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It’s so wonderful to see Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) featured in the City Kids Magazine springtime book review. Have a read of the review here and see the full list of featured books.

Yesterday, Sheena and I were in beautiful Oundle for the Oundle Festival of Literature Kid Lit Programme.

We signed a monster-sized pile of books and ran an illustration and story-building workshop with pupils from Easton Garford Primary School, Laxton Junior School, Copthill Primary School, Oundle Primary School, Warmington Primary School and Hezel Leys Academy.

The Great Hall in Oundle was filled to the brim with two hundred and eighty-five pupils and they created some brilliant new pigeon characters. We then got to work creating a story that involved Dave Pigeon and Skipper being attacked by a wasp and landing in Pigeon Land where a superhero pigeon saves them from the menacing wasp.

Sheena and I then headed north to Newark Hill Academy where we met with Year 4 and introduced them to the villains in the Dave Pigeon series. As a group they created a brand new villain, the evil Doctor K, and then worked on their own baddies before we created a new Dave Pigeon story together, full of graveyard high jinx and volcanic villain lairs.

Thank you so much to all the pupils and teachers who came along and especially to the brilliant Helen Shair who organised the Oundle Festival of Literature and was the most pigeontastic host.

It’s World Book Day and my first event of the month. Today, I was invited to run a Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) craft workshop at Ashmole Primary School as part of their World Book Day celebrations. This was the first time I was reading from Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) at a school since its release last month.

The pupils then created their own International Police Legion of Pigeons (I.P.L.O.P.) badges. It was a lovely morning of pigeon stories, self-portraits and biscuit flavour debate.

Thank you so much to the wonderful pupils and staff at Ashmole Primary School for making me feel so welcome at your new school.

And a HUGE thank you to everyone who got in touch with all the wonderful Dave Pigeon inspired events and costumes for World Book Day, especially to Manya Benenson and Jayne Williams who ran an incredible Dave Pigeon writing workshop at Belgrave Library, with The Spark Arts. Here are some photos, sent into Dave Pigeon HQ, celebrating the most pigeontastic World Book Day yet:

I’m delighted to see that Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) has been chosen as one on of BookTrust’s ‘Books We Like’ for March.

I’m delighted with this most recent review of Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!) from librarian  Jo Clarke.

Have a read of the review in her round up of irresistible illustrated fiction here.

World Book Day is next week. It’s the day I’m sure any child of a children’s author dreads. My son is no different. He knows I’m going to spend most of February leaving whopping great hints about how wonderful it would be to see him dressed up as a character from the world of Dave Pigeon. And this month has been no different.

This year though, he’s lowered his bribe threshold and made my World Book Day already by deciding he’s going to dress up as International Police Legion of Pigeons Secret Agent Fienne from Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!).
I got to work fashioning a costume from an old black hooded sweatshirt, navy blue shorts and some grey felt. Using a similar concept to his World Book Day 2015 costume, I cut out felt feathers and stitched them on to the sweatshirt and shorts.

To complete the look we added a spy ankle cuff made from black paper and silver paint, an IPLOP badge, a yellow cardboard beak and some spy glasses.

If you are creating a Dave Pigeon-inspired World Book Day costume, do send in your photos. We love seeing your creations here at Dave Pigeon HQ.

To get you started here is a template for a Dave Pigeon mask and some ideas for a Dave Pigeon costume.

Happy Costume Making!

World Book Day is fast approaching. If you are looking for a Dave Pigeon mask then look no further.
Use this easy Dave Pigeon mask template to create your Dave Pigeon costume. Embellish with feathers and a sling to complete the pigeontastic look. And do email or tweet pictures of your costumes because we would love to see your creations here at Dave Pigeon HQ.

Some rather lovely news this Thursday evening: Dave Pigeon has been selected as one of the top fifty Federation of Children’s Book Groups ‘Pick of the Year’ Books!

This is particularly special as it is one of the few lists that is voted for entirely by children. You can have a look at all the brilliant books selected here.