May. 24th, 2025 at 8:56 PM
London & Dublin Tour, May 2025
This week, the Adventuremice went on tour! (Well, their creators did.) Here's a picture I drew in my sketchbook of Philip waiting for our plane to Dublin.
But before that, we took a train to London! And then to Twickenham in southwest London, for the Barnes Children's Literature Festival, where we were doing an Adventuremice stage events in front of 550 schoolchildren. Our otter, Mortlake, got rather excited on one leg of the journey and insisted on photos.
And what a venue it was, right there in the famous rugby stadium! Huge thanks to Director Amanda Brettargh, Production Manager Celia Allbut, and the whole team who looked after us and made our event run so smoothly. We even got to say a quick hello to the next author on stage, Patrice Lawrence!
The audience were terrific, and we all drew pictures of Bosun twirling his lasso, as featured in our latest book, Adventuremice: Mice, Camera, Action!
While we were in town, we met up with our Independent Alliance sales rep, Lucy Cornwell, who organised our visit to The Kew Bookshop, The Paper Cat in Herne Hill, and South Kensington Books, where we signed lots of Adventuremice books.
After that, we caught a train down to Bright Agency in Clapham, who were hosting a meeting of judges for this year's Alligator's Mouth Award for Early Illustrated Fiction. Philip and I won the award last year for Adventuremice: Otter Chaos, and we were honoured to be on the panel to pick the new winner.
The Alligator's Mouth is a terrific bookshop in Richmond, and the very next day, owners Margaret Wallace-Jones and Tony West were celebrating ten years since its opening. Congratulations, Alligator's Mouth! (Click through to their website and you can see the painting I made of the shop!)
Then it was straight on from the meeting to Ireland for the International Literature Festival Dublin! I didn't manage to get any photos from the event itself, but here's the fabulous woman in charge of the festival, Janet Smyth, and the terrific tech team who ran the GIANT screen behind us! It was amazing, our pictures were so big that we were literally stepping into our book, the size of Adventuremice. SO cool.
After our event, we caught the DART south along the coastline to Greystones, to see author Sarah Webb, which is an essential thing one must do when one goes to Ireland. (I was hoping the big hat dent in my forehead would fade before I got there, but no luck.)
Here's Sarah in front of the terrific bookshop she works at and champions, Halfway up the Stairs.
We had a nice little event with families in the shop and signed lots more books. It was great to hear that the Adventuremice were going down well with their readers! Big thanks to Sarah and the owner Trish Hennessey for hosting us!
On our last morning, we had breakfast with fellow author Nadia L. Hohn, who had come all the way from Toronto. We'd met Nadia once before, at the Emirates Lit Fest in Dubai in 2017, so it was great to see her again and catch up.
Then we were off on a whirlwind bookshop tour! Sales rep Jacq Murphy took us all around the street of Dublin, starting with Ireland's oldest bookshop, founded in 1768, Hodges Figgis. Children's bookseller Mary-Brigid Turner was so supportive of Adventuremice and we were thrilled to be there!
The next stop was Dubray Books on Mary Street, who were the bookseller for the festival where we'd just performed. Aisling the bookseller showed us their Book Nook where lots of authors have taken photos, and we tried our best to squash in...
Oh, wait, this is how it's supposed to be done!
Next stop: The Gutter Bookshop, who have often hosted booksales at events I've done in Ireland! It was great to see Marta, Sarah and the team there.
And then on to Chapters Bookshop, with its great big windows and lovely high ceilings!
And finally to Eason's bookshop, the big one on O'Connell Street, where we signed the last big batch of books. Thanks so much for looking after us, Jacq - it was great to see you!
And then back, through Dublin's technicolour airport. (This vivid stretch was so exciting that we actually took a wrong turn and almost ended up back in Security, but all was well.)
Huge thanks to everyone who looked after us, and to Fraser Hutchinson and Ruth Sanderson at David Fickling Books for putting together our complicated itinerary!
