Doing Battle with Babies :-D

I did a day of family storytellings on Sunday, in Manchester Central Library. It's quite unusual for me to work on a Sunday, but they were having a special Sunday FunDay and there was lots going on. All the librarians were dressed up as book characters and the kids were sporting some of the best face-painting I have ever seen. I felt very under-dressed to be honest, especially when one little lad turned up to my event in a full, padded crocodile outfit (it was a really hot day - he must have been roasting, poor thing).

Anyway, we all had a fun time. I even enjoyed my trickiest session of the day, where I ended up with about ten 2 and 3 year olds on the mat. I say 'on the mat', but at any one time, at least three of them were wandering about, and one or two others had worked out that the mat came to pieces, pieces which slid on the floor if you pushed them... Getting the picture?

One very cute little guy loved the fact that I drew a crocodile on the flipchart (guess where I got the inspiration?) and was toddling up and down in front of me, waving his arms and shouting 'Croc! Croc!'. When I drew a bear next, he still shouted 'Croc!' until I corrected him, then he switched to 'Bear! Bear!'.

About half way through reading Bears on the Stairs, a couple of little ones found my felt pens on the windowsill and were really excited by the interesting noises they made when you banged them on the radiator, xylophone-style. Mum leapt to the rescue, but unfortunately, the even smaller baby in her arms got hold of one pen and instantly plugged it so firmly into her mouth that neither Mum nor I could pull it free.

I earned my fee for that hour, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I had gone in that morning via the 'tradesman's entrance', before the library was open to the public, but I left through the big front doors, which was when I saw the Funday banners. Do you recognise any of the characters?

When the library service asked, a couple of months ago, if they could use my work on a banner, I thought they meant the usual floor-standing kind of thing, about as tall as a person. I couldn't believe how MASSIVE it actually was. You can tell from the size of the people in the top photo. Brilliant!

It's to match the library cards which they designed last year, using characters from my books.