Two weeks. Five days. Ten schools. Ten train journeys. Three hotels. Five bookstores. And six bunbreaks (at a conservative estimate). The Jolly Foul Play schools tour was the most exciting, exhausting and amazing thing I’ve ever done as an author.
I visited Milton Keynes, Hampton, Oxfordshire, Norwich and Streatham, and I had five incredible days of school visits. Below are a selection of my favourite pictures from the events – there are almost too many to share!
And now, the credits. I might have been the only person giving the author talks, but I couldn’t possibly have got to my destinations, set up the rooms or sold the books without the help of an enormous team of people. They fed me, drove me, cheered me on and generally supported me, and I’m enormously grateful. So let’s hear it for …
My mastermind of a publicist, Harriet Venn, who planned out the whole trip.
My chaperones from my publisher, Harriet, Nat, Sophia and Annie. Authors on tour need people to tell them where to go and what to do, and also to write names on post-it notes so when they’re signing the hundredth copy of their book, they spell the person’s name right.
The five bookshops and their representatives. Nikki from Waterstones Milton Keynes, Mel from Little Star Write (and Kew Books, who supplied her), Rebecca and Alex from Blackwell’s Oxford, Debbie and Louisa from Waterstones Norwich and Tamara and Tracy from Tales on Moon Lane. There wouldn’t have been any book sales without them, and they found all of the schools we visited.
The schools themselves, and the teachers who looked after me! Shenley Brook End Secondary School, Two Mile Ash School, Hampton Junior School, Trafalgar Junior School, Burford School, Henry Box School, Heartsease Primary Academy, Norwich High School for Girls, Streatham and Clapham Prep School and Corpus Christi Catholic School. I met so many brilliant students, who asked fantastic questions and had wonderful ideas. Thank you for being such excellent audiences!
And that’s it. I had a wonderful time – now I’m going to take a rest, before we begin planning the tour for book 5 …
