeve, too! Philip and I did a big Adventuremice assembly and I didn't manage to get a photo of that, but if anyone from the school is looking for further free resources, they can find them at Adventuremice.com.
Stuart Pyle, Sarah Reeve, Julian Sedgwick, Sarah McIntyre, Philip Reeve, Sarah Crossan, Momoko Abe
I'd been to Brussels quite a few times, but the school's based in Tervuren, a town just east of Brussels, and it was fun exploring new turf. Philip and I loved this Art Monkey niche by sculptor Tom Frantzen. There was also an amazing Jazz Animal fountain on the roundabout by the school (but I didn't manage to get a photo of that.)
We stayed on an extra couple nights with Stuart and Sarah R, so we had a full day with our local friend Mags to visit the Waterloo Battlefield Museum (which Stuart and I had also never visited).
We skipped paying extra for the ABBA exhibition, but we did climb the 226 steps up to the Butte du Lion, a steep hill built to commemorate the famous 1815 battle. Down below it, you can see the rotunda constructed to house a famous Panorama painted by French artist Louis Dumoulin in 1912, with 14 canvas panels sewn together to create a cylinder approximately 360 feet in circumference and 39 feet high.
The Panorama is Very Impressive!! I recall briefly studying it in a European Landscape class at university, it was a novel way to make people feel like they were really inside a landscape. Early IMAX, you could say. But it's still amazing, thinking how much work Dumoulin's team did to create all these different scenes all together on such a large scale. Philip's surveying the battlefield:
The field was famously muddy for the battle (and 'Waterloo' means 'wet field'), so I took the precaution of wearing my wellies... which was possibly rubbing in Wellington's victory just a bit. (Bit of trivia: did you know British children's book author Philip Womack's uncle is the current Duke of Wellington?)
Group battlefield photo!
Just before you leave the rotunda, you can pop through a little door to see the undercarriage of the whole Panorama construction, which is pretty cool:
And then an exhibition, where the hats are VERY cool. And look at the embroidery on those collars.
We walked about 15 minutes across the field to see Hougoumont Farm, an important site in the battle, where the allied troops turned it into a successful bastion against Napoleon's army. It was kept from falling into total ruin in 2013, but it's still a pretty small place, and hard to imagine it being such a strategic site of defence!
I loved the shape of the chapel in the middle, and drew a picture of it on the Eurostar going back home.
Thanks to Mags and Manoëlle for putting us up the last two nights, with fresh Sunday croissants! And thanks again to the whole British School of Brussels team for hosting us, we had a great time, felt so encouraged by the students, and hopefully left them buzzing with creativity!
I was invited to the Book Festival before Covid lockdown, and Ceri Seymour took over organising my visit, but it only happened in 2021 as a Zoom event, so I was excited to meet everyone at last and do real events in person! Thanks for all your hard work making this happen, Ceri and team!
We were welcomed in the school library with lots of lovely drawings and posters the children had made. (Hey, look, it's us!)
The school setup was brilliant, really good venues where Philip and I were able to speak to the whole range of primary (and some secondary) students. Here's Philip giving a talk about his books, including some of his Mortal Engines drawings and news about his latest Utterly Dark books.
Usually at book festivals I don't get enough time to see other authors' events, so I was very pleased to be able to see Philip's talk and also one to the oldest students by Sarah Crossan, talking in a very interactive way about poetry and why it's so relevant to us now.
Sarah was very brave! I find it much easier talking to the little ones, because they're absolutely brimming with ideas and laugh like drains if I draw something silly. They loved Dinosaur Firefighters and Dinosaur Police and we had a good time talking about a made-up world where there are pizzas and schools and fire stations, all populated by dinosaurs (and the occasional mouse or worm or giraffe, etc).
We loved seeing all the posters in the library, some of them were very detailed!
I think I ought to take some style tips from this one:
It was great seeing them so familiar with all of our books!
Love the patterns on this Grumpycorn poster:
"I want to have a breakfast with you, because I would like to know more about how you became an author and illustrator." And we did indeed get to have breakfast together!
