How exciting! The Romanian Cultural Institute in London has invited Xiaolong, George mouse and author Arabella to join them at the London Book Fair for the opening day of the Fair. Floss the lost puppy is invited too, since he now lives in London (and is a real dog!).
We’ll all be there on 10th April, and I’ll post details of when and where you can find us, as soon as I know.
Save the date….
Charles Pepper wrote from Thailand to say what he thought of the book:
“An engaging and very readable thriller with a dramatic ending; the reader is drawn into this fast moving tale as it’s easy to relate to the characters, settings and drama. The descriptions, many interesting true facts, real historic events and landmarks that still exist, the twists, turns and illustrations all bring the tale very much to life.
“I would recommend this book for both girls and boys; parents, grandparents and teachers will find it an enjoyable story to share with youngsters; and if you’d like to see the Dragons in London today, you can.”
For instance, you could say:
I’m grateful every day to be able to live and work here.
The author is only the first part of the process in producing a book. We get all the credit, of course, and lots of people don’t realise the number of other professionals involved in turning a few thousand words into an attractive, readable, desirable book. In the first of a series of articles about the publishing process, here’s my editor, Ruxandra Campeanu, to explain the part she plays.
“My favourite moment while editing Dragons over London was seeing the layout with the illustrations in place. Up to that point, I had mostly been concerned with the text, and that was the very first time when I got an idea of how the book would look like as a physical object. I particularly liked the scene where the mice, upon having learnt that Xiaolong had been deceiving them, decide to withdraw their support from him. I loved the way the text and the illustration on page 122 come together to capture the emotional intensity of the moment…”
Meet the ravens of the Tower of London in this BBC profile – along with the Yeoman Warder lucky enough to look after them – the Ravenmaster, Chris Skaife. 
and
While Mary Estes loved the book and couldn’t put it down, Weasley the ginger cat was disgusted by all the mice, and there is a point in the book that most cats turn off. You’ll have to read it to find out which bit, but I’d advise you not to read it to your cat. Especially if your cat is ginger…
I’ve just spoken to the publisher, Mona, and she had this amazing news. Less than a week after launching the dragons at Bookfest, the whole of the first print run (3,000 copies) is sold out! The book is already being reprinted…
Congratulations to the Booklet Fiction team – I’m amazed and delighted. Onwards and upwards!
I wrote some little bits of nonsense for my classes at the village school in Magura. I’m not trained to teach English as a foreign language, so concentrating on good pronounciation was the main thing. One of the main difficulties with English, for Romanian speakers (Romanian is a phonetic language where every letter is pronounced and always in the same way), is the wild chaos of its pronounciation rules. These little exercises don’t make much logical sense, but they should help fix some of the stranger irregularities in students’ heads.
Dragons over London 