Norm and I were stunned to see the following Viking-inspired artwork from year 2s at Guildford Grammar in Western Australia.
There’s Viking helmets, self-portraits with rune-encoded titles, and longships all over the place! It’s no wonder they won an in-school Children’s Book Week competition for best classroom decorations.
Well done year 2s. This really made us smile 🙂
As part of my Children’s Book Month, I was invited to the Cocos Islands.
Yep. You heard right.
I was flown out to the middle of the Indian Ocean, to a beautiful tropical atoll, a ring of 26 islands of which only 2 are inhabited, and I was paid to be there and draw with groups of schoolkids.
My job is tops.
I spent the last week of August in Kalgoorlie, an old mining town in Western Australia’s goldfields. The Library hosted me, and I saw three school groups a day for 5 days.
I’d been to Kalgoorlie twice before but only ever briefly (my first visit was for year 7 camp back in 1994). This time around I got to explore it more, and also see the nearby towns of Coolgardie and Kambalda.
Out there I was struck by how big the sky was. Sometimes you can see all the way to the horizon with nothing in the way.
And a big pit- a superpit, in fact.
Children’s Book Week has become Children’s Book Term for me this year.
Thank you Mt Hawthorn Primary, Rockingham Library, Tranby College, Melville Libraries, Clarkson Library, Kwinana Library, South Perth Library, Manning Library and Subiaco Library for inviting me.
Some feedback from the sessions so far:
“Inspiring!”
“James’ wonderful storytelling captured everyone’s attention, great research and great activities.”
“Best Book Week session I have ever attended… Subiaco Primary School”
“The combination of drawing, history facts about Vikings and storytelling was fantastic and really captured the children’s attention and engaged them.”
Here’s some pieces of work that students gave me after the sessions. In one activity, I ask students to design their own viking god or goddess.
Earlier this year I worked with Alzheimer’s Australia on an interactive website.
The website shows how to adapt living environments for people with Alzheimer’s.
I did the illustrations for each living environment. The illustrations stretched my perspective skills (and vice versa- I stretched the perspective in quite a few of these!). Here’s some examples.
You can check out the Enabling Environments website here.
On July 30, my friends, family and the Perth SCBWI crew gathered at Beaufort Street Books to launch my new book In The Lion.
My cousin, author Jon Doust, launched the book. Thanks Jon!
Then on August 11th, we had a family day at Beaufort Street Books! It was an all-day extravaganza featuring:
Continue reading “In The Lion launch and family day”
It’s August, which means Children’s Book Week is fast approaching. If you’re a teacher, maybe you’d like to use The Last Viking for one of your classroom displays. Here’s some examples that Norm and I have seen since the book came out.
In the example above, teacher Trevor Dent guided his students from Gidgegannup Primary in making a Viking ship display for the heARTlines Children’s Literature Festival 2011. The centrepiece is a ship painted on to card with a cloth sail. Students have illustrated characters from the book and their own original Viking warriors.
The picture below is a display from Year 1/2 H at Penrith, NSW. They coloured viking ships, swords and shields, and translated their names into runes along the bottom of the display.
Below are two photos from a year 3 classroom at Rosalie Primary School. I visited them for their biennial writers’ festival and contributed some drawings. The foam lettering and cardboard viking ship were used in their assembly item (seen playing on the smartboard), in which they acted out the entire book! They performed an inspired closing number- ‘One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater’. Odin and Thor would be proud of their stellar efforts.
And finally, here are some illustrations by the same talented Rosalie Primary School year 3s. These are pasted to the front and inside of a thank you card the students presented to me. Norm got one too. We were gobsmacked at the creativity in this classroom (which probably has a lot to do with their fantastic teacher, Mrs Goods).
One other activity I like to do with students is Viking character design. I talk a little about the Viking gods and what each god or goddess was in charge of. Then I ask the students to imagine that if they were a Viking god or goddess, what would they be in charge of? Then I ask them to draw that character.
There’s more Viking-themed classroom resources on our Resources page. There’s blackline masters for colouring in, a ‘How To Read Runes’ worksheet, and links to activities on the web.
The Teachers page gives you some ideas about how to link The Last Viking in with curriculum, and provides a handy overview of this blog and sorts some useful posts into ready-made lists for you.
Norm and I love seeing the work that students make in response to The Last Viking. If you have any pictures of your own Viking displays or artwork and would like to share them with us via your blog, we’d love to see them- send us a link!
He’s escaped!
My new book In The Lion is in all good bookstores now.
Magpies magazine released the first review:
“The format of the text is delightfully repetitive… in true children’s picture story book tradition it is up to the protagonist Richard to save the day! The illustrations are colourful and there is action within for the reader to giggle over. A fun story.” – Sharon Greenaway
But wait- THERE’S MORE! For a limited time, some bookstores are giving away a free In The Lion library bag with every purchase!
The flap opens up to make Liev the Lion roar.
I’ll be in Balingup this weekend (Sat 14th and Sun 15th July) for the Telling Tales Children’s Literature Festival.
Last year was my first time at the festival, and I was really impressed with the way the community runs it and gets behind it. It’s not that far a drive from Perth city – only an hour south-east of Bunbury – and well worth the visit.
There’s a great lineup this year, including Sean E Avery, David Caddy, Deb Fitzpatrick, Elaine Forrestal, Gabriel Evans, Sonia Martenez and Chris Nixon.
I was busting to animate a scene from the book. When I rough out the illustrations, I see it as a movie in my head. And now, part of it is a real little movie!
I’d love to go through and do the whole book. It would take about a month though- it took 14 hours to do a minute’s worth of footage.
Hope you like.
James Foley 