Mike: Dominic Barker and the Western Isles

This month, we took the incredible Dominic Barker out on The Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour around the Western Isles. Michael Merillo, Scottish Book Trust's venue manager, joined Chris from the children's team out on tour. This week, Mike drops by the blog to fill us in on his experiences of tour and to teach us a little bit of Gaelic.

Madainn mhath, as they say in Gaelic. You’d think after a week a touring the Western Isles I would have picked up more then that, but I couldn’t! The language of the land is like the land itself: difficult, daunting, dreadfully beautiful. Thankfully the Liverpool-born, Barcelona-dwelling author Dominic Barker was delighted at the prospect of touring the schools of the Outer Hebrides (and in for a surprise at the weather!) with myself and Chris.

Dominic had a huge range of children to talk to, from as young as P4 to as old as S3, and did a masterful job in getting all of them engaged with the sessions, encouraging them to never, ever, stop writing. Here’s the run-down of the week.

On Monday we kicked off the tour in Stornoway on the northern-most island, Lewis. We had a great time watching the kids from Stornoway Primary, Knock Primary and Bayble School get involved in creating fantasy lands which included a talking door with a huge moustache and an Italian accent. In the afternoon, even the stern-faced teenagers of the Nicolson Institute begrudgingly enjoyed themselves, some even putting aside the notion that participation was ‘un-cool’ and chuckling quietly to themselves under hoodies and behind sleeves. After the session we visited the Bridge to Nowhere, and it really was a bridge to nowhere! 

Tuesday found us at the much more playful Laxdale Primary, along with Tolsta and Tong Primary schools, then on to Shawbost, with Bragar, Carloway joining us from nearby. After the session we had an interesting discussion with the teachers. They told us about the challenges facing schools on the Islands, namely the lack of children and the resulting closures of schools. After the talk, and us figuring out ways to fix the problems, we departed Lewis and headed south to visit the schools of Harris.

On a rainy Wednesday morning we visited Tarbert Library, for a session with Sir E. Scott, Leverhulme, Scalpay, Shelibost schools. While Dominic did his session it was fun to watch the kids slowly scoot forward and try to engulf him. We had Wednesday afternoon off and did a little touring of Harris. I think it was at this time I caught a fearsome Hebridean cold that would haunt me for the rest of the tour.

Thursday morning we were on North Uist at Paible School with Carinish. After a great session with Space Cowboys armed with banana guns and Mrs. Cuddles the voiceless Bear coming to the rescue, we stopped by the Hebridean Smokehouse and stocked up on unbelievably delicious peat-smoke salmon, scallops, and trout. Victuals in hand we headed south to Benbecula. The afternoon session was held at Balivanich School with Lochdar Primary there as well. It was a beautiful school set right above the beach and rough Atlantic sea. The kids were fabulous and had Dominic’s linguistic abilities pushed to the limit to animate the voices of the characters, including the ‘Evil Punctuation Army’ that only spoke in the style of their punctuation. 

[On a side note, dear reader, this was the infamous site of Chris Newton’s tragic/comic loss at a game of basketball. Ha ha.] 

We met some hugely imaginative kids on Friday on South Uist, at Daliburgh School and Eriskay Primary; their beautiful Lollipop Worlds with Neapolitan ice cream rain and evil, beardy lizards were amazing. 

After a long week we retired to a nearby pub to wait for the ferry and have a celebratory drink and throw some darts. I got lucky on a few throws and managed to beat both Chris and Dominic at our impromptu tournament. After that we tiredly drove onto the ferry and instead of heading to the mainland, we sailed to Lochboisdale to collect hundreds of sheep and cows. Their bleating and mooing was the sad song that saw us across the Sea of the Hebrides to Oban. By Saturday afternoon Dominic had got on a train, and eventually home to sunny Barcelona, and Chris and I to our homes in Edinburgh.

One of the most memorable parts of the trip for me was how the children made Dominic’s 'accent ability' work hard all week. He had to speak accents ranging from the Islands, to a more general Scottish accent, or English, Glaswegian, American, Irish, Italian, German, and even a failed attempt at Japanese! It was great time and thanks for a great tour Dominic!

For more information about Dominic Barker please visit his wonderful website http://www.dominicbarker.com

Other News:

Young Sherlock Homes. Think you know him? Think Again. Check out the brilliant trailer for Death Cloud below and get very excited for Andrew's second title Red Leech which will be out in November.

We will be doing two events with Andrew this week so don't forget to watch out for a blog from Andrew and come back soon to see some of the pictures from the events and pupil feedback.

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. The 2010 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 25 through to October 2.

Visit Banned Books Week's website for more information on what you can do and for the list of banned books in America.

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