Friday 25 February 2011

Come and Meet Award Winning Children's Author, Barbara Mitchelhill...

I've got a grandson called Damian so when I spotted some Damian Drooth, Supersleuth books, I just had to read them.
I enjoyed them so much I kept a look out for new titles from Barbara - her thrillers for 8-12 year olds are great, too, and Storm Runners won The Solihull Children's Book Award.
Dangerous Diamonds was nominated for The Stockport Children's Book Award 2010 (I lived in Stockport for years) and The West Sussex Book Award 2011.

The third coincidence was when I heard about Barbara's latest book: Run Rabbit Run


It's set in WW2 and I'm about to send out a proposal of a book for 8-10s set at that time. (I was more than slightly worried at first but, luckily, my storyline and theme is completely different.)
Run Rabbit Run begins in Rochdale and, although it was a long time after WW2, I lived and worked in Rochdale for a few year; Barbara also lived in Rochdale at one time but not when I was there.
Anyway, what with loving Barbara's books - and the coincidences - I thought it would be great to have her as a guest on my blog.

And here she is...


What's more, Barbara is willing to answer your questions.
Barbara, my questions are, "What made you write a book set in WW2?" and "Did you surround yourself with items from that era while you were writing Run Rabbit Run?"

Go and have a look around Barabara's website: http://www.barbaramitchelhill.com/ to see all the books she's written then ask your questions in the Comments section for this post.
Oh, and Barbara's offering a signed copy of Run Rabbit Run as a prize. On March 4th, official publication day, the names of those who've asked a question (or questions) will go in a hat and Barbara will get her dog, Ella, to paw out a name.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

We Stopped the Cow Factory Farm... We WON!!!!!!

Just had an e-mail from 38 degrees!
Last week, the business behind plans to build the UK's first US-style cow factory farm cancelled their plans.

Isn't that great news!
Go to their website www.38degrees.org.uk or see their facebook page to read more.

In other news... Keep a look out for an award winning children's author visiting this blog soon...