Booked Up Blog

Booked Up 2009

Booked Up Blog

Morris Gleitzman visits Haringey for Booked Up!

Posted Tuesday December 22nd 2009
by Caroline Wright

Here in the Booked Up office we were extremely excited when we found out that Morris Gleitzman was able to do a special Booked Up event for us in Haringey. Morris lives in Australia, so we were so lucky that he was in the UK for a few weeks, and managed to fit us in to his very busy schedule!

We arrived at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre on a very sunny Monday morning to set up, along with Sean Edwards, Children and Young People’s Librarian for Haringey. Before long the noise of excited Year 7 pupils from local schools began to filter into the hall and we knew it was almost time to begin. All that was left was for Morris to check the microphone, which he did with the immortal utterance “Bumface. Bumface.”

As soon as the two hundred and fifty Year 7 pupils had filled the auditorium Morris began. He started the session by telling us that he is in talks to have his series of books about Cane Toads made into a CGI (computer generated) film, and that people who write the stories for films get paid around $1 million dollars for each film!

He then…

Two Top 5's

Posted Monday October 19th 2009
by Glenn Murphy

Top 5 reasons why I became a children’s science author:

1. I’ve always loved learning new things and sharing them with people

2. I studied science at university, but couldn’t really decide which part of it I liked best, so couldn’t settle down in the lab. As an author, I get to study all of it, all the time. So I never get bored!

3. I love inspiring people, and introducing them to cool, new ideas. Younger readers are the most curious, eager readers around. Writing for them is as fun as it gets.

4. writing popular books lets me spread ideas to lots more people than I could ever hope to by writing for science journals or magazines.

5. I hate getting all dressed up to go to work. As an author, I get to work from home. This means I can wear my pyjamas all day in winter, and my board-shorts all day in the summer. This makes me feel like I’m on holiday every day.

Top 5 things that keep me going on the tough days:

1. My wife. She’s very pretty and lovely and brings rays of sunshine into the house even on dull, cloudy days.…

Me, I'm Lucky

Posted Monday October 12th 2009
by Nick Toczek

I love writing and performing. I’ve been doing it professionally for almost forty years. Nowadays, I work all over the world as a poet and magician. I’m also a comedian and a puppeteer. I mix all of these in my one-man show and do workshops showing others how to write and perform. To meet people on my travels, I do street magic and close-up tricks in bars and restaurants. It all keeps life fun, varied and interesting. See, I’m lucky!

There’s more. I’m a keen music fan, and get sent more free CDs than I can play. Why? Well, mainly because I do my own local radio show (which you can listen to, 6-7pm every Sunday on 106.6 fm in West Yorkshire or on www.bcbradio.co.uk worldwide) and I write for a national music magazine called R2.

So, I do my hobbies for a living and I’m my own boss. I choose when I work, where I work and what work I do. How lucky is that?

I work hard, but that’s not difficult if you’re doing things you enjoy. Right now, I’m typing this at 4am, having started work twenty hours ago. In that time, among other things, I’ve written…

My Diary of a Typical Day

Posted Monday October 5th 2009
by Emily Diamand

My diary of a typical day, by Emily Diamand. 

(Just, please, don't tell my publisher... )

8.45 am.  My husband and son leave the house. Phew, a bit of peace. Now I can get on with some serious writing. Today I’m really going to crack on. I’ll write twenty pages, probably a three chapters. Fantastic! At this rate I’ll have finished the book by the end of next week.  But ... oh dear. Look at the kitchen. It’s such a mess after breakfast, crumbs and jam all over.  I’ll just wash up, and sweep the floor, and maybe do a bit of tidying. It’s all essential stuff after all.

10 am.  Isn’t housework boring?  I’ll get some tea  and go upstairs to write.  I’ve lost an hour, but that’s okay. I’ll just do fifteen pages instead of twenty - I’ll still get the book finished by a couple of weeks from now.  But first, I’d better check my emails. What if there’s a really important one from my publisher? 

Oh look, here’s one from a clothes company. Ooh, those tops look nice.   I’ll just have a little look at their website.  After all, I’m saving time really, not going out…

Birth of the Blood Hunter

Posted Monday September 28th 2009
by Steve Voake

One of the questions I often get asked is: Where do you get your ideas from?

For me, a story usually starts coming together when I begin to see links between things that appear to be unconnected.

That’s what happened with Blood Hunters.

I was feeling a bit under the weather one day, and I remembered how my mum used to tell me when I was ill that it was the white blood cells in my body, going into battle against invading microbes. At the same time I happened to be reading a book about something called ‘The Gaia Theory’ which described the Earth as a single, living organism.

So I had this idea of the Earth having a kind of bloodstream of its own, something which would be ready to fight against any threats which came from outside.

I’d also been reading an article about eco-systems, which said that all organisms have Growth Limiting Factors, things that stop their populations from becoming too big. And I thought, well humans seem to be doing rather well. I wonder if there are any growth limiting factors for us?

And then I read this newspaper report, which said that scientists were preparing…