It is Children's Day in China and I have just come back from Shanghai Children's Museum. As part of some kind of picture book/children's day festival thing the opportunity arose for some teachers to meet and listen to some famous picture book authors and illustrators! So I asked if I coul go and along I went. It started at 6pm, we arrived a bit early, collected our name badges and milled around. The authors were wandering around the exhibition too; there was Ann James, Alison Lester, Sally Rippin and Leigh Hobbs! We listened to them speak about picture book topics such as the importance of location and place in a picture book and illustration in general. I had an awesome inspiring time and ended up buying two picture books with messages from the authors! I got a signed poster from Leigh Hobbs for my class book area. The author Alison Lester who wrote 'Are we there yet?', a beautiful book that we used when I was teaching back in Manchester, was there and I was a little bit starstruck! There were waiters serving canape-like nibbles to us as we wandered around the enlarged illustrations. I felt very cultured and excited!!! I didn't do this kind of thing back in England. Shanghai is cool.
I bought Peeking Ducks by Sally Rippin and Are we there yet? by Alison Lester (bringing back memories of our class' giant Australia map that hung on the back wall in Burnage) I have just had a sneaky read and am going to spend quite a bit of time reading them to my class tomorrow!
Another interesting occurrence from this evening, I got a phone call from my agent telling me that I can meet the landlord tomorrow night to get the keys for my new flat! Woop!
Also look at these cute toenails!! Mine are the orange toenails with pretty little daisies trailed upon them! Quite difficult to see in detail...but believe me they are super cute!
Bye for now!
Sarah x