Thrilled to see Max and Kevin the Roly-Poly Flying Pony putting in an appearance!
I love this picture book by Momoko Abe, When the Sun Goes Home. Especially the bit where the sun gets tired of being cheerful all the time: 'Smiling was just too hard.' The sun is very relieved to be tucked up in clouds sometimes, so it can have a little rest!
And here's Momoko in our break room, showing some of her sketchbook for another book she's been working on:
Selfie with Sarah Crossan! Sarah brought a little safe with her, that she uses to lock up her mobile phone so she can get work done. That made a lot of sense!
I watch Karl Nova host a Poetry Slam with the older students in a great outdoor venue, sort of like a fire pit (but the fire of poetry! Not an actual fire). Anyway, Karl was definitely on fire, it was great to meet him. You can see a video, 'Belgian Waffles', that he made about the event here on Twitter or over here on YouTube!
And I hadn't seen Julian Sedgwick since a comics event absolutely ages ago, so it was also great to catch up! Apparently he used to juggle knives in his school event (but I'm kind of glad for his sake that he's stopped!).
Here's Learning Assistant Sarah Eykholt, who spent so much time looking after us and making sure we got to the right place. Thanks for being so organised and helpful, Sarah!!
It took a whole team to run this amazing Book Festival, and it was a wonder to behold! Big thanks to everyone who took part!
And thanks for your support, Primary Head Neil Ringrose!
Here's a group photo from @bsb_libraries on Instagram. Spot my husband Stuart, and Sarah Reeve, too! Philip and I did a big Adventuremice assembly and I didn't manage to get a photo of that, but if anyone from the school is looking for further free resources, they can find them at Adventuremice.com.
Stuart Pyle, Sarah Reeve, Julian Sedgwick, Sarah McIntyre, Philip Reeve, Sarah Crossan, Momoko Abe
I'd been to Brussels quite a few times, but the school's based in Tervuren, a town just east of Brussels, and it was fun exploring new turf. Philip and I loved this Art Monkey niche by sculptor Tom Frantzen. There was also an amazing Jazz Animal fountain on the roundabout by the school (but I didn't manage to get a photo of that.)
We stayed on an extra couple nights with Stuart and Sarah R, so we had a full day with our local friend Mags to visit the Waterloo Battlefield Museum (which Stuart and I had also never visited).
We skipped paying extra for the ABBA exhibition, but we did climb the 226 steps up to the Butte du Lion, a steep hill built to commemorate the famous 1815 battle. Down below it, you can see the rotunda constructed to house a famous Panorama painted by French artist Louis Dumoulin in 1912, with 14 canvas panels sewn together to create a cylinder approximately 360 feet in circumference and 39 feet high.
The Panorama is Very Impressive!! I recall briefly studying it in a European Landscape class at university, it was a novel way to make people feel like they were really inside a landscape. Early IMAX, you could say. But it's still amazing, thinking how much work Dumoulin's team did to create all these different scenes all together on such a large scale. Philip's surveying the battlefield:
The field was famously muddy for the battle (and 'Waterloo' means 'wet field'), so I took the precaution of wearing my wellies... which was possibly rubbing in Wellington's victory just a bit. (Bit of trivia: did you know British children's book author Philip Womack's uncle is the current Duke of Wellington?)
Group battlefield photo!
Just before you leave the rotunda, you can pop through a little door to see the undercarriage of the whole Panorama construction, which is pretty cool:
And then an exhibition, where the hats are VERY cool. And look at the embroidery on those collars.
We walked about 15 minutes across the field to see Hougoumont Farm, an important site in the battle, where the allied troops turned it into a successful bastion against Napoleon's army. It was kept from falling into total ruin in 2013, but it's still a pretty small place, and hard to imagine it being such a strategic site of defence!
I loved the shape of the chapel in the middle, and drew a picture of it on the Eurostar going back home.
Thanks to Mags and Manoëlle for putting us up the last two nights, with fresh Sunday croissants! And thanks again to the whole British School of Brussels team for hosting us, we had a great time, felt so encouraged by the students, and hopefully left them buzzing with creativity!