Thanks to Mrs Fitzgerald and all her third graders at Willard Elementary School in Concord, Massachusetts for kicking off my Virtual Tour of America with a wonderfully enthusiastic session! I was supposed to link up with the class via Skype for around 20 minutes to read from my Scream Street books and answer questions about the series – but, in the end, we ran to 45 minutes and then only stopped because it was time for everyone to go home!
If the other events on my US Tour turn out to be half as much fun as this one – I’m in for a treat!
What should have been a pleasant trip to the Lincoln Book Festival took a terrifying turn for the worse yesterday – when the monsters of Trapped By Monsters fame paraded four of their authors – myself included – in front of a baying audience to see which one would be devoured at the end of the event.
Watched by our gruesome guardian, Simon (don’t let the name fool you – he’s one of the meanest monsters of them all!), myself, Ali Sparkes, Sam Enthoven and Mark Robson were forced to take part in a series of humiliating games and activities – as you can see from these highly embarrassing images…
After an hour of this torture, the audience cast their vote – and chose Ali Sparkes to be the next item on the menu for one fortunate fiend (phew!) She’ll be back when she’s passed through the monster’s digestive system and emerged at the other end…
From mid-May 2010, I’ll be setting off on a virtual tour of the US. With the help of my US publisher, Candlewick Press, I aim to visit one school in each of the 50 states via Skype to read from my Scream Street books and answer questions from the pupils.
You can watch my progress on the new US Tour page. I’ll list each of the school visits as they happen – and slowly start to colour in the map as I go (the first event – in Concord, Massachusetts – is already booked in!) If you’d like YOUR school to be one of those I visit on the tour, just ask your teacher to email me at mail@tommydonbavand.com
I’ve got a long journey ahead of me, but I’m looking forward to each and every event on this exciting virtual adventure!
18 months after myself and seven other children’s authors were taken hostage by terrifying monsters – they’re making some of us perform for their entertainment once more. Mark Robson, Sam Enthoven, Ali Sparkes and I will be marched from our dark, damp caves next weekend and taken to Lincoln, where we will be forced to humiliate ourselves in front of an audience at the Lincoln Book Festival on Sunday 16th May.
Sadly, embarrassing authors isn’t enough for these heartless beasts for – at the end of the event – the audience will be made to vote to decide which one of us will be dragged back to the caves and EATEN!
So please, please come along if you can and vote for one of the other authors. Sam looks quite tasty, and Ali’s had enough luck lately, what with winning the Blue Peter Children’s Book Prize and all. I can’t go through a monster’s digestive system again.
Eagle-eyed visitors to this blog will recall that, back in March, I spent a week touring Inverclyde and East Dunbartonshire as part of the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour with the wonderful folk at Scottish Book Trust. I took my video camera on the road and made a short film about the week – which you can see here – but so did Chris and Heather from SBT.
Here are the highlights of the tour as seen through their lens…
Thanks to everyone at Seven Stories for a wonderful time today – it was like coming home again! For those who don’t know, I spent a year as writer-in-residence at the UK’s only centre for children’s books, and I can’t have done that bad a job as I’m occasionally asked back!
This visit was to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of my publisher, Walker Books – and I bumped into another familiar face from the company there… the Walker Bear…
I’m back from a whirlwind trip to Dublin as a guest of Walker Books at the Irish Booksellers Association Awards. I had a wonderful time, and was delighted to meet two of Walkers’ top Irish stars – incredible illustrator PJ Lynch and picture book writer and illustrator extraordinaire, Niamh Sharkey.
As a special surprise, Walker Books arranged for the waiting staff at dinner to be dressed as Wally from their hugely successful Where’s Wally? series. While an almost invisible waiter is not the sort of thing you might want when hungry, I’m delighted to say these guys were easily found!
I spent much of the evening accosting innocent people – including bestselling crime author, John Connolly – and forcing Scream Street coffin-shaped bookmarks into their hands, often entirely against their will. The photo below is the result of a bet with Jo and Jane from Walker and Irish book supremo Conor that I couldn’t get one into this guy’s sporran…
I’ll be back in Ireland in September for the Mountains to Sea Book Festival. I can’t wait!
While I was away on the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour last week, one of the teachers at All Saints Primary School in Greenock handed me an envelope. Imagine my delight when I read what was inside…
“Over the past week, I have been reading Fang of the Vampire to my class of P4 children. I read to them all the time – and in all my years of teaching (nearly 20!) I have never seen a class of children so utterly enthralled with a book as they have been this week. The excitement in the class over this book has been incredible and, when I told them they were going to meet Tommy Donbavand, they just couldn’t believe their luck!”
Angela E. Brogan
Primary 4
All Saints Primary School
Greenock
I’m back from my tour of Inverclyde and East Dunbartonshire on the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour! Despite being hit by another throat infection, I had a wonderful time. Each of the schools was incredibly enthusiastic and welcoming, we were greeted noisily everywhere we went, and I signed literally hundreds of books.
I took my video camera with me to record the tour – and the results are here:
Many thanks to Heather and Chris from Scottish Book Trust for a fantastic week!
Just a quick note to let you know that my Scottish Book Trust tour is going really well! I’m shooting lots of film to make a video blog aboout the tour when I’m home next week.
Arran came home excited as he'd signed up for trampolining basketball. Unhappy when I pointed out they're 2 different after school clubs... 4 hours ago
