CBCA Lunch with the Stars - Newcastle

Photo: CBCA NSW Branch Inc. Newcastle Sub-branch - Lunch with the Stars Booklet Cover

What a day we had yesterday!

The CBCA NSW Branch Inc. Newcastle Sub-branch hosted its third annual 

Lunch with the Stars

A committee of eight local CBCA members spend the last 6 months planning, discussing and organising this year's event. It's a mammoth task to pull together an event like this but it's all worth it once the kids enter the room and fill it with an overwhelming atmosphere of excitement and anticipation.

Thanks to: Kirrili (chief co-ordinator), Jodie, Ruth, Julie, Gwynne, Amanda, Lillian and myself. 

It would never have happened without this team.

Our local children's literature community is such a dedicated bunch when it comes to supporting our local CBCA branch. They jumped on board once again and gave us an entire day to be part of this event.

Photo: Lynn Jenkins, Liz Anelli, Renee Price, Katrina McKelvey, Ant Wood, Oliver Phommavanh, Karen Hughes, Deb Kelly, Paul Russell, Gwynne Jones, Lizzie Wilcock, Kirrili Lonergan, Jenny Blackford and Lillian Webb.

Thanks to our stars: Gwynne Jones, Deb Kelly, Kirrili Lonergan, Liz Anelli, Paul Russell, Oliver Phommavanh (special guest), Lizzie Wilcock, Lynn Jenkins, Anthony Wood, Lillian Webb, Jenny Blackford, and Karen Hughes. We missed you Jess Black - hope you feel better soon :)

Schools came from everywhere to join in the festivities with over 100 children having lunch and a chat with these 14 amazing local authors and illustrators. The kids decorated their tables so wonderfully - such a creative bunch! Check out the photos below.

Thanks to our schools: Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College, Ashtonfield PS, New Lambton PS, Edgeworth Heights PS, Tanilba Bay PS, St Therese's Primary - New Lambton, Kahibah PS, Belair PS, Our Lady of Lourdes Primary - Tarro, Tarro PS, Shortland PS, Waratah West PS, 

and Beresfield PS.

Photos: Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College - Jess Black, Katrina McKelvey, and Renee Price 

(long story as to why they had three stars!)

Photo: Waratah West PS - Jenny Blackford

Photo: St There's Primary, New Lambton - Paul Russell

Photo: Shortland PS - Lillian Webb

Photo: New Lambton PS - Deb Kelly (First Place)

Photo: Belair PS - Lizzie Wilcock

Photo: Our Lady of Lourdes Primary, Tarro - Lynn Jenkins

Photo: Edgeworth Heights PS - Kirrili Lonergan

Photo: Kahibah PS - Oliver Phommavanh

Photo: Tarro PS - Ant Wood

Photo: Tanilba Bay PS - Liz Anelli

Photo: Ashtonfield PS - Gwynne Jones

Photo: Beresfield PS - Karen Hughes

The unforgettable Oliver Phommavanh, our special guest, entertained the room 

with amazing stories and funny jokes. 

Thanks Oliver!

 

This event was impossible without financial support from our wonderful sponsors. We had schools sponsored who would otherwise have never been able to participate. I heard whispers these children went home after having the best day of their lives - happy days!

Newcastle Region Libraries sponsored several schools and gave a free, signed copy of one of Oliver's books to every child who attended. Thanks to Oliver who arrived super early to sign every single copy (over 100!).

Newcastle and Charlestown Toyota also sponsored several schools who would have otherwise not been able to attend.

MacLean's Booksellers in Hamilton always support our local CBCA events with book donations. Amanda also set up an amazing pop-up bookshop full to the brim with books from 

our participating stars for our attending schools to buy.

Beresfield Bowling Club supplied the venue and set up the room perfectly to meet the needs 

of our event. Nothing was too hard. The staff were superb!

Thanks to: Newcastle Region Libraries, Newcastle and Charlestown Toyota, MacLean's Booksellers and Beresfield Bowling Club.

    

We were very lucky to have had two beautiful volunteers on the day to help troubleshoot 

and support our guests (and the MC! - me). They ran around all day making sure 

everything was just right. And they left last!

Thanks Linda and Robyn - you're angels :)

Our booklet took a while to pull together but it finally did thanks to a huge team of clever people. This booklet is aways a popular keepsake from the day and treasured by the kids for years.

Thanks to: Gwynne and Deb for the internal pages

Thanks to: Liz, Kirrili, Gwynne and Lillian for designing the cover

The illustration activity was fun and challenging indeed. I asked children to chose nouns, verbs and places to mash together for our resident illustrators, Kirrili, Liz, Lillian and Gwynne to draw on easels around the room as the kids followed along. Six rounds, one minute time restrains, and lots of pressure made this part of the day truly 'challenging'. It proved to all of us just how clever these illustrators really are no matter how hard I tried to make the suggestions. 

They had to draw:

~ a rooster scratching for fleas in a helicopter, 

~ a unicorn wrangling a crocodile at the zoo, 

~ a librarian knitting underwater, 

~ an alien parachuting in outer space, 

and 

~ an astronaut jumping on pogo stick on the back of a whale. 

Sounded hard to me but they nailed it!

Round six involved a 'Mr Squiggle' type activity and they named that too! Magic!

 

Photos: Gwynne Jones and Liz Anelli (photos by Karen Hughes)

Photos: Kirrili Lonergan and Lillian Webb (photos by Kirrili Lonergan)

Congratulations to the children and schools who won lucky seats prizes and 

book packs for best dressed tables.

