I’m extremely happy to say that Alphonse, there’s Mud on the Ceiling! has been shortlisted for Oscar’s Book Prize! The prize celebrates the best pre-school book of the year and is awarded in memory of Oscar Ashton; the winner will be announced on Monday 25th of May. There are five other brilliant books on the shortlist and you can read more about them, Oscar’s Book Prize and Oscar at www.oscarsbookprize.co.uk/.
I’m very happy that my picture book about a small monster learning to read, I Do Not Like Books Anymore! has been chosen by Empathy Lab for their 2020 Read for Empathy Collection, intended as “a diverse collection of books for primary and secondary children, all carefully selected by an expert panel to improve children’s empathy skills.” Founded in response to research suggesting that reading fiction can build our capacity for empathy, Empathy Lab describes empathic concern as “a powerful motivator for helping others, a force for social justice.” Whoop to that.
I loved making I Do Not Like Books Anymore! because the subject was so important to me – and because it’s always fun to spend time with Natalie and Alphonse. But I also felt quite a lot of anxiety about getting it right, and about how it would be received. Natalie’s struggles with reading, and the ways she and Alphonse find of reclaiming books and stories, were largely based on my own experiences as a child. Things I learnt as a Teaching Assistant and while working for an early-years education charity fed into the book too but I’m (obviously) no expert.
I think all that worrying about making A MASSIVE PEDAGOGICAL/DEVELOPMENTAL ERROR has made it extra-lovely that people have responded so positively to the story. The support of wonderful organisations like Empathy Lab and Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) means a lot – as do all the messages I’ve received from individual teachers, librarians and parents. I especially love it when children make their own books in response to the story, as Natalie and Alphonse do: like these ones shared by teacher @today_we_read on instagram or those I’ve been lucky enough to see develop at workshops and events (below is a very excellent book being created at Heffers in Cambridge in 2018).
There are foldable books to download and fill with stories on my Free stuff page, based on the titles of Natalie and Alphonse’s books – but I’m just as excited if children’s stories have nothing to do with Tomato And The Chair or The Magic Pigeon (although I would love to find out what happens in Whale Goes Shopping).
My third picturebook starring small monsters Natalie and Alphonse is available now from Walker Books!
Even if I get to keep making books for years and years and years, I can’t imagine that receiving advance copies of a new book will ever stop being REALLY EXCITING. This is my third Natalie and Alphonse story: it’s about mud and sticks, living in a flat in the city and being wild. The best place to hear more about the book is probably on my Instagram.
ALPHONSE, THERE’S MUD ON THE CEILING! will be published by Walker Books UK on the 6th of June. Links to editions in other languages will be on the Books page.
On Saturday 30th June, Matt Berry read my second book, ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO! on CBeebies Bedtime Stories and it was dead exciting and also FUNNY. You can find it on BBC iPlayer for a few weeks, and here’s a little teaser that CBeebies tweeted:
Can you hear us Matt Berry? Matt, can you hear us? ?
Get ready for his #BedtimeStory ?????
He reads Alphonse, That Is Not Ok to Do! tonight at 6:50pm ?@Deenface@porksmith pic.twitter.com/H3GPtmQCI9
— CBeebies Grown-Ups (@CBeebiesHQ) June 30, 2018
So that clears up one of the questions raised by the endpapers of my new Natalie and Alphonse book, I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE!
But still, where ARE all the peas? And also, what is it with peas and telly in these books? They always seem to come together – this is from ALPHONSE, THAT IS NOT OK TO DO!
