world book day

Guess what, I didn’t do anything for World Book Day today because Stuart, my sister and I were in Amsterdam! (I’ll post sketches and photos soon.) Despite this, we managed to sweep back into London at the end of the day and catch one of our favourite writers, who was in in town for his events. Alyx Price from Scholastic took this photo of Philip Reeve getting well McIntyred.

Mary McIntyre, Philip Reeve, Sarah McIntyre

Speaking of World Book Day, the second-youngest member of my book club (Anneli, named after Anerley rail station) was much more put together than me, dressing up as Tiny from Viviane Schwarz‘s There Are Cats in This Book.

Before we left for Amsterdam, I had to do a few things in the studio, and while I was working, my sister and I threw a piece of folded paper back and forth to each other to make a story to send to Philip through the post. It’s very rough, but I think it made him laugh.

And hey, Philip, thanks for the mention in the Telegraph! Here’s his article about World Book Day. Which I found out about on the same day that Scholastic sent me an advance copy of his latest Mortal Engines book, Scrivener’s Moon, through the post. Good times!

As I was looking up the World Book Day link just now, I stumbled across this 20-minute video of Philip reading from his World Book Day short novel, Traction City… while he’s sitting in a tree house. I am bookmarking this for later, to work out if it’s all CGI effects or if they really had him up in a tree. Too funny.

And if you’re still wanting to take part in the events, tomorrow’s the big World Book Night from 5pm-8pm on Trafalgar Square in London, where you can here short talks by Margaret Atwood, Alan Bennett, Nick Cave, John Le Carre, Rupert Everett, Mark Haddon, Hanif Kureishi, Graham Norton, Edna O’Brien, DBC Pierre, Philip Pullman, Lemn Sissay and Sarah Waters.

And a big hurrah to my studio mates, who are going out to Berlin for the launch of Fleece Officer Lauren O’Farrell’s new book in German, Knit the City. I want to hear all about it, guys!