Authors confirmed to speak at Read with the Stars

Authors confirmed to speak at Read with the Stars - Friday 18th September 2015
Sam and Mark
Join children’s TV presenters Sam & Mark as they talk about their debut children’s book, The
Adventures of Long Arm. The stars of children’s television will bring their trademark hilarity to an
event that will include games, jokes and even a video showing how the book was made. Sam and
Mark found fame following their appearance on Pop Idol in 2003. Since then, they have had a
successful career presenting a variety of children’s shows including TMi, Top of the Pops Reloaded,
and most recently the hugely popular studio entrainment show Sam and Mark’s Big Friday Wind-Up
for CBBC. In 2013, they scooped their first Children’s BAFTA in the presenter category.
http://www.scholastic.co.uk/longarmbook
Supported by Scholastic
Matt Brown
Meet children’s author and Heart radio DJ, Matt Brown, and find out about his books featuring
Compton and best-friend Bryon Nylon who star in two adventures - The Most Powerful Boy in the
Universe and The Time-Travelling Sandwich Bites Back. The boys accidentally change history with
their mouldy time-machine sandwich. But can they save the world from total destruction?
Matt invites his audience to travel back in time to different periods in history, and talks about the
inspiration for his writing as well as offering some useful writer’s tips.
The Most Powerful Boy in the Universe is on the shortlist for the Oxfordshire Children’s Book Award
2015.
http://www.mattbrownwriter.com/
Recommended for Years 4, 5 & 6 Matt Brown
Teresa Heapy
Very Little Red Riding Hood is little. Very little. She’s going to her Grandmama’s for a sleepover and
nothing’s going to get in her way. Not even a Wolf! Very Little Cinderella is ALSO Very Little. And
she’s very upset! Her Ugly Sisters are going to a party and they won’t let her come! But with a Fairy
Godmother for a babysitter, anything could happen...
Teresa Heapy will read these delightful books, involving puppets and a sing-a-long! There will also be
a chance to talk about different versions of traditional fairy tales, using The Very Little Woods, where
lots of other Very Little characters live. What Very Little fairy tale would YOU tell? Can you design a
dress for Very Little Cinderella - and how do you think she will get to the party?...
Very Little Red Riding Hood won Best Picture Book in the 2015 Oxfordshire Book Awards and the
2015 Coventry Inspiration Book Awards.
http://www.teresaheapy.co.uk
Recommended for F1, Years 1-2
Supported by David Fickling Books & Random House Children’s Books
Cas Lester
Previously the CBBC Head of Development, author Cas Lester has now turned her award-winning
talent and incredible imagination to writing books! Harvey Drew & the Bin Men from Outer Space
features Harvey, and ordinary eleven-year-old who dreams of great adventures in outer space. An
unwitting mix-up results in Harvey being transported to the flight deck of The Toxic Spew, where he
has been appointed as the new captain! Cas’s event (for Y3-5) is packed full of fun, science and
friendship, and will inform and entertain pupils about space junk and space travel with the help of
some rather unusual props…Cas’s new series is about Nixie the Bad, Bad Fairy - and you’ve never
met a fairy like Nixie before! She’s a mischievous fun loving fairy who is a disaster with a magic wand
- but brilliant at D.I.Y. and inventing! In a second session for Years 2-4, Cas will talk about Nixie’s
ingenious inventions, real inventors and their inventions, plus quizzes, jokes, some clever
contraptions - as well as magic, mischief and mayhem!
www.caslester.com www.hotkeybooks.com
Two sessions: recommended for Years 2-4 (Nixie) and Years 3-5 (Harvey Drew)
Supported by Hot Key Books and OUP
Tom Moorhouse
Tom lives in Oxford, where he enjoys the refreshing and perpetual rain. When not writing fiction he
works as an ecologist at Oxford University's Zoology Department. Over the years he has met quite a
lot of wildlife. Most of it tried to bite him. He loves hiking up mountains, walking through woods,
climbing on rocks and generally being weather-beaten outdoors.
Pouring words into books makes Tom very happy. Find out about the lives of real water voles living
in the UK, and the dangers they face. Then see how Tom uses his wildlife knowledge to create
believable characters in fast-paced animal adventure stories. He will show you why stories involving
animals are special, and what you need to think about if you ever want to write your own. Tom’s
debut novel The River Singers, nominated for the Carnegie Medal, follows the adventures of a family
of water voles as they battle to escape a new and terrible enemy. Its sequel, The Rising, sees the
voles facing their most dangerous enemy of all: the Great River herself.
http://tom-moorhouse.com/
Recommended for Years 5-6
Supported by OUP
Adam and Charlotte Guillain
Come and meet children’s authors Adam & Charlotte