Do you remember all those little mouse drawings I made during Lockdown? I so enjoyed getting out my model ships and painting these characters, who were going on the sorts of big adventures that I couldn't go on at the time. Their tiny bravery gave me a sense of purpose and hope and I fell very much in love with them.


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Who says you have to be physically present to run around the world's biggest children's book fair in Bologna? My Reeve & McIntyre co-author Philip Reeve got invited out by his Mortal Engines publishers, Scholastic UK, while I stayed back in London to work and recoup from an op. But I still really, really wanted to go. So Philip took a Mini Me along ( Read more... )

So Philip Reeve is my undercover agent at Bologna Children's Book Fair (actually no, he's being hosted by Scholastic to promote his Mortal Engines and Fever Crumb books). But he's just spotted our book coming out this September, The Legend of Kevin, at the Oxford University Press stand! Yay!


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Right now in children's book world, it's all happening in Bologna! Publishers and rights teams from all around the world have gathered in the vast Italian conference centre/warehouse for the Bologna Children's Book Fair to buy and sell the rights to publish each other's books in different languages. Britain is quite a small country, so if British ( Read more... )

I wasn't able to go to the Bologna Children's Book Fair this year, but news is still coming in! Mark A. Chambers tweeted this picture of the Oxford University Press stand, with its big Cakes in Space poster:


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If you work in children's books, you'll know that everyone's gearing up like mad for the Bologna Children's Book Fair: designers are shrieking and running about with cut-up bits of paper (ARGHHH!!!!); rights people are trying to find little pockets of calm to make phone calls to Canada, Korea (SHHHH!!); Bologna cafe owners are making up extra ( Read more... )

** Here's Bologna Blog Part 1 if you missed it!** There's something I've not been allowed to tell you about! I've been working on a secret picture book for Scholastic UK that I drew AND wrote myself! I think Scholastic didn't want me to talk about it just in case it bumped someone else forward into presenting a book on a similar topic at the fair. ( Read more... )

On Sunday, the crew of Oxford University Press, Philip Reeve and I donned our nautical frocks, sailor hats and seawigs and headed off to Italy for the Bologna Children's Book Fair! Here's the picture I drew of us on the plane, while all the editors and agents in the seats around us frantically read through manuscripts:


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Soon I'm off to the Bologna Children's Book Fair! Here's the catalogue cover I designed for Oxford University Press. Doesn't it look lovely and Seawig-ish?


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Hello! If you haven't yet worked it out from Twitter, the Bologna Book Fair is rumbling along right now, as I type! It's the biggest children's book event of the year, when more people than you can count all gather to buy and sell foreign rights to publish every picture book you can imagine. I went one year, the fair was amazing, and so was the ( Read more... )