In Dubai with Simon and Elizabeth

We are now settled in our favourite location in Sunny Dubai and looking forward to meeting up again with all our UAE fans!

It was nice to leave the cold and grey weather behind, but two schools in Yorkshire made it hard to say ‘good bye’. The first of these schools was Dronfield Junior School near Chesterfield.  The Headmaster, Martin Finch, must surely be proud of his school. A big school with a small hall meant we could only present to the Year 5 group, but they proved a wonderful audience and the Year 5 staff also joined in enthusiastically to ensure a great result  – a real ’buzz’ about books and reading. The consequent signing was also a very enjoyable experience….everyone of the pupils a delight to meet up with again and to have a brief chat to. Thank you Dronfield Juniors for helping us turn a dull, grey Monday morning into a lively and pleasant experience.

The next school was Churlwell Primary School at Moreley in Leeds…our final school before packing for Dubai.  At the risk of being boringly repetetive…I have to report that this school alslo turned out to be a fantastic place to work…once again the staff and pupils couldn’t do enough for us!  This time, we were able to see all of KS2 from Year 3 to Year 6 and the audience was an absolute delight to perform in front of. Immediately after the event, it was apparent that we had enthused and inspired them all. We travelled up to Leeds the following day to perform a book-signing and it went on for so long, we were delayed in getting home to pack and get ready to head off in the direction of Heathrow Airport…but we weren’t complaining!

Hope all our fans back home are enjoying our books…we’ll be back at your schools before too long! Thank you for all your e-mails and keep in touch with this blog. I’ve another new book about to come off the press!

PJM

Many thanks to the Fenn boys!

Fans are fans wherever you go. I’ve just had some wonderful feedback from The Fenn School near Boston in the US. It seems that the boys are all getting hooked on my books and their classrooms are now plastered with images of Mokee Joe…and even scarier images of me! Thanks to the boys for all their enthusiasm, for the cap and the lovely signed ‘thank-you’ card you sent me. I’ll be back soon.

I left the US after visiting more wonderful schools – our last day saw us at PS152 where we met the fantastic choir (they made me cry again by singing in front of me!). They also gave us a CD of their performance to bring back home with us – all our folks love it! Be back soon.

Onto PS171 in the afternoon. A first visit to this school, but did we enjoy it there? You bet! Great students and great questions! We would love to return to this school and present and perform for them – though they proved great fans of our books already.

We left a snowy, icy Newark, New Jersey airport on Saturday night and were soon back in the cold and

Berkeley Juniors Engrossed!

grey UK…and straight back into schools the following week. Highfield Hall in Chesterfield, Broom Valley Juniors in Rotherham and Berkeley Juniors in Scunthorpe help us to stave off a feeling of anti-climax. In fact, far from it! These three schools provided a wealth of enthusiastic fans and Kath and I enjoyed a most fulfilling week. It was good to be back home and have our feet firmly on the ground again after all the glitz and glamour of New York, but what was clearly evident to us is that no matter where you go, it is the enthusiasm of our young fans that drives us on…people, not places!

It’s the end of the week and the jet-lag is only just beginning to fade, but we would just like to say a HUGE ‘thank you’ to all our fans, both in New York and in South Yorkshire…we love you all and can’t wait to see you again…with yet another new book....watch this space!

A final vote of thanks to all the staff who made our visits so pleasurable…to Gary Martin at Highfield Hall, to Adam Dawson at Broom Valley Juniors and to Justin Cowell at Berkeley Juniors.

PJM