Little Printmakers

This morning, at Bradwell Junior School in the Hope Valley, I asked KS2 pupils to express why they love books so much! 

I love books because they can make a clear picture in my mind and charge my imagination.”

I love books because whatever you imagine is right and you can write your own.”

I love books because it makes me feel like I am in the author’s shoes.”

I love books because I like writing them and I also love them because when you get into them you don’t want to put it down.”

I love books because they inspire me to write stories.”

I love books because you can just lose yourself in them. They can be anywhere at anytime. They take your mind off troubles and worries. There are lots of them. They smell nice.”

I love books because they can transport you to different places without you going anywhere and because the impossible becomes possible.”

I actually got to cut the ribbon at the grand opening of Higher Openshaw Community School’s new Reading Garden – what an honour!

I was invited as their Patron of Reading to share their special day with them, reading stories in the lovely new reading shed, storytelling chair and activity areas.

The more that you READ, the more things you will KNOW.

The more that you LEARN, the more PLACES YOU’LL GO!”

– Dr. Seuss

I’m so excited about tomorrow’s Book Launch at Higher Openshaw Community Primary School!

This Celebration Day will be the culmination of a fantastic project with four classes from YR1/YR2 that has spanned the Summer Term. The children have learned to develop characters, structure their stories, and create fantastic illustrations to convey emotion and complement the written narrative. 

As a group we shared storybooks: listening, responding, and discussing the ideas and what we liked about them. We created characters and scenarios and developed them through role-play and story-mapping. We played with language, decoding the tangle of words, and discovering the joy of mixing up the 26 letters of the alphabet to create magical sounds and shapes!

Children gained an understanding of simple story structures, planning exciting ways to combine words and pictures into dynamic storyboard layouts. They explored a variety of fun and engaging illustration approaches, developing visual literacy skills, as they worked together to produce lovely pieces of art to complement their story.

Tomorrow, July 11th, at the end of the project, the school will host a Book Launch event at which every child who participated will be given a copy of their very own book – in front of friends, family, the local press, and the whole school!

I know the children will all be so excited when they each receive their very own copy of the book they have worked so hard to create. We’ve also planned a very special surprise for the day – tip top secret at the moment!

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A fab project. Every school should do this!” – Dawn Robertson, blogger for Madeleine Lindley

Click here to learn more about Pippa Pixley’s amazing Storybook Projects for primary schools

Or click here to get in touch with Pippa to discuss a Storybook Project or an Author Day

No misnomer – making this picturebook has been mission impossible! Mrs Heald’s Y2 class at Higher Openshaw Community School were full of ideas; so many, and so good, that we had to come up with a story that could include as many as possible. The result is a real rollercoaster ride of a tale, a rhyming adventure that whisks the reader through a series of wildly different worlds: under the sea, a digital games world, a ghostly zone, an alien place, etc. Linking these different environments, the rollercoaster rails spiral and loop, rise and fall, requiring language to match.

Early in the process we all went to the school hall and marked out a circular route on the floor using masking tape to represent the tracks. This was punctuated by large areas of paper, a separate zone for each themed world on the ride, where the children could sketch out their wild ideas. They were encouraged to write descriptive words next to their characters that could form the basis of the text. The result was a neatly circular story structure, with all the disparate ideas linked by the same main characters journeying through them along the rollercoaster rails.

Next the children set to work creating the backgrounds, using ink washes and bold crayons. Then they drew the characters in pencil and cut them out.

Everything was scanned into my Mac back at the studio, and arranged in InDesign to produce a proof copy of The Ultimate Test. I think we passed!

Perhaps we should have called this book “Outta Space” because that’s what it is all about! Miss Mort’s Y2 class at Higher Openshaw Community School have come up with a science fiction storybook that sends a team of brave astronauts on a mission to fix mankind’s chronic space shortage . . .  by vacuuming up a precious cargo of the stuff which outer space is made of!

We had some serious brainstorming sessions to generate lots of ideas about how different aspects of life and the environment would be affected if all the space disappeared: no spaces between words, no parking spaces, no personal space! What about wildlife? What would towns and cities look like?

Children also spent time roleplaying scenarios aboard the spaceship and back on Earth, using mini whiteboards and markers to make their own speech bubbles and dialogue. This story would have a journey/return structure, a knowing narrator voice, and plenty of quips between the main characters: Astrogirl, Astroboy, Astrodog & the Queen, of course!

The class were inspired by the work of illustrator Anna Llenas, having recently admired one of her gorgeous collage-style picturebooks, so we decided that the artwork for our book would feature cool cardboard bits and cut-out elements. The team set to work designing rocket components, aliens and asteroids. They also used ink and watercolours to create crowded scenes of people, birds and sea life that would be relayed to the space crew on their cardboard computer screens as they sped to the rescue . . .

All these elements were photoshopped and layered together back at base, and arranged into the series of stunning spreads that make up S P A C E. Only one book to go and it will be Mission Complete!

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This is the first of four picturebook collaborations with KS1 classes at Higher Openshaw Community school to reach proofing stage. 

I worked with the children and teaching staff over four weeks to help them to generate their own story ideas, words and pictures.  In Miss Butterworth’s Y1 class we quickly settled on Monsters as a theme, and devised a concept celebrating the kind of words that monsters love – oozingly onomatopoeic & awesomely alliterative!

To gain inspiration we set up stations around the classroom where the children could try out some monstrously messy activities, such as squishing dough, crunching pasta, and mucking about with goo. This serious research helped us to come up with some truly truly authentic monster words which then went into the mix – along with a dash of rhythm and rhyme, and a little twist to finish – to produce our story text.

The artwork would be kept simple, with each contributor providing at least one original monster illustration that could be cut out, scanned, and arranged to complement the text. The children drew, painted, snipped, and collaged their creations, unifying the eclectic work by using black & white sticky dots to add the eyes as a finishing touch.  Back at the studio we fed all the words and pictures into InDesign, added some simple backgrounds and pleasing typography, and now Monsters Love Words is ready to send to the printers!