Happy Valentine's Day

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SNEAK PEAK: Primrose

I'm VERY excited to be able to share with you a few sneak peaks at my forthcoming picture book 'PRIMROSE'.

Primrose is a princess. She has the pretty pink tiara, the pretty pink palace and the two prancing pink ponies to prove it. 

But being a princess, she thinks, isn't that fun. Everyone at the palace is so serious ALL the time and it's boring, boring, BORING.

Primrose and her little pug Percy like doing not very princessy things like climbing trees in the Royal Orchard and jumping on her bed and dressing up in monkey suits, but none of these things are deemed Proper.

Her Mum and Dad - the King and Queen are very worried about her as they want her to behave properly like a Proper Princess...

The King explains that trees aren't for climbing, they are for sitting under ON A CHAIR and practising your Princess Homework ( How To Wave Properly When Travelling In The Royal Carriage)...

It's the same everywhere she turns in the palace. She's not allowed to play board games, or dig up vegetables in the royal garden or even make cupcakes in the Royal Kitchen ( as she might drop egg down her dress and that would be Awful!)

There's only one thing for it. 

Grandmama will have to be summoned. 

If anyone can make Primrose into a Proper Princess, it's her...

But Grandmama has her own take on the problem and she soon gets the King and Queen joining in, with some surprising results...

You see, it simply doesn't do to be serious ALL the time....

Even Kings and Queens and Royal Grandmamas need to have some fun sometimes...

Primrose will be published in the UK by Scholastic Children's Books in April 2013. It's available to pre order online, but don't forget to support your local high street and independent book sellers

FROM MY SKETCHBOOK: January 2013

Hello!

Here are some of my sketchbook pages created during January.

Click the images to make them bigger.

Running Hare

My friend's daughter - Nevaeh, the Fairy Princess!\

A Fairytale Begins...

The Midnight Reader

In The Bear Cave

The Tea Party

Ladies

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty, Little Ball of NO.

The Crew of the SS Seahorse.

CLAUDE in the Spotlight: Sneak Peek!

TAA-DAH! 

I'm delighted to be able to give you a few sneak peeks from the forthcoming fifth CLAUDE book -

CLAUDE in the Spotlight!

In this adventure, Claude and the ever faithful Sir Bobblysock find themselves caught up in a mystery of the supernatural kind at the local theatre...

It all starts when Claude finds himself at a children's dancing class. 

He's keen to get involved with the music, but...

... then the dance teacher (Miss Henrietta Highkick-Spin) bounds into the class...

... and Claude is soon caught up in the dancing!

But first he must do some warm up stretches.

Poor Claude does find that there are some slight downsides to being a small, plump dog...

Later on, and because of Some Plot, Claude finds himself at the local theatre getting ready to perform with his new dance troupe in a Variety Show where the first prize is a VERY delicious treat. 

Unfortunately, there are some peculiar goings on backstage and Claude and Sir Bobblysock must investigate who the mysterious ghostie is and why he's being so naughty and trying to spoil the show...

Whilst all this is going on, there is also the small problem of a very large chandelier that doesn't seem to be very securely attached to the ceiling...

Can CLAUDE and Sir Bobblysock, solve the mystery AND the chandelier?

You'll have to wait and see!

Claude in the Spotlight will be published in the UK by Hodder Children's Books on the 4th April 2013

It's available to pre-order now online, but please do also remember to support your local high street and independent book stores.

Check back here later this week for SNEAK PEEKS of my next picture book PRIMROSE.

My Nephews: On the Trail of the Yeti...

For the past few days it's been snowing like billy-o here in England. The whole country is covered in the stuff. I've been for a few slip-sliddery walks in it, wearing my wellington boots, but I've mainly spent lots of time in the warm looking out on it.

This picture shows my two nephews and their (imaginary) dog on the hunt for the mysterious and very shy Yeti. I think he might be living somewhere up in those mountains...

Wherever he is, I hope he's got the kettle on...

FROM MY SKETCHBOOK: High Tea...

Big Nephew - the Bookworm

This is my Big Nephew. He's seven and is, in many ways, my Mini Me.
We are interested in lots of the same things and both of us like to spend as much time as possible doodling and reading stories. Our favourite thing is to sit and draw underwater scenes, mostly featuring us and Little Nephew zipping around under the ocean in our own submarine.

For a little while, he wasn't that interested in books, but then suddenly, and it was almost overnight, he turned magically into a bookwork and now can't get enough of them. This picture shows what he looks like most of the time when he leaves school. He's one of those children who seem to go through life carting around tonnes of stuff - mainly books, but also jumpers and toys.

He is as quiet as Little Nephew is loud. What I like best is when Little Nephew does something completely loony, Big Nephew will just look at me, sigh, then roll his eyes and waggle his eyebrows. He reminds me a lot of Gromit from Wallace and Gromit when he does that... :-)