Read Me A Story

It was great to see children joining up for the online author session with the Bracknell Forest Library today. With so many children burnt out from screen time, I didn’t think I would get to see such enthusiastic faces and share ideas with like minded creatives during our hour long session.

The start was a bit wobbly with my early entry into the Zoom meeting, which reduced the time available. Luckily, the super librarian, Sarah, created a link to a second session so that we could continue with story time once the first session timed out. Moofy and Flo took their debut, sharing their story of how things can sometimes go wrong when helping friends. The children responded well to the story and gave a thumbs up to my questions about helping others.

We then moved on to a second story for the older children called Cecil the Bully. Reading it aloud reminded me of how much fun it is to capture villains we encounter in our every day life. The children engaged with the story and were happy to continue after an interruption in the session to click onto the new link. We broke the story telling up with an activity of creating our own villains. What an amazing bunch of children! Some very creative ideas came out of the session and very inventive names for their villains. A very talented boy called Andrew even had time to draw his robotic villain and shared the illustration at the end of the session.

Cecil and his gang didn’t get to finish their tale of slapstick pranks at the Easter Sticky Competition, but I do hope the children enjoyed their time listening to the stories and the illustrations which I posted on the shared screen. It was a very different session compared to the face to face meetings we usually have in the library. As the world evolves and changes to the circumstances we are now presented with, we will continue to adapt and apply our skills to entertaining and educating the children online. After all, the children today proved that you don’t need excessive amounts of time to create villains, and the super heroes required to fight them.

Mr Barns teaching the Year 6 class.

Feedback from today’s session:

“Dear Bracknell Library,

I wanted to say how much my son and I both enjoyed Elouise’s virtual story time this morning.

Eloise De Sousa’s session was so enjoyable.  She tailored the story time so that it was suitable for all ages; I saw children from KS1, aged 5-7 AND KS2, aged 7-11 engaging with the session and it was clear everyone especially loved the work-shop style element at the end of her readings.

Thank you so much for providing these free of charge to families during this difficult time.  It really has raised our spirits this morning and my son is now inspired to start writing a new book!

Many thanks once again,

S.J. Grindley”

Young Writers Want More!

Encouraging our children to learn through lockdown has been a challenging process. From online lessons to socially distanced picnic meet ups – we have tried it all! Listening to their needs, we’ve discovered that writing prompts are not enough. Temptation has turned most children to televisions, social media and gaming instead of learning, writing and creating. We have had to do more with our sessions to capture their attention and keep them enthused. Here is what we have done to provide our young writers with enough inspiration to keep writing…

Continue reading “Young Writers Want More!”

Space Dust

The Bracknell Forest Library Service are loading new videos of books read by their authors for your enjoyment during lockdown. I was lucky enough to be included in their line up with my book, Space Dust. If you recall, this little adventure was written for the Library Service during last year’s Summer Reading Challenge.

Writing a book is one thing; recording it without my comical faces or extreme hand gestures was near to impossible! Add to that the intermittent sounds of Millie, our dog, joining in the recording and you have a video of Space Dust.

If you’d listen to watch the story, click on the pic below:

If you’d like to buy your own copy, paperback or ebook, click on the pic below:

Blast Off with Space Dust

Welcome back to Space Dust’s journey across different blogospheres. A big thank you to Cecily for hosting us yesterday.

Today, we have stopped off at my blog so that I could share a bit more about the book with you and, maybe give you a snippet of the next book! Continue reading “Blast Off with Space Dust”

Story Time at The Book Corner

I have been remiss in sharing some exciting local events with you where I will be reading my latest book, Space Dust.

So, without wasting words, here are my diary events for the next few weeks. Do come along if you can and join in the fun, creative activities at these events.

6th August- Story time at Ascot Heath Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/672897573148794/?ti=ia

7th August – Story time at Great Hollands Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/400143547520040/?ti=ia

13th August – Story time at Crowthorne Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/2280168355366297/?ti=ia

14th August – Story time at Whitegrove Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/479546879480809/?ti=ia

15th August – Story time at Sandhurst Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/2366487080285742/?ti=ia

19th August – Story time at Harmanswater Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/328304371394020/?ti=ia

22nd August – Story time at Binfield Library

https://www.facebook.com/events/326840254874154/?ti=ia

Please click on the links to check start times.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

E.