Wychwood ... Five Days to Go

Only five days to go now and still so much to share ... 

Having told you about a selection of authors and events for Saturday 1st June let me reveal a few more ...

Did I mention that Philip Ardagh will be there?  Well he will, hopefully, be reading from his hilarious and very popular Grunt series of books.  

His event is described as needing plenty of audience participation and all-round silliness which sounds just perfect to me!  Talking about how he writes, why he writes, where his ideas come from and even ... why he likes ducks?! Yes I would like to know more about this too ... this is certainly going to be one of the many highlights of the weekend.

I will be, hopefully, chatting with Petr Horacek too.  Petr is the author and illustrator of such charming books as Strawberries are Red and What is Black is White.

I hope to talk to him about his latest titles, the board books Honk Honk Ba Ba and Time for Bed.  You'll be able to read my report of this chat on the Blog and in the Armadillo Magazine after the festival of course.

Love - true?

So, it's Valentine's again.  The same day every year.  We are given a day on which to celebrate love.  Love for one another, family, friends, pets for all manner of people and things really.  The ones we love are treated in an extra special way every Valentine's day but what if those we love are not people or animals but things?

I am thinking of books of course.  I love books.  I know a few characters who love books too, most notable a little Dog created by Louise Yates.  There are books about love too - plenty of them!  However it is the facts and stories inside the books that I love, oh and perhaps just one or two covers and the feel of the book too.

So when I opened a parcel to find the wonderful Philip Ardagh's The Truth About Love (Macmillan) inside it I was intrigued   What would this book tell me?  Would I fall in love with it?  Would I learn anything I didn't know?  Would it make me laugh?  Would it inspire me?  So many questions for one little book to answer.  It did.  It does.

If you have every wondered why we use the heart as a symbol of love, why there are so many traditions and superstitions surrounding marriage and weddings what prunes could possibly have to do with love - see page 26 - its all to do with the stones predicting the profession of the man you will marry - then this is the book for you.  All the questions you never knew that you had about love and its varies traditions are covered and for a small, short book that is quite a lot of material!

This is a charming book, perfect for those in love at any age and brilliant for pub quiz answers too.  Wow your friends with some weird and wonderful facts about love and fall in love - with a book and with its quirky style.

Having thus fallen why not then turn to some stories about love?  As well as the afore mentioned Dog Love Books by Louise Yates (Random House) you could share with little ones the adorable The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring, illustrated by Alys Paterson (Bloomsbury).  This very special story is all about the very special shape of love and then for older readers C.J. Skuse's Dead Romantic (Chicken House) tells the story of Camille and Zoe, who, disparing of being able to find the perfect boy decide instead to make him...

Some great books to read, enjoy and above all else share with loved ones this Valentine's Day.