Friday, June 13, 2008
The link - or rather the not-link - below
I've been trying to make it a link but tragically it won't do it, so you'll need ot type it in with your own little fingers if you want to see it.... it's worth it....
This is so FABULOUS... dear Lionlovers, if you ever thought a Lion couldn't really love a boy, watch this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr1pWzoLvT8
The story goes, they bought the lion at Harrods department Store, in the exotic pets dept, and he lived with them for a year in the King's Road in London, before growing too big, when they sent him back to the wild..... They were warned he probably wouldn't recognise him.......
I'm secretly thinking the Young Lion would be like this with Charlie...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
COMPETITION WINNER!!!! YES This means you, KATIE WRIGHT!
We have a winner for the competition!
Yesterday we all met up in Newcastle, at the exceptionally lovely Seven Stories centre, which is seven storeys tall, and full of interesting things about children's literature, including, yesterday, the full Zizou (ie Isabel and I); Louise from Puffin Books, and our winner, Katie Wright from Wakefield, with her mum Wendy, her dad Cal, and her brother Elliott, known as the Alien, and a big bunch of very nice Newcastle schoolkids too.
There were more than 5000 entries for our competition, and production of books at Puffin ground to a halt while the entire staff stopped working in order to read them all. They sent the best ones over to the Zizou Canoe, where Isabel and I retired to our hammocks to give them some serious consideration. They were exceptionally good.
The reason we chose Katie's was because it was a complete perfect little story, and it fitted exactly on to one page....no, really. A lot of the other pieces of writing were interesting and exciting and well-written and all, but were actually the beginnings of much longer stories, or bits of novels, or scraps of genius, or almost poetry... and we were looking for a story.
I'm going to ask Katie if we can put her winning story here on the page for you all to read, so we can see what you think. Also, we've got some photos of her sitting in the special Authors' Throne they keep in their Reading Attic at Seven Stories, and I'll get hold of those too.
Oh yes, so, yesterday, we had this lovely celebration to give Katie her prize - a Puffin Book a week, for a year. She went off clutching the catalogue, with her little pen ready to tick off the ones she wants, beaming like an extremely happy bookworm.
Also, we signed and presented to Seven Stories a GIANT BOOK OF NEBO. Tragically we weren't able to arrange the magic which would fill the book with every story ever written, and whichever one you want when you open the book, so instead we filled it with.... the best of the stories entered in the competition! We are going to have to go back to Newcastle in order to sit down for a week and read them all again in the luxury of the Authors' Throne. And to research the ghost story. 'What ghost story?'I hear you cry. Ah, well...you'll see.
So yesterday was a good Zizou day. Today we are back to walking the dog and taking French exams (yes Zizou has a dog now as well asall the ducks and the lizard and the dead tortoise. She is called Luna, she's black and shiny with pointy ears which stick up when she's excited and she has vertical take-off, which means she can just jump straight up off the floor, all four legs at once, just like that, about four feet in the air - four feet off the ground, in both senses of the phrase. When she does it inside the front door she is really funny, because you can see her bouncing in and out of view behind the glass window. I'll try to get a picture of her doing it. She is a lovely lovely dog.)
The seat of the pants must now return to the seat of the authorial chair. Ancient Greece is waiting for me.
By the way,anyone read Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce? It is a work of unadulterated GENIUS.
Yesterday we all met up in Newcastle, at the exceptionally lovely Seven Stories centre, which is seven storeys tall, and full of interesting things about children's literature, including, yesterday, the full Zizou (ie Isabel and I); Louise from Puffin Books, and our winner, Katie Wright from Wakefield, with her mum Wendy, her dad Cal, and her brother Elliott, known as the Alien, and a big bunch of very nice Newcastle schoolkids too.
There were more than 5000 entries for our competition, and production of books at Puffin ground to a halt while the entire staff stopped working in order to read them all. They sent the best ones over to the Zizou Canoe, where Isabel and I retired to our hammocks to give them some serious consideration. They were exceptionally good.
The reason we chose Katie's was because it was a complete perfect little story, and it fitted exactly on to one page....no, really. A lot of the other pieces of writing were interesting and exciting and well-written and all, but were actually the beginnings of much longer stories, or bits of novels, or scraps of genius, or almost poetry... and we were looking for a story.
Stories! That's what we like! Stories!
I'm going to ask Katie if we can put her winning story here on the page for you all to read, so we can see what you think. Also, we've got some photos of her sitting in the special Authors' Throne they keep in their Reading Attic at Seven Stories, and I'll get hold of those too.
Oh yes, so, yesterday, we had this lovely celebration to give Katie her prize - a Puffin Book a week, for a year. She went off clutching the catalogue, with her little pen ready to tick off the ones she wants, beaming like an extremely happy bookworm.
Also, we signed and presented to Seven Stories a GIANT BOOK OF NEBO. Tragically we weren't able to arrange the magic which would fill the book with every story ever written, and whichever one you want when you open the book, so instead we filled it with.... the best of the stories entered in the competition! We are going to have to go back to Newcastle in order to sit down for a week and read them all again in the luxury of the Authors' Throne. And to research the ghost story. 'What ghost story?'I hear you cry. Ah, well...you'll see.
So yesterday was a good Zizou day. Today we are back to walking the dog and taking French exams (yes Zizou has a dog now as well asall the ducks and the lizard and the dead tortoise. She is called Luna, she's black and shiny with pointy ears which stick up when she's excited and she has vertical take-off, which means she can just jump straight up off the floor, all four legs at once, just like that, about four feet in the air - four feet off the ground, in both senses of the phrase. When she does it inside the front door she is really funny, because you can see her bouncing in and out of view behind the glass window. I'll try to get a picture of her doing it. She is a lovely lovely dog.)
The seat of the pants must now return to the seat of the authorial chair. Ancient Greece is waiting for me.
By the way,anyone read Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce? It is a work of unadulterated GENIUS.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Aaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
....... Zizou is thoroughly ashamed. Imagine having a lovely blogsite and not writing on it for months and months. Zizou hangs his head in embarrassment and - here's a good word - contumelty.
But of course the reason authors keep bad blogs is that they are busy writing other things - you know, books. And sometimes they have to have lunch with their agents, sign Hollywood contracts, be won in competitions and so on, all of which takes a lot of time.
So - it's time for a catch-up in Zizouland:
1) We were won by William Tyndale School in Islington, London, Great Britain, the World, the Universe, Space. The elder Zizou has been pottering along there on a regular basis, to encourage the year Fives and Sixes to lie on the floor on huge bits of paper and draw round each other while giggling wildly. As a result they have written some excellent stories, the ideas for which Zizou has wickedly stolen to re-use at her leisure when she has run out of ideas of her own.
She has also been visiting schools in the south east telling them about Lee Raven, the Boy Thief. (Someone thought he was a thief who stole boys. In fact he is a boy who is a thief).
In sharing her own ideas, she finds that Year Fives don't mind characters falling in love so long as you don't go on about it, and Year Six is very very interested in poop. Also that head teachers don't like you using the proper words for poop.
Zizou is tempted to run a competition to see how many words we can think of.....
2) There is a reason for the poop obsession. When reading aloud from the new book LEE RAVEN - BOY THIEF Zizou offers the youngsters a choice of passages. Funnily enough, they tend to go for the one set down in the dark stinky sewers, with all the poop, and the big crunchy cockroaches, and the being chased by the wild pigs.
3) LEE RAVEN - BOY THIEF! Yes it's out now, looking very fine in its brown and gold jacket (Uniform? Suit? Livery?)There are some extracts and so on on the Puffin site. We're told it's quite good
- but perhaps they just don't want to hurt our feelings.
Have a look and see what you think. It's got baby dragons in it, and a skinny blond boy thief with tattoos, and an evil authoress, and a murder, and a magical Beano which isn't a Beano, and a drowned funfair, and a bullying Dad and a weeping Mum and a kindly old bookseller and a magnificent moustache.
4) And - there's a new competition (oh lord I really should write more often). It's a story writing competition, because we need lots of stories for a very special purpose....
You see on the left where it says WIN WIN WIN in big letters? Click there. You might
WIN A BOOK A WEEK FOR A YEAR!!! Yes every week a lovely shiny new book will arrive in the post for you to keep forever! And even if you don't win, your story might be chosen to go in our special giant book.... and when I say giant....
check it out.....
5) And, you will be delighted to hear, we have now, at lastly last, signed our new film contract. We are now polishing our shoes for the Oscar ceremony in 2013.
6) This month's Fantasy Castlist is....
ANEBA - WILL SMITH
CHARLIE - WILL SMITH'S LITTLE BOY
7) And we are actually writing a new book now too. It's about a girl who pretends to be a boy, a boy soldier and a boy who's half horse.
I must go and write it.
yours alluringly,
Zizou
But of course the reason authors keep bad blogs is that they are busy writing other things - you know, books. And sometimes they have to have lunch with their agents, sign Hollywood contracts, be won in competitions and so on, all of which takes a lot of time.
So - it's time for a catch-up in Zizouland:
1) We were won by William Tyndale School in Islington, London, Great Britain, the World, the Universe, Space. The elder Zizou has been pottering along there on a regular basis, to encourage the year Fives and Sixes to lie on the floor on huge bits of paper and draw round each other while giggling wildly. As a result they have written some excellent stories, the ideas for which Zizou has wickedly stolen to re-use at her leisure when she has run out of ideas of her own.
She has also been visiting schools in the south east telling them about Lee Raven, the Boy Thief. (Someone thought he was a thief who stole boys. In fact he is a boy who is a thief).
In sharing her own ideas, she finds that Year Fives don't mind characters falling in love so long as you don't go on about it, and Year Six is very very interested in poop. Also that head teachers don't like you using the proper words for poop.
Zizou is tempted to run a competition to see how many words we can think of.....
2) There is a reason for the poop obsession. When reading aloud from the new book LEE RAVEN - BOY THIEF Zizou offers the youngsters a choice of passages. Funnily enough, they tend to go for the one set down in the dark stinky sewers, with all the poop, and the big crunchy cockroaches, and the being chased by the wild pigs.
3) LEE RAVEN - BOY THIEF! Yes it's out now, looking very fine in its brown and gold jacket (Uniform? Suit? Livery?)There are some extracts and so on on the Puffin site. We're told it's quite good
- but perhaps they just don't want to hurt our feelings.
Have a look and see what you think. It's got baby dragons in it, and a skinny blond boy thief with tattoos, and an evil authoress, and a murder, and a magical Beano which isn't a Beano, and a drowned funfair, and a bullying Dad and a weeping Mum and a kindly old bookseller and a magnificent moustache.
4) And - there's a new competition (oh lord I really should write more often). It's a story writing competition, because we need lots of stories for a very special purpose....
You see on the left where it says WIN WIN WIN in big letters? Click there. You might
WIN A BOOK A WEEK FOR A YEAR!!! Yes every week a lovely shiny new book will arrive in the post for you to keep forever! And even if you don't win, your story might be chosen to go in our special giant book.... and when I say giant....
check it out.....
5) And, you will be delighted to hear, we have now, at lastly last, signed our new film contract. We are now polishing our shoes for the Oscar ceremony in 2013.
6) This month's Fantasy Castlist is....
ANEBA - WILL SMITH
CHARLIE - WILL SMITH'S LITTLE BOY
7) And we are actually writing a new book now too. It's about a girl who pretends to be a boy, a boy soldier and a boy who's half horse.
I must go and write it.
yours alluringly,
Zizou
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