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National SAVE Libraries Day

2/6/2016

Hat and stars on, ready to story tell!

As a huge supporter, appreciator and user of my local library I always turn out for National Libraries Day. And I'm not the only one. It's always packed with local families and community groups all coming together to share skills and time.

Portrait painting by budding artists.

This year was no different. Local artist Andrew Holland was busy helping children paint portraits, the North Wales Owl Trust were along with some feathered friends, the African Drummers raised the rhythmic roof, Arty Party celebrated Chinese New Year by creating dragons and everyone was made to eat their words... on biscuits! All this as well as face painting, henna, baby yoga, tai chi and Asian cuisine.

What did I add to proceedings? Stories of course! A mixture of stories from books, some of my own oral tales along with a good ukulele sing song (adult participation a must), and a cheeky puppet puppy named Rascal!

Rascal making friends at the Arty Party table.

It sounds a whole lot of fun, and it was! But I don't mind admitting that this year it came with a bitter edge. With over 50% of the libraries in my local Lancashire under threat of closure and no one quite sure where the government cuts axe will fall, this could potentially be the last Libraries Day in our very much valued, very much used local library.

Of course there is a campaign and a petition. Please go and have a look and offer your support.

So today the feeling was very much make the most of what we have while we still have it. I added a very special book to my performance.
'How the Library, (Not the Prince) saved Rapunzel'
words by Wendy Meddour pictures by Rebecca Ashdown.

This wonderfully quirky picture book tells the perfect tale of just how life changing and affirming a library can be.

Okay, I am probably a bit of a story telling King Cnut. Reading this won't stop the tide of closures we're facing, but I hope I made the people hearing it think a little harder about what they stand to loose and persuade them to fight that little bit harder. I also really hope the librarians busily working on the periphery heard it and realised just how important they are.

So Happy Libraries Day everyone. And if you really want to show how much you love your local library then Speak up for Libraries and help save it!

illustration with permission from Sarah McIntyre

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Horse + Bamboo Puppet Festival

7/5/2015

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Setting up The Boo garden for its annual puppet festival.

I am lucky to live close to 'The Boo', home of the Horse + Bamboo Theatre and have been a regular attender of their puppet festival for years. So I was thrilled to be asked to take part this year and tell stories in their beautiful garden.The festival combines a mixture of free street performance alongside some of the most acclaimed puppetry from around the world in their theatre spaces. One thing was sure, it was the perfect opportunity to get my puppets out!

The sun always shines on the puppet festival and this year was no exception. We all soaked up its friendly rays surrounded by colour, music and theatre. There was something for everyone, fascinating tiny puppets presented by Hungary's Mikropodium in the yurt, surreal street theatre 'Brain Wave' and many shows for one audience member. Not to mention the brilliant Chinese Circus that I had the privilege to share the decking with.

I'll be honest, with so much going on all around I was a little worried about drawing a crowd. But as I always say, if one child wants to hear a story then I'll tell them one. Each session started with a small select group and ended with a crowd. The children were enthusiastic and interacted with me through the stories while their families joined in with audience participation, including the songs.

A Captive Audience!

In fact this was obviously an expert audience who could be anything I asked them to be, pirates, princess and monsters! They were very talented little monsters and had a great time joining in with performance poem 'Ready, Steady, Monsters Roar' by fellow funeverser Maureen Lynas, always always happy to join in with Wylie Ukulele in a sing-a-long.

Wylie Ukulele likes an audience to play to.

I had a wonderful time taking part in the festival this year, and even managed to nip back on the second day to be I the audience of 'Monkey!' written by Michael Rosen. So great thanks to The Boo for hosting me and another wonderful puppet festival. I hope the sun shines on us again next year, I'm sure it will!

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National Libraries Day-What a Hoot

2/7/2015

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Happy National Libraries day everybody!

I've had a lot of fun down at my local library today with some feathery friends. The owls from the North Wales Owl Trust were there and I had a cuddle from the lovely Egbert.

