Exciting Books for Children and Adults
by FRANK ENGLISH
Unique project with 11/12 year old 'apprentice writers'
The work undertaken throughout schools visited throughout the North of England has allowed the identification of some very talented young writers of around 11 years of age who desperately want to become authors. Consequently, with parental permission some of them were offered the opportunity to 'learn the trade' through writing a book with the author, by telling the story of a minor character from the Mulberry Road series of five books. The child in each case supplies story lines, characterisations, settings, and invents a character (s)he wants to become in the story. With all this information the author then crafts the story
The first book in the series - called Juniper's Tale - was written with a ten year old young lady, called Natalie Fothergill from Gisborough and was released in September 2018.
Book number 2 - called Honey - has been written with a twelve year old young lady called Honey Gott, from Brookhouse Lancaster, and was released at the beginning of February 2019. This one was launched very successfully on Saturday 16th February to great acclaim.
The third book - called The Story of Lemuel Pecker - written with a ten year old called Amy Elliott, from Normanton in Yorkshire, was published in March 2019 and is to be launched on Saturday 4th May 2019 at Normanton Library.
The present unique project does all of the above with a group of 12 Year 6 children from Skerton St Luke's CE VA Primary School Lancaster which was started at the beginning of November 2018. The children's brief was to provide the author, through discussion with him and through individual work, with their collected ideas on characterisation, story lines, descriptions, situations etc by the end of the Christmas term 2018 so he would have the Christmas fortnight to craft the story. The book is called "Josephine's Journey".
All this was done according to schedule and the book was launched in school on Friday 7th June 2019. The event was celebrated at a cake and tea launch and was extremely successful.
Book Four in the series was written with 3 young ladies from St John the Baptist RC Primary School in Normanton, Yorkshire. They are Libby Cook. Niamh Grainger and Maria McHale. and the book is called
Holly's Prize​
Book Five is​ called Sara's Astonishing Story and was written with Sara Donovan, a 12 year old from Santa Rosa in California, USA.
​Book Six was written with a full class of 29 10 year olds from St Luke's CE Primary School in Lancaster. Its name uses their teacher's name for the main character, and the book is called Garnett's Grand Getaway.
Book number seven was written by the author alone. It is called The Boys in Black.
The Magic Whistle and the Tiny Bag of Wishes was written with Ellah Louise Ramsey, a ten-year-old from Middlesbrough. It has sold 600 copies so far throughout the world.​ This one is book number eight
Book Nine is waiting for printing, but is called Half Moon Farm and has been written with 6 youngsters from Sacred Heart RC Primary School in Atherton, Wigan.
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