Hot on the heels of being nominated for the Lancashire Fantastic Book Award, The Never-Ending Birthday is going to be published in French!
Sacre Bleu!
It's always so exciting to see one of my books in another language - especially when they re-design the whole cover! It's like seeing the finished book for the very first time all over again!
I LOVED the original cover (designed by Lilly Lazuli) with its towering toppling birthday cake, but I equally love the madcap French cover with all its little clues as to what's going to happen in the story! The story follow twins Max and Anni (or Mila and Max in the French version) as they have the worst birthday ever. As they gloomily blow out their birthday candles they simultaneously wish to redo their birthday - and they do! Over and over again!
I think both covers perfectly capture the chaos and fun of the story - Which do you prefer?
Ooh, I wonder if I'll go to France for any school visits? I love visiting schools, and last year this time I was visiting a school in Uzbekistan! That was an adventure and a half - especially when I nearly missed my flight home (accidentally of course 😉)
This year I was visiting schools in the UK for World Book week and - apart from getting some funny looks on the train (no idea why!) - I had a wonderful time!
I love World Book Week - as an author I spend most of my time on my own with just my laptop for company, so it's always a lot of fun to get out and actually meet lots of readers and make up stories together. The children's imagination, inventiveness and enthusiasm never fail to blow me away, and to see their love of reading is truly heartening. Thank you so much to all the children, teachers and librarians who made me feel so welcome! (And if you'd like me to visit your school, check out my school visit info by clicking here!)
Then hot on the heels of World Book Week was the London Book Fair! It's such an exciting place to be - the moment you walk in the door you feel the buzz of thousands of book-lovers and book-creators of all different kinds gathered in one building. They'd even created a lovely fake farm area complete with swings, hay-bale bean-bags, a river, and even a tractor!
There were fascinating industry talks, very interesting meetings with lovely publishers, and one of the best things was hanging out with my Mum (Elizabeth Dale) and sister (Jenny Jinks) who are both also children's authors! It was so exciting spotting our books on the different stands. Jenny and I even found a Bedtime Treasury we'd written together!
And I was thrilled to spot so many of my books on the Maverick Books spinner!
(though I was rather less thrilled to discover I'd dressed to match the carpet! 😆)
To top it all off, we were invited to the wonderful Maverick Books' 10 year anniversary party, where we mingled with even more lovely authors, illustrators, publishers and agents.
Children's publishing really is such a lovely friendly world that I feel very lucky to be a part of.
Happy reading! x
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