It was an honour to have helped Kirrili and the committee provide such a unique and special event for our local community and to be the MC once again. The day ran smoothly thanks to everyone pitching in and helping when needed and for all the finer details being sorted before the day.

Kirrili did an amazing job co-ordinating this event this year (and for being a star, and for being my MC wingman). It's a hard task, especially when the odd thing goes wrong, but we handled it like pros and provided an experience these children will never forget. You're a star!

Thanks Kirrili!

It's now time for us to evaluate and recover. The feedback has been amazing so far and we've loved seeing all the photos popping up on social media. Hope you have too!

Book Week School Visits 2017 - Escape to Everywhere!

Photo: Maroubra Junction PS library display

Book Week is such an exciting time for schools, libraries, librarians, teachers, parents and kids as the nation stops to celebrate books, reading, storytelling, writing, and illustrating.

Book Week is also a highlight on the calendars of authors and illustrators all over.

So where did I escape to? I went everywhere!

School 1: DALE Christian School, Waratah

DALE Christian School, Waratah is a special needs school catering for children aged 11-17 years. Kirrili and I had the great pleasure of talking to all of their students last Friday, 18th August, the afternoon of the Book Week Awards announcement. They had had a Book Week parade earlier in the day and Kirrili and I got to finish their celebrations by stepping them through the complicated process of how picture books are produced. Kirrili then workshopped some drawing techniques. These students were so tuned in and really appreciated our presentation. Kirrili and I left on a high!

Photo 1: Drawing emotions

Photo 2: sketches from our upcoming book, 'Up To Something'

Photo 3: Thank you gift

School 2: Greta Public School

Greta Public School recently refurbished their tired library and held their grand opening on Monday, 21st August. Kirrili and I were VIP guests along with several others including the local mayor. Their library is now amazing! 

Library monitors were ready to answer questions and demonstrate how the new technology worked. Some old visitor books were on display. I was very excited to look at old editions of The School Magazine from 1962!

After the official opening and morning tea, Kirrili and I ran two workshops with some lucky children. But we think we were the lucky ones!

We were introduced to a new Promethean 'smart board' (we were told it's like a smart phone on wheels). Kirrili learnt how to use the digital whiteboard app on this smart board only 30 minutes before our presentation and then demonstrated on it during our workshop. How clever!

The children had completed a lot of work on our book before we arrived so we were chuffed to see some of their artwork displayed on the library walls. Magic!

Photo: Kirrili and I

Photo: Kirrili in action

Photo: Dandelions artwork

Photo: Kirrili using the digital whiteboard app - very tech savvy!

Thank you gift: handmade charm with dandelion seeds encased - very thoughtful

School 3: Fern Bay Public School

Fern Bay Public School is a small seaside school with less than 60 students from K - 6.

While Kirrili was presenting at another school, I visited Fern Bay PS on 

Wednesday, 23rd August.

During my three sessions, we pulled my story apart and discussed the themes, we walked through the writing process (including rejections) and highlighted how important it is to edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite ... you get the picture ... until a story is just right.

Then I shared the process of submitting, finding an illustrator, the illustration process, and all the way to seeing the book in the shops or on library shelves.

This little school really appreciates books as they didn't have an onsite library until 2 weeks ago (YES - 2 weeks ago!) and the day I was there was their first library borrowing day.

It was an honour to be their first guest author in their brand new library and I'm sure they will adore every book they have after having barely any for so long. And now they also appreciate the process books go through to make it in their hands.

Photo: Here I am in action with some infants students

'We think you're DANDY and we're not lion :)' - super cute!

Photo 1: I adore my handmade welcome sign

Photo 2: School History sign

School 4: Maroubra Junction Public School

Photo: Welcome Sign - all these languages are spoken at MJPS 

A 4:30am get-up and a 5:15am leave to travel to Sydney was worth it once I met the 300 infants students of Maroubra Junction Public school on Thursday, 24th August. This was my last school visit for Book Week, 2017 and it finished with a bang!

Photo: Year 1 MJPS

The children were very engaged as I shared my publication journey with them and inspired them to never give up and keep reading and writing.

I was invited to visit their library and was blown away by how special their library space was. 

(Allisa, you are one super clever lady!) 

It was full of beautiful Book Week displays featuring some of their favourite shortlisted titles.

I was very honoured to be able to say I personally know or have met some of these clever book creators.

Photo: 'Gary' by Leila Rudge

Photo 1: 'Chip' by Kylie Howarth

Photo 2: 'Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers Third Grade' by Kate Temple, Jol Temple and John Foye

Photo: 'The Patchwork Bike' by Maxine Beneba Clarke and Van T Rudd 

(Van T Rudd is also the winner of the 2017 Crichton Award for a Debut Illustrator)

Photo: 'Nanny Loves' by Kylie Dunstan

Photo: 'Fabish' by Neridah McMullin and Andrew McLean

I presented three sessions to over 100 children each time and was amazed by the display of manners and enthusiasm for learning. It was a lovely way to end a very busy Book Week.

Thanks to The Children's Bookshop Speakers' Agency for co-ordinating this school visit.

Photo: Thank you gift: 'Maroubra on the Menu' - School Centenary Cook Book

Phew! Time for some rest and to catch up on some sleep. I hope you, your children, friends and family enjoyed Book Week celebrations wherever you were. My children's school is celebrating Book Week next week so it's now time to help my children organise their costumes. At least I have lots of ideas from my travels this week.