John Fardell: Lucky Friday the 13th

John Fardell was with us on Friday 13th March for the launch of his new book. Here he blogs about how it was for him:

I had a fun time at the Scottish Book Trust doing a launch event for my new book, The Secret of the Black Moon Moth, which was attended by groups from three different primary schools.

I talked a bit about my new book, and the old ones, and showed some of the illustrations projected on a screen. Mostly, though, I did what I generally do at my author events, and got the children to make up a story of their own through building up pictures on a flipchart (as you can see in the photo above).

The chidren all joined in and came up with a fantastic story, full of inventive ideas and great action pictures. And they had some interesting questions in the Q and A section at the end of the event. You can see more pictures in a slideshow here.

It was a good day to be at the Scottish Book Trust as, for Red Nose Day, they'd decided to do something yummy for money and had all brought in home baking. I don't think the visiting school children were actually let in on the secret that certain rooms in the building were piled high with cakes and biscuits, but I'm told that the Book Trust staff had managed to polish off the lot by the end of the day anyway without any outside help (apart from mine).

This came at the end of a busy two weeks for me, with various author visits to Montrose, Brechin, Arbroath, Leith, Ratho, Livingson, Mid Calder, Glasgow and Linlithgow, and a wee launch party that my publisher, Faber and Faber, kindly held for the new book in the West End Waterstones on Edinburgh's Princes Street. All a lot of fun.