Picture books at Edinburgh Festival

Saturday - day 6
Time for our lovely illustrators to show case their talent starting with Levi Pinfold and his Storybox event. Parents and children filled the space , sitting cushions and all happily drawing the Django to Levi's expert tuition. Drawing games followed along with Levi reading his story encouraging the children to spot where the Django was hiding. After a vote all decided that John wasn't to blame for the mischief making ....

Then it was Adam Stower's turn - also in the Storybox and again a lovely family audience. Adam used the Slam! Big Book and soon the kids were shouting out what they thought would be happening next. Silly Doggy! Made everyone laugh and then Adam drew their magical wish list for a pet which had a dolphin head, giraffe neck and six frog legs with high heels. As you do!

Levi was back in action that evening in a Book Trust Best New Illustrators panel with Viv Schwarz chaired by Teresa Flavin. He showed an early working of Black Dog which included his editor's notes which intrigued the audience. Lots of questions about his painting techniques and why he chose to work in tempera.

Once again lots of compliments from the audience in the signing tent about Templar books

LABYRINTHS, MAZES AND INTRIGUE AT EIBF

Day Four (Friday) in the authors' yurt, and Teresa Flavin, author and illustrator of The Blackhope Enigma and The Crimson Shard, is preparing to go into the RBS Corner Theatre for her event, (seen here with Templar editor Emma and event Chair Nikki Gamble)

Teresa has a fantastic visual presentation to go with her talk, and begins by showing covers of her favourite childhood books, the Nancy Drew mysteries. She also makes an instant impression by telling the rapt audience of 11 year olds she was heavily into Manga as a child and can still draw a mean Manga character!

As Teresa gets into the story of how The Blackhope Enigma came about, kids shift in their seats for the best view of the intriguing pictures of sea monsters and paintings of mythological characters that pop up on the big screen in front of them. She tells the eager listeners how, when she first came to Scotland from America, she would travel in the Borders, visiting as many castles as she could. After all, there aren't castles in America!

As labyrinths feature heavily in her first book, Teresa whets our appetite with several pictures of mazes and labyrinths from around the world, before reading from the chapter where her main characters walk the labyrinth in Blackhope Tower and find themselves inside a painting. Even though I've read the book several times, Teresa has me, along with the young audience, completely gripped.

As the pictures on the screen move from mazes to examples of trompe l'oeil, she explains to the audience how 'trompe l'oeil' means 'fool the eye'. The kids are very impressed by what they are seeing and hearing, as is clear from the odd 'wow' and wide-eyed expression, and are excited to find out that trompe l'oeil is one of the themes of Teresa's second book, The Crimson Shard, to be published on the 1st of October. She treats us to a short taster reading and leaves everyone desperate to know more!

The forest of hands that sprouts when question time begins really shows how Teresa has fired the minds and imaginations of her audience. Some ask very good questions indeed: Did you base your child characters on real people? (Answer - they are all bits of me in one way or another.) Was Fausto Corvo a real artist? (Answer - no, he is fictional, but was loosely based on Caravaggio.) And, the question that drew a sharp intake of breath and a chuckle from all the adults in the room... How old are you? (Answer - I'm not telling! How old are you?!)

I think it's fair to say that as mysteries go, The Blackhope Enigma and The Crimson Shard would definitely be right up Nancy Drew's street!

Edinburgh - Day 2 - part 2

It's like stepping into another dimension when entering the yurt at Edinburgh Book festival, conversations go off on an entirely different tangent to the real world happening outside…

"Do you want the fish tank?" ask the helpful staff at the ediburgh book festival.

"Well, only if you have one. I can make do with the book, the clock, I can just explain the fishtank without a demonstration and I've always got my rubber duck". Said Christiane Dorion in her French Canadian lilt. You wouldn't imagine this is the type of thing you might hear from a teacher/doctor/environmentalist/WWF consultant and all round science expert!

But Christiane who left her native Quebec to study a phd in the UK over 20 years ago and stayed, is in fact referring to the visual aids for her schools events. An impressive CV you must admit, and now author can also be added to her list of many talents. She is the writer of the hugely successful series of pop-up science books, How the Weather Works and Blue Peter Award nominee, How the World Works.

Each page is bursting with interactive facts about the universe we live in and the science that surrounds us here on earth everyday.

So… as a class of primary 4 children file into the RBS imagination theatre ready to absorb the knowledge Christiane is eager to pass on.

You could say it is a lot to cover in one hour… starting with the big bang, how the universe was created, our solar system, where weather comes from, the water cycle, what are fossil fuels and even right through to what the future holds for humans on earth. Although some of the children believe we will need to move to another planet entirely, which is not entirely out of the question, she adds.

Christiane is impressed with the huge amount of science knowledge the children already have, even before she has a chance to explain or show her experiments, hands shoot into the air to tell her exactly what all the names of the planets are.

So, you may wonder why the clock and the rubber duck... well... using the 24 hour clock to simulate the existence of the earth until present day, we all learned that the dinosaurs arrived at 23:40, and we humans only arrived at 23:59:46. And as for the duck..? Well, did you know that scientists discovered how the currents of the worlds oceans worked by a shipwreck of plastic toys that spilled it's cargo into the sea and various toys washed up on shores all over the world, including Scotland!

As Christiane prepares herself for the onslaught of questions which range from... 'how did the dinosaurs die?' through to… 'are we alone in the universe?', and as a scientist, she is open to all theories and is happy for the children to come up with their own explanations, but also reminds them that according to current research what she has written in her book is what we believe to be best explanation.

But what facinates Christiane and the message she is keen to get across is the fact that everything on earth moves in cycles. Everything has a life cycle, humans, animals, plants... even the water we drink, the air we breathe and the clothes we wear.

As Christiane concludes her presentation, she is happy to point out the positive message to take from doing events like this, is that children even as young as 8 years old are aware of the changes we need to make to save the fragile environment we live in, and are taking steps towards providing themselves with a sustainable future.

Edinburgh - Day 2 - part 1

I'd bet my last, precious hardback edition of The 10PM Question that Templar author Kate De Goldi has travelled the furthest of any of the hundreds of authors appearing at the festival - further even than Shaun Tan! Having made the mammoth 27 hour journey from Wellington, New Zealand, Kate opened her festival programme with a lively panel discussion alongside author Saci Lloyd and chaired by Nikki Gamble. In front of an audience of around 100 teenagers, Kate told entertaining anecdotes about her Irish-Italian family, who 'talk a lot' and of how she is from a line of 'threes' - three sisters, three aunties, three great-aunts - the latter of which being her inspiration for the eccentric but lovable 'Aunties' who are the heart of the family in her novel. Most candid however, was her description of how she used her young son's anxieties and nightly questions as her inspiration for 12-year-old Frankie, who is at the centre of a chaotic but loving family impacted by mental illness, and the asker of the all-important 10 p.m. question of the title.

After Saci had shown some mind-boggling futuristic images to illustrate her action-packed dystopian novel, Momentum, a hush came over the audience as Kate read an extract from The 10 P.M. Question; it's obvious why Kate has had a successful radio show in New Zealand for the past few years - this blogger was so enthralled while listening to her read, she forgot to take photos for the blog! Frankie's worries, his big sister Gordana's biting sarcasm, the contentment of the family cat (the brilliantly named Fat Controller), even the 'rodent voices' of worry in Frankie's head, were all brought to life in Kate's musical Kiwi voice.

As the floor was opened up for questions, hands shot up, eager to know how Kate and Saci started as authors and whether they liked writing at school. Despite their novels being very different in theme, Kate and Saci discovered they had both been avid readers as children and shared a festive tradition of reading A Christmas Carol every year.

Moving next door to the signing tent, Kate and Saci were kept busy for half an hour by a huge line of young people wanting everything signed - books, leaflets, bags - some of the teens standing wide-eyed and mute in the presence of these two brilliant authors and some brave enough to ask more questions.

As Frankie and his best friend Gigs might have said, this was an event of 'bonga swetso' proportions (read the book to find out what that means!) and luckily for Edinburgh, there is still more to come from the fabulous Kate De Goldi...

Edinburgh - Day 1 - part 2

After a brief sejourn it was back to business for the Templar team at the Edinburgh book festival on Day One. We excitedly awaited the arrival (no pun intended) of Shaun Tan, the visionary creator of Tales from Outer Suburbia, Eric, The Bird King, The Lost Thing - the list goes on and on.

Now as you all know it's been a big year for Shaun (an Oscar, a Hugo, the ALMA ) so we are so delighted that he's flown over 20 hours to be with Templar at the Edinburgh book festival. Even more exciting was catching a glimpse of Neil Gaiman and Shan deep in conversation - now that's the meeting of two amazing creative brains! When we tweeted this sighting, the twitosphere responded excitedly about what sort of book the two could create! Oh well we can but dream!

Anyway, onto the main event - Shaun Tan's Masterclass. Over 150 people packed into the RBS Corner Theatre to hear about Shaun's inspiration, how he works and how he views his own work. We were treated to a clip from the Oscar winning animation The Lost Thing, as well as a storytelling by Shaun of his tale Eric. He even showed the audience some of his early childhood and student illustrations. It was a truly inspiring event and we all can't wait to hear Shaun talk again on Thursday.

After an hour of signing books with his trademark stamps, finger prints and drawings, we decamped to Centotre on George Street for some italian food - delicious scottish squid and more inspiring and bookish conversation.

The end to a perfect Edinburgh Book Festival day.