This was my fourth visit to Roseacre. I’d previously visited to share Impossible Tales and been there twice for storytelling sessions on behalf of Blackpool Library Service. It’s a lovely place and I always enjoy returning.
Roseacre is a large school so I had to share Eric’s story twice, firstly with Year 3 and 4 then with Year 5 and 6. That was a combined total of over 350 children!
I started off by updating the children on Impossible Tales. Roseacre was one of the first schools I visited with the Tales back in 2014 and a lot has happened since then.
I then explained about Eric Appleby. The children found out how the story came about, heard about the writing process and saw Martin’s wonderful illustrations from pencil sketches right through to the final versions. I finished the session by sharing an extract with the children while they watched the illustration of Eric on the big screen. Martin will be relieved to hear that the children thought his picture matched my description! The children listened fantastically well throughout and were an absolute credit to their school.
Afterwards, I spent time personalising and signing copies of the book which I had the pleasure of personally delivering to the children around the school. It was the first time out for the ‘Team Eric’ stickersĀ and judging by the children’s reactions, they went down well!
Huge thanks go to Miss Kenyon for organising the visit. Special thanks must go to Mrs Boden who helped me with the logistics of the visit and made sure that everything ran smoothly and the pupils received their books before the end of the day.
I’m already looking forward to returning later in the year with More Impossible Tales.