Crowvus Book Blog

 We're always growing as authors. When I go back and look at my first book, Day's Dying Glory , I can see how my writing has evolved - and certainly my books have grown, by some 10,000 words! This year, my historical fiction journey is taking quite a nerve-racking turn as Autumn will see the publication of my first book for children... This is something which is scary for a couple of reasons. Firstly, most of my books feature the sort of events I wouldn't want children reading! The continued debate about trigger-warnings on books rages on and, while I do not write about these things graphically or gratuitously, those dark events are as much a part of my books as they are of history. You can't shy away from them, and they are what give the characters that push into becoming who their destiny - and the story! - demands. We can't delve into some of these events in a children's book. But neither can we ignore the dark events which happened - eeek! Dilemma! Secondly,...

So, the New Year Resolutions went out the window. But don't they all? I was in a staff meeting after school today, and it was mentioned that Park Primary had reopened, and needed some interim supplies before they could get their stock up again. For those of you who didn't see it on the news, Park Primary in Invergordon was burned down after an old laptop caught fire. Amazingly, all the staff and children got out and were not harmed. They reopened last week, but have lost all of their supplies. My headteacher, a practical-minded individual, was hoping to put together some textbooks that we don't use. My first thought was that it was World Book Day this week, and the school had no library. Surely, if they had lost all their textbooks, they would have lost all their library books too! Imagine that! No books for the kids to sail away on. No chance for the children to fight or fly with dragons, or meet superheroes and wizards. With that in mind, I determined to package...

As promised, here is my 2nd class novel suggestion for a primary school classroom. It has been tried and tested in my own classroom and the children loved it. "Children of Green Knowe" by Lucy Boston is a really great story to read in the lead-up to Christmas. Here is the blurb from Goodreads: ""Tolly" Toseland 7 is rowed up to great-gran Linnet Oldknow by servant Boggis - there has always been a Boggis at Green Knowe. The real "castle" is over 900 years old. Gran tells old family stories, and songs. Over the generations there have been many who can see, hear, and feel the ghosts, evoked by white-on-black illustrations. Toby 14, Alexander, and Linnet 6 linger after the Plague, as does the cursed topiary Green Noah." While it is my policy to use the blurbs from Goodreads on my blog, quite frankly, I don't think this blurb does the book justice. It seems to have been written by someone who is trying to bring the book up to date...

Tomorrow (Thursday 1st March) is World Book Day! At school, we are supposed to be dressing up as book characters but we had a snow day today so I'm wondering if school will open tomorrow. To honour, World Book Day, I thought I would write about 2 children's novels (1 today, the other tomorrow) that I have serialised for my Primary 4 class. I will also write a lesson plan for each, which I will post on Friday. The 1st novel I read to them was "First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts" by Lari Don. This is a great book for adults and children (I first read this when I was studying at university and loved it!). It is about a girl in Southern Scotland who meets a young centaur and his friends who have done something foolish that could threaten fabled beasts and humans alike. It's a book full of suspense and adventure. Here is the blurb from Goodreads: "Helen has absolutely no interest in becoming a vet like her mother. So she isn't best plea...