Reasons to Be Cheerful: History

One of the things I love about coming back to England is that you are never too far away from something of historic interest. I went to university at Canterbury in Kent and although I enjoyed the historic city I don't think I appreciated it as much as I do now. However, I always loathed the tourists and there are just as many of those now if not more.

You can walk or bike along the Great Stour Way to Chartham. It's a sweet little village and I was particularly enchanted by the level crossing.

Eastbourne and Eric Ravilious

Last week I needed to escape from London and swim in the sea so I headed down to Eastbourne on the south coast. I used to live in Eastbourne and the best things about it are

1. the beach is a lot nicer than the ones in Kent,
2. you can walk from the town up onto the South Downs without crossing any major roads and
3. the Towner.

When I left Eastbourne to move to New Zealand, there was a fantastic little gallery called the Towner. The Towner has got a lot bigger, But it still has a great collection of Eric Ravilious's work that you can see for free.

I like his woodcuts the best.

Finding Great Children's Books Online With Toppsta

One of the hardest things about being an independent author is getting people to see your books, especially if they are to be found amongst the thousands online. 

Amazon is the biggest online retailer of children's books by far, But it really only works well if you know what you are looking for. If you are looking for something new, you are unlikely to discover the best books, rather the books that sell really well. This means books that have been published for a long time, or books that have been put out by celebrity authors, or those that are already bestsellers. Because Amazon promotes books that already sell well on Amazon, it is only easy to find books that are already successful.

So where do you go if you want to discover new books for children? Where can you find ones that are written well and enjoyed by kids no matter who has published them, or how famous the author is?

This is where Toppsta comes in, by collecting reviews and ranking books accordingly. The Toppsta website says,

“We collect reviews from children and parents (and grandparents and librarians..) and ... you’ll find the top books for each year from babies to teenagers and every age in between!

We hope you’ll discover new books, new authors and new series and we’d love it if you’d join our community and write reviews of children’s books you’ve enjoyed. It takes less than 5 minutes to write a book review and you’ll be helping other children (and parents) find the very best books to read.”

I'd recommend you head over to Toppsta and review some books you've read and discover some you haven't. And a giveaway of FAB Club is running in the month of September 2018. Click the image below to head to Toppsta and enter.

click to find FAB Club on Toppsta

FAB Indoor and Outdoor Games For Kids

My latest children's book, FAB Club 2, features games. I've written up the rules and you can find them by heading to the FAB Club page, or clicking below.

These were some of the many games we played as kids, as we weren't allowed to watch TV (there wasn't much on anyway, as for most of my childhood there were only 3 channels and video didn't come along until I was a teenager) and rarely went away on holiday. But we had great fun and I wouldn't have wanted a different childhood. At least at home.