Alpaca (and bear) on Tour

Alfonso and Colin have had an absolute ball this week! They’ve been warmly welcomed by lovely bloggers and are super grateful for all the lovely words.

This weekend they’ll be resting with a HUGE pot of honey and plenty of grass pies. They deserve it! Look how busy they’ve been…

Friday: the tour kicked off in the only way possible - with a special post from the fabulously talented, Rikin Parekh. Rikin gave readers a super insightful peek at the process behind his creation of This Books Has Alpacas and Bears.

Saturday: heaps of alpacas facts were shared over at Madge Eekal Reviews. Seriously, how much DO you know about alpacas - other than the fact they’re wonderfully charming?!

I also popped on to BBC Radio Bristol to have a chat with Steve Yabsley. You can catch it here - my voice pops up at 3hrs and 20minutes into the broadcast.

Sunday: Colin was particularly pleased with this one. Alfonso steps on Colin’s glasses half way through the book, and so the readers of North Somerset Teachers’ Book Awards were given the opportunity to design Colin’s Spectacular Specs. Download the activity here.

Monday: be honest. Are you Colin? Or Alfonso? Take the ALL IMPORTANT test right here at Book Monsters.

Wednesday: Colin stepped in here, and selected his Top Five Books about… Bears. He had a rather unusual take on each one, Rikin Parekh and I are relieved at his No.5 choice… or things may have got a bit awkward!

Thursday: for the final stop, over at BookLoverJo’s, it was ALL about the bow tie. Discover the reason Rikin fitted Alfonso with a bow tie, and download the bow tie activity to complete at home. Have fun!

Reviews have been popping up on certain online bookstores - we’re super grateful for those. Thank you!

This Book Has Alpacas and Bears is now available at lots of places, here are some great ones to try…

Time + ideas + imminent book = this. Oops!

Anyone else finding that the current situation has left them doing things that they might not, ahem, have attempted under more ordinary circumstances?

Ill by Rikin Parekh

Urm, just me then?! PS Let’s not mention the badly painted garage door, that was a BAD idea.

Putting the garage door to one side (is that possible? Asking for a friend), I managed to drag my teenage son in on my latest idea.

He was delighted. Honest.

My latest idea started when a friend pointed me in the direction of I Can Animate.

And then it grew, after a discussion with some lovely writerly friends - about the weird predicament of having our books coming out, when fabulous bricks & mortar shops have been forced to close their doors to physical customers…

Hmm, what’s an author to do I hear you ask?

You did ask… didn’t you?! I’m dearly hoping so, ‘cause I’m about to tell you.

I grabbed my crochet hook, some yarn, Rikin’s illustration of the excitable Alfonso from our picture book This Book Has Alpacas and Bears, plus my less than excitable son clutching the iPad loaded with the aforementioned animation app.

And here’s the result… because I thought Rikin’s amazing Alfonso deserved a bit of a ‘yippee’ as he gets ready to bound into bookshops on the 4th June.

What do you think?

*runs away & hides*

This Book Has Alpacas and Bears bounds onto the shelves in June. If you fancy it, you can pre-order from your super lovely indie bookshops (LOTS are still taking orders & delivering, give them a try). Some options are:

Illustration by Rikin Parekh, taken from This Book Has Alpacas and Bears.