Children's Authors Live!

Today we launched our very exciting new project Children's Authors Live. Chris signs in to tell us more...

How do you make sure that a pupil in Shetland has the same access to top-quality literature events as a pupil in Edinburgh  - well it is tough. You cant take an author round every school in the country and they can't meet every single pupil – physically it is impossible BUT virtually it is not. You can give every school the same access opportunities by broadcasting the events live over the internet, so that is exactly what we decided to do: broadcast author events live over the internet!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Children’s Authors Live…
The very best authors from, well, lets just say the very best have signed up to take part in this two-year programme of events, including Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson and Philip Pullman as well as some that we are keeping secret for now! I think we might be the first organisation in the world to run a full-programme of internet broadcast events which is pretty special if you ask me.

How are we going to do that? Well, the authors (Michael, Julia and Philip) will be doing their events as per normal except we will be broadcasting them live over the world-wide web. We piloted this last year with Anthony Horowitz (just to give you the calibre of the stars) and over 10,000 children across Scotland tuned in. The beauty of the internet is that it doesn’t matter where you are you can tune in – so if you have friends in Finland, cousins in Canada, nieces  or nephews in New Zealand or siblings in South Africa tell them to check it out. You can find more information about the project and how to take part at: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/michael-rosen-live-1

The first event is with Michael Rosen (who we toured in 2008) and will be on World Book Day (4th March 2010). Michael will be entertaining the audience with his interactive poetry sessions and fabulous stories of his childhood.

So far we have over 90,000 children from over 1000 schools registered to watch the events from schools right across Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and even one in Germany! It is amazing to be able to reach so many children in one go!

The Gruffalo popped in this morning to help launch the project and was snapped by the paparazzi with pupils from St Marys RC Primary and Holy Rood High School – we are very lucky to have met him twice now, last time was over 2 years ago and we are happy to report that he hasn’t changed a bit!

We have been sitting on this project for a while now and it’s a great relief to be able to shout it from the rooftops and spread the word online – excited doesn’t even come close!

You can register to watch the Michael Rosen event on our website HERE!

Other News:

The wonderful Seven Stories in Newcastle currently has an exhibition on Lauren Child, creator of Clarice Bean and Charlie and Lola. Find out more on their website.

The Culture Show and 6Music lovely, Lauren Laverne, has written a book for teenagers entitled Candy Pop: The Broken Biscuits. The book is the first in a series of thirteen. It will be published on 27th May.