As part of the neev literature festival 2024 in India, I’m taking part in the young readers Reading Challenge. They are reading The Ice Children and I did an online event with them asking me questions about my modern fairy story.
I really enjoyed this event. The readers had some truly great questions to ask me. If you’d like me to read you a short passage from The Ice Children and are interested in my answers, you can watch the thirty minute event here.
I had a wonderful time at the brilliant Hay Festival.
I was on the schools programme this year and had the absolute pleasure of talking to nearly 2000 children about birds and books.
I also had the honour of chairing Antony Horowitz’s event, which was so brilliant because everyone in my home loves the Alex Rider books. He’s a bit of hero to us.
My favourite part of the festival was meeting lots of wonderful young readers who really knew their birds, and plenty more who were excited to discover the wonderful world of birds.
I want to thank all the brilliant people who work so hard to make Hay Festival such a celebration of books. It truly is a great festival and I’m proud to have taken part in it.
I had a lovely time in Glasgow with Scottish Book Trust and the BBC sharing my love of birds and talking about The Twitchers series. If you were unable you tune in to the live broadcast, don’t worry, the program is now on iPlayer and will be for the foreseeable future. WATCH NOW.
If you are a teacher and reading the books in your classroom, you may prefer to access the program via the Book Trust website, where it’s cut into small chunks and accompanied by suggested learning activities and resources connected to the books. LINK HERE.
The Ice Children has made it onto the shortlist for the Sheffield Children’s Book Award Shortlist 2024. This is such a wonderful award, run by the Schools Library service in Sheffield. I’m delighted that t The Ice Children, my frosty magical homage to winter, has been shortlisted in the Shorter Novels for 9-11 year olds category with two other fantastic books. I cannot wait to go to the Crucible Theatre for the award ceremony. Keep your fingers crossed for me and Penny Neville Lee the illustrator.
If you want to find out more about the award, follow this link.
I will be bringing my love of birds, storytelling, reading and detective mysteries to BBC Scotland, in partnership with the Scottish Book Trust, for Authors Live!
If you are a teacher or home educator in Scotland, you can watch the live stream in your classrooms when it’s first broadcast. And if you are outside of Scotland, the program will be available on the iPlayer to all of the UK for at least a year. It will be available to everyone to watch.
Authors Live is a series of world class children’s author and illustrator events brought directly to your classroom, library or home for free, live on the web. There are live events available to watch on demand from authors, including Cressida Cowell, Joseph Coelho and Mark Bradley. MORE HERE
It was a delight to be invited to Sky News to talk about the great work World Book Day does to promote reading for pleasure, along with fellow author Will Mabbet.
Right now, growing numbers of children don’t own even one book, and literacy levels are sinking among those struggling in a cost of living crisis. Schools have had budgets slashed to the bone and cannot afford a library, let alone a librarian, and councils are closing public libraries. Is it any wonder that fewer than three in ten children are reading daily?
Reading is the single most beneficial and life-altering skill a person can learn. It certainly changed my life and I’m grateful for it.
A special thanks goes out to Sketchley Hill school who gave me permission to use photographs from my visit on World Book Day this year. I had a great time plotting crimes with their pupils, reading to them, and sharing the joy of reading.
There’s a brilliant island, far far away, where the wonderful author illustrator Nadia Shireen lies in a hammock reading books and chatting about them with her cast away friend Frank Cottrell Boyce. This week I jumped on an underground steam train and paid them a visit. I brought a hamper of treats and as we ate them we talked about writing stories, our new favourite reads, and how hard it is to do magic tricks. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had to steam away to get ready for World Book Day,
Every year, it is a huge joy to see your wonderful costumes on World Book Day.
I like to celebrate readers’ awesomeness by gathering the images I’m sent online into a gallery so that you know that I’ve seen your costumes and how wonderful they are! This year the costumes were off the chart levels of amazing. I’m truly blown away.
I hope you all had a wonderful World Book Day!
If you dressed up as a character from one of my books this year, I would like to thank you, because I am honoured that you have enjoyed my stories enough to make this effort to create a costume, and it makes me so happy to see them.
If you want to send me a picture to add to the gallery, you can post it on a social media platform and @ me in or email it to info@mgleonard.com
The Ice Children has been shortlisted for an Audie Award in America!
The Audie Awards are American awards given out by the Audio Publishers Association for achievements in excellence (performance and production). You can learn more here.
I am over the moon that The Ice Children has been nominated in the UK-produced books category. It’s a wild list of finalists. The books are all so different. I have no idea how they choose a winner. Considering the competition I have realistic expectations about not winning, but it’s a wonder to me that The Ice Children is a part of the mix. I’m so pleased because I love what Audible has done with the story. The music, the acting, and the production are all so creative and, I believe, first-class.
Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Today, the Wicked Writers: Be the Change writing competition launches. It was devised by the National Literacy Trust and stage musical Wicked (as part of its acclaimed Wicked Active Learning cultural and social education programme), to inspire the UK’s school children to get creative and use their voices to change the world for the better.
Now in its second year, the competition is based on the themes of one of the most well-known songs from the musical, ‘For Good’, and this year challenges pupils aged 9 – 14 to write persuasively about a positive environmental change they want to see.
This year, I’m delighted to announce that I’m joining the judging panel.
To find out how to take part and all the information about the wicked prizes, click the button!
This February half-term, investigate the wonderful wildlife at your local museum as part of The Twitchers Museum Adventure, organised by Kids in Museums and Walker Books.
The egg-citing national trail for families celebrates the release of Feather, the latest book in the Twitchers Series. I’m super excited about this because Feather is a museum heist!
Over 55 museums across the UK will be taking part from 10 to 25 February 2024. Join birdwatching detectives the Twitchers and explore the beautiful birds and amazing animals in your local museum. Pick up a free activity sheet to join in and have a hoot with your family. Find all the feathered friends hidden in the collection and make your own pledge to protect wildlife. Complete the trail and get a free Twitchers sticker!
Just before Christmas I was approached by the Observer newspaper, who were putting together their annual Christmas puzzle pull out and planning a quiz where the reader had to match the pet to the author. They wanted to know if I’d be happy to take part.
I was delighted that my six-legged lovelies would get to star in a newspaper article and invited the Observer into my writing cabin at the bottom of my garden to photograph my beautiful pets.
I’ve put together a gallery of the photoshoot, and you’ll see we tried a number of set-ups. Unfortunately, the beetles got excited by the bright lights and all the attention and kept flying about. Sophie, the photographer, ended up with a beetle in her hair at one point, but she was an excellent sport about it.
It is with huge excitement that I can finally share this fabulous news with you. There’s an Adventures on Trains film franchise coming down the tracks, starting with The Highland Falcon Thief!
There’s lots going on behind the scenes that we aren’t able to talk about yet, but Sam and I are stoked that Kindle Entertainment will be reimagining our books for the big screen. Their vision for the screen adaptation of The Highland Falcon Thief is sure to please readers and fans of the series. The talent, passion, and ability of the team they’re putting together is beyond exciting.
You can read the full press release below.
There will be more news coming next year, but for now, all we can say is that it is happening and it’s going to be quite a ride!
