Mar. 28th, 2023 at 8:00 PM
Adventuremice Southwest Tour: the tail end!
The Southwest Tour launch of our book Adventuremice: Otter Chaos came to an end with our last two events at Waterstones Taunton (in Somerset) and Waterstones Truro (in Cornwall). But I saw a poster in Truro for a place called 'Mousehole' and asked my co-author Philip Reeve if it was a real place... and it is!
He said the Cornish pronunciation was 'Mowze-ull', but nevertheless, an excellent name. I checked how far away it was - not far from Penzance - and thought, yup, that would be a Very Appropriate place to end our tour. So that's we did!
But I should back up, to our visit to lovely Taunton, organised for us by amazing publicist Liz Scott:
We were met at Waterstones Taunton by bookseller Natasha, who'd gathered lots of families for the weekly story hour, and Through the Bookshelf blogger Sue, and we had fun drawing with them.
Check out these great Pedros! Some of the children were VERY young - toddlers with their baby brothers or sisters - but they seemed to enjoy the book being read to them, which was good to see. Check out these excellent Pedro drawings! And thanks so much for looking after us Natasha! (If you missed the event, you can learn how to draw Pedro here on the Adventuremice website.)
Our next stop was several hours away, in Truro, and at first we weren't quite sure we'd come to the right place...
And I had a little scuffle with some scantily-clad drummer chap.
Eventually we found Truro Cathedral, and our bookshop destination was close by.
Here's our final planned tour stop, Waterstones Truro! Take a closer look in those windows...
You can instantly tell Waterstones Truro is BIG into the nautical theme.
Check out this whole section of Cornwall and nautical-themed books! It was an absolutely perfect place to bring the seafaring Adventuremice.
In Taunton we'd had a very young audience, but in Truro, I think one teenager spotted our event and pulled in her friends, so we were getting very grownup questions about writing and character development! Fortunately they were still more than happy to draw Pedro with us and the other younger visitors, and the whole event had a really nice multi-age atmosphere. I think it's great for younger children to see teenagers drawing; they realise that drawing isn't just some babyish thing laid on for them, but that the cool big kids do it, too.
The Waterstones Truro team snapped some photos of us, doing a reading:
...And inventing a (highly ridiculous) island to include in 'The Nameless Isles' mentioned in the book. (I was particularly happy with the 'toast tree' suggestion.)
One of the highlights of the visit was being looked after by Waterstones' Craig Green, who's also an author in his own right and, appropriately for Truro, has also made a nautical book - Captured! The Incredible True Story of Thomas Pellow - in tandem with artist Oliver Hurst. I'd met Craig before, but a very long time ago, and Philip and I had a great time getting to chat and catch up with him over cake in the beautiful sunlit upstairs cafe. (Do stop in there if you're ever in Truro!)
And then, we were finished! But we had one last stop to make... Mousehole! An hour or so later, we arrived.
And it was everything we hoped it would be... except quite a lot larger, and not exactly mouse-scale. But with a bit of imagination, one could imagine boats such as this one, scaled way down and being rowed by tiny Pedro, Juniper, Bosun or any of the Adventuremice. Philip was still full of cake, but I had to get a Cornish pasty (I mean, it would be criminal if one of us didn't) and we sat on the edge of the harbour while I munched it and reflected on this last busy month.
The Adventuremice Southwest tour has been amazing, and we couldn't have done it without all the help and organising from our publicists with David Fickling Books - Liz Scott and Fraser Hutchinson, and my husband Stuart did a lot of travel booking, too, while I put all my energy into finishing the illustrations for Adventuremice Book 3. (Thank you!!)
We're just starting on the fourth book, but I can show off the covers for the first three: Otter Chaos is out now, Mermouse Mystery launches June 1st, and Mice on the Ice comes out Oct 5th. And don't forget to look out for extra free activities on the website, Adventuremice.com!
He said the Cornish pronunciation was 'Mowze-ull', but nevertheless, an excellent name. I checked how far away it was - not far from Penzance - and thought, yup, that would be a Very Appropriate place to end our tour. So that's we did!
But I should back up, to our visit to lovely Taunton, organised for us by amazing publicist Liz Scott:
We were met at Waterstones Taunton by bookseller Natasha, who'd gathered lots of families for the weekly story hour, and Through the Bookshelf blogger Sue, and we had fun drawing with them.
Check out these great Pedros! Some of the children were VERY young - toddlers with their baby brothers or sisters - but they seemed to enjoy the book being read to them, which was good to see. Check out these excellent Pedro drawings! And thanks so much for looking after us Natasha! (If you missed the event, you can learn how to draw Pedro here on the Adventuremice website.)
Our next stop was several hours away, in Truro, and at first we weren't quite sure we'd come to the right place...
And I had a little scuffle with some scantily-clad drummer chap.
Eventually we found Truro Cathedral, and our bookshop destination was close by.
Here's our final planned tour stop, Waterstones Truro! Take a closer look in those windows...
You can instantly tell Waterstones Truro is BIG into the nautical theme.
Check out this whole section of Cornwall and nautical-themed books! It was an absolutely perfect place to bring the seafaring Adventuremice.
In Taunton we'd had a very young audience, but in Truro, I think one teenager spotted our event and pulled in her friends, so we were getting very grownup questions about writing and character development! Fortunately they were still more than happy to draw Pedro with us and the other younger visitors, and the whole event had a really nice multi-age atmosphere. I think it's great for younger children to see teenagers drawing; they realise that drawing isn't just some babyish thing laid on for them, but that the cool big kids do it, too.
The Waterstones Truro team snapped some photos of us, doing a reading:
...And inventing a (highly ridiculous) island to include in 'The Nameless Isles' mentioned in the book. (I was particularly happy with the 'toast tree' suggestion.)
One of the highlights of the visit was being looked after by Waterstones' Craig Green, who's also an author in his own right and, appropriately for Truro, has also made a nautical book - Captured! The Incredible True Story of Thomas Pellow - in tandem with artist Oliver Hurst. I'd met Craig before, but a very long time ago, and Philip and I had a great time getting to chat and catch up with him over cake in the beautiful sunlit upstairs cafe. (Do stop in there if you're ever in Truro!)
And then, we were finished! But we had one last stop to make... Mousehole! An hour or so later, we arrived.
And it was everything we hoped it would be... except quite a lot larger, and not exactly mouse-scale. But with a bit of imagination, one could imagine boats such as this one, scaled way down and being rowed by tiny Pedro, Juniper, Bosun or any of the Adventuremice. Philip was still full of cake, but I had to get a Cornish pasty (I mean, it would be criminal if one of us didn't) and we sat on the edge of the harbour while I munched it and reflected on this last busy month.
The Adventuremice Southwest tour has been amazing, and we couldn't have done it without all the help and organising from our publicists with David Fickling Books - Liz Scott and Fraser Hutchinson, and my husband Stuart did a lot of travel booking, too, while I put all my energy into finishing the illustrations for Adventuremice Book 3. (Thank you!!)
We're just starting on the fourth book, but I can show off the covers for the first three: Otter Chaos is out now, Mermouse Mystery launches June 1st, and Mice on the Ice comes out Oct 5th. And don't forget to look out for extra free activities on the website, Adventuremice.com!