I had to follow that with some owly stories, including this brand new poem written especially for today. I hope you have a hoot with 'Twit to Who?'

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Telling Tales at The Wellington Literary Festival

11/9/2014

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On the first weekend of October I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in The Wellington Literary Festival Children's Day. I was pleased to agree and soon found out that actually I was the headline act!

I was thrilled when I arrived at the venue. A completely newly built library with the most wonderful children's area full of comfy cushions, hidey holes and a stage made from giant books.

Wellington Children's Library

Through the day, using a mixture of well know stories alongside my own tales and poems, I took my audience on a real adventure. We went down on the farm, aboard a pirate ship, to fairy tale castles and went in search of our perfect pets, often helped along by trusty ukulele Wylie.

Wylie ukulele is made from Bocote wood.

There was was a man called Sue, And he worked in a scruffy old zoo. He mainly ate slop Which he bought from a shop, Then he met a lady called Stu.

The afternoon was rounded off with a trip to the funeverse, a place that I usually in habit with 9 other nonsensical poets like myself. On this occasion myself an my audience entered the limerick laboratory where we mixed up our rhymes to see what brand new poetry concoctions we could create.

So thanks for having me Wellington library, I had amazing fun I hope you did too.

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National Poetry Day

11/7/2014

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National Poetry Day,
Was hectic in every way,
I was invited into a school
To rhyme and write and play.

I love being a part of the funeverse, especially when I get invited into a school to work with their classes as part of National Poetry Day.

St. Mary Magdalen's in Penwortham did just that and I was able to work with every class from Reception up to Year 6 both performing and writing poems, just for fun.

In Key Stage One we created some monstrous performance poetry inspired by the funeverse's poems and Kate Pankhurst's monstrously funny illustrations.

Years 3 and 4 pulled up the anchor and set sail on a piratical poetical adventure. Helped along by the illustrations of Sally Kindberg and Mike Brownlow.

While Years 5 and 6 learned how to build dramatic tension and then twist the ending for a funny punchline. Sam Zuppardi created the images that inspired us.

The kids were brilliant and really entered into the spirit of poetry day producing some amazing poetry. Let me leave you with Year 3's collaborative poem, 'The Pirate Party.'

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Undiscovered SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE

12/9/2013

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Manfred Cat here.

Apparently 'Man Up Manfred Cat,' George's story all about me, has been long listed for something called,

George is supposed to be blogging about it right now. But every time she tries she just runs around going- SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So far she has 'squeeed' though my:

lunchtime nap
afternoon nap
late afternoon nap
tea time nap

So if I'm going to get any nappiness I'm just going to have to get it done for her.

I am pretty pleased about it too. Mainly because when my brother Fallacious hears he'll get his whiskers into a real wot-not. No one's ever bothered to write a book about him.

YAAAAAAAWN! That was hard work. Time for my post blog nap now.

Manfred

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Reprieve from the Writing Pit

4/16/2013

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I've been pretty quiet on here for quite a while now. And that's because I've been such a busy writer/ teacher/ poet. Too busy to tell you all about the big re-write I've been working on and certainly to busy to mention all the fun I've had judging on the first round of Chris Evan's 500 Words story competition.

With all this happening you might think I haven't left my writing pit for months. But that would be silly,I have to get out sometimes otherwise the smell can become overpowering! So when I had the opportunity to go school visiting with fellow funEverser and author of 'My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish' Mo O'Hara I ripped of my gas mask and jumped at the chance! We had one aim, to spread the funny poetry love bug and have as much fun as we could along the way. You can read all about it over on The funEverse blog.

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Conflab and cake

11/27/2012

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Catch up, Conflab, and Cake-The SCBWI Annual Conference

I found time in my busy schedule to see the sights.

I am currently still basking in the warm friendly afterglow that follows the SCBWI Annual Winchester Conference.

I know that there will be many blogs being tapped out at this very moment of what EXACTLY went on this year, much of which was informative, hilarious or both so you should definitely read them. I thought I’d concentrate on what I brought home and that means the conference three Cs.

Catching up with all my writing buddies. The wonderful Celia Rees in her keynote talk spoke about how important it is to be a part of a writing community. She’s right; I honestly believe that if it wasn’t for the SCBWI I wouldn’t be a writer at all. As well as the regional events it has a very strong on-line community and I have friends spread out all over the county and beyond. I talk to them every day but meet many of them just once a year. The conference is often the only time I get to see many of them face to face and drink to drink.

Catching up with my good friend Muncle Trogg, and Janet Foxley of course!

Scoobie Dooers making everything run smoothly.

Conflab in bucket loads. From keynote speakers to chats over lunch, from professional one to one sessions to peer crit groups, from intensive workshops to the Saturday night mass book launch we never stop talking about one thing, our writing. Why we write, what we write, what we love about it, what we hate about it and how we can make it better and better again and then even better than that with a sparkly ribbon on the top.

The magical Debi Gliori tells us just what of herself she puts into her work.

The Literary Gift Company

I’ve come away in possession of some fantastically encouraging comments about my work, but also a healthy portion of suggested improvements. I couldn’t be happier about it. My writing goals have been brought into focus and I have a refreshed sense of purpose, so there may not be a lot of bloggage for a while.

Oh and we’ll let the CAKE speak for itself shall we?

One day one of my characters will grace the mass book launch cake. I wonder which one?

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George Kirk Reads for Children in Need

11/16/2012

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And the grand total is,,,,,,

Three and a half hours, six picture book, two novel samplers, one novel, six poems, a bag of props, 190 children and more socks that you can spray a deodoriser at and my first ever story time marathon is complete. There was fun, there were laughs, there were kites and walkie talkies and scary fish and YES I am still in position of my voice. But more importantly than that there was money, pots of it, both of the real and on line variety.

So with the remaining strains of my very tired voice I would like to announce that myself and the children of St. Mary’s CEP School have raised…..

£443.90

Yes you read that right. And the total may grow. My Just Giving page will remain active till the end of the weekend so you still have your chance to donate. Oh and one last thing, just time to say a very big...

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Now let's go fly a kite!

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The FunEverse

11/2/2012

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At last, I've finally arrived!
Where? you ask.
Agent Island?
Deepest Publishing contract?
The Great Horn of Fame and Fourtune?

Nope, none of the above, but I have touched down in the FunEverse.

FunEverse Ahoy!

The funEverse is a tricksy place
It can't be found in outer space,
But look inside where you will find
It there inside your brilliant mind.

The FunEverese is the home of nine of the most crackpot poets you may ever meet. Think Edward Lear, think Spike Milligan, think FUNEVERSE!

*ATTENTION- ALLITERATION ALERT*

They use it as a place to incubate nourish their nonsensical notions, incubate their idiotic ideas and reassure their ridiculous rhymes before hatching them into fully fledged potty poetry and sending them into the wide, weird world.

And they don't stop there, in their bid to pull all known life into the FunEverse they work with partner schools and unleash their creative chitterings into classrooms. The children are invited to respond to the FunEverses' work through commenting and then replying through their own poety.

Sounds like your kind of place? Then visit us in The FunEverse.

Artwork- copyright Alex Craggs 2012

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<<Previous

National SAVE Libraries Day

Horse + Bamboo Puppet Festival

National Libraries Day-What a Hoot

Telling Tales at The Wellington Literary Festival

National Poetry Day

Undiscovered SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Manfred

Reprieve from the Writing Pit

Conflab and cake

Catch up, Conflab, and Cake-The SCBWI Annual Conference

George Kirk Reads for Children in Need

And the grand total is,,,,,,

£443.90

THANK YOU!!!!!!

The FunEverse

George Kirk

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