Category Archives: Reading
More Worst Class and this time it’s TOTAL MAYHEM!
There are two more adventures for class 4b on their way. This time best friends Stanley and Manjit didn’t LITERALLY mean to get covered in newt pond water just before the Class Photo. And they really didn’t LITERALLY mean to … Continue reading
A Calamity of Mannerings heading your way
Take a peek into the diary of Panth (never enquire as to her given name), a young woman knocking on the gilded door of adult life and high society. But kicking up one’s heels at the Cafe de Paris does … Continue reading
World Book Day is going to be LITERALLY brilliant!
Last February, I had the kind of email a writer dreams of; the kind that comes from their lovely editor and begins with ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ in shouty capitals. It was telling me that Rikin and I had been chosen to be … Continue reading
Sense and Sensibility (with bells on)
Firstly, a confession: until I came to be offered the opportunity to rewrite Sense and Sensibility, the closest I had come to Jane Austen was TV reruns of Mr Darcy emerging wet from a lake, and a reluctant trudge around … Continue reading
Welcome to 4b: The Worst Class in the World
Schools might be closed for most of us, but for one long-suffering teacher, Mr Nidgett, the classroom is packed with shenanigans. That’s because he’s in charge of 4b, who are LITERALLY The Worst Class in the World, at least according … Continue reading
A Penny (Dreadful) a day…
Isn’t the world weird? The prospect of being holed up in our homes is daunting, especially for those of us with kids. Mine’s grown now, but many years ago, she was a menace, who would have destroyed the house in … Continue reading
(Pigeon) seeds of a story
It began with a name, as it so often does for me: The Audacious Birdy Jones. But who she was, what she looked like, what her story was were blurry and inchoate, still lost somewhere in the soup of story … Continue reading
Birdy Jones is all alone
Of all the questions I get asked on school visits, there are several perennials: How old are you, Miss? How much do you earn, Miss? Do you know JK Rowling / Jacqueline Wilson / David Walliams / any other much … Continue reading
Joe in the post
In the run-up to Christmas, opening the post is always accompanied by a little frisson of anticipation, invariably dampened when I find it is only catalogues or credit statements or a card from someone I have never met addressed to … Continue reading