If you came along to one of our events and want to discover more about the Adventuremice - and find fun, free activities! - visit our website, Adventuremice.com.
But before that, we took a train to London! And then to Twickenham in southwest London, for the Barnes Children's Literature Festival, where we were doing an Adventuremice stage events in front of 550 schoolchildren. Our otter, Mortlake, got rather excited on one leg of the journey and insisted on photos.
And what a venue it was, right there in the famous rugby stadium! Huge thanks to Director Amanda Brettargh, Production Manager Celia Allbut, and the whole team who looked after us and made our event run so smoothly. We even got to say a quick hello to the next author on stage, Patrice Lawrence!
The audience were terrific, and we all drew pictures of Bosun twirling his lasso, as featured in our latest book, Adventuremice: Mice, Camera, Action!
While we were in town, we met up with our Independent Alliance sales rep, Lucy Cornwell, who organised our visit to The Kew Bookshop, The Paper Cat in Herne Hill, and South Kensington Books, where we signed lots of Adventuremice books.
After that, we caught a train down to Bright Agency in Clapham, who were hosting a meeting of judges for this year's Alligator's Mouth Award for Early Illustrated Fiction. Philip and I won the award last year for Adventuremice: Otter Chaos, and we were honoured to be on the panel to pick the new winner.
The Alligator's Mouth is a terrific bookshop in Richmond, and the very next day, owners Margaret Wallace-Jones and Tony West were celebrating ten years since its opening. Congratulations, Alligator's Mouth! (Click through to their website and you can see the painting I made of the shop!)
Then it was straight on from the meeting to Ireland for the International Literature Festival Dublin! I didn't manage to get any photos from the event itself, but here's the fabulous woman in charge of the festival, Janet Smyth, and the terrific tech team who ran the GIANT screen behind us! It was amazing, our pictures were so big that we were literally stepping into our book, the size of Adventuremice. SO cool.
After our event, we caught the DART south along the coastline to Greystones, to see author Sarah Webb, which is an essential thing one must do when one goes to Ireland. (I was hoping the big hat dent in my forehead would fade before I got there, but no luck.)
Here's Sarah in front of the terrific bookshop she works at and champions, Halfway up the Stairs.
We had a nice little event with families in the shop and signed lots more books. It was great to hear that the Adventuremice were going down well with their readers! Big thanks to Sarah and the owner Trish Hennessey for hosting us!
On our last morning, we had breakfast with fellow author Nadia L. Hohn, who had come all the way from Toronto. We'd met Nadia once before, at the Emirates Lit Fest in Dubai in 2017, so it was great to see her again and catch up.
Then we were off on a whirlwind bookshop tour! Sales rep Jacq Murphy took us all around the street of Dublin, starting with Ireland's oldest bookshop, founded in 1768, Hodges Figgis. Children's bookseller Mary-Brigid Turner was so supportive of Adventuremice and we were thrilled to be there!
The next stop was Dubray Books on Mary Street, who were the bookseller for the festival where we'd just performed. Aisling the bookseller showed us their Book Nook where lots of authors have taken photos, and we tried our best to squash in...
Oh, wait, this is how it's supposed to be done!
Next stop: The Gutter Bookshop, who have often hosted booksales at events I've done in Ireland! It was great to see Marta, Sarah and the team there.
And then on to Chapters Bookshop, with its great big windows and lovely high ceilings!
And finally to Eason's bookshop, the big one on O'Connell Street, where we signed the last big batch of books. Thanks so much for looking after us, Jacq - it was great to see you!
And then back, through Dublin's technicolour airport. (This vivid stretch was so exciting that we actually took a wrong turn and almost ended up back in Security, but all was well.)
Huge thanks to everyone who looked after us, and to Fraser Hutchinson and Ruth Sanderson at David Fickling Books for putting together our complicated itinerary!
If you came along to one of our events and want to discover more about the Adventuremice - and find fun, free activities! - visit our website, Adventuremice.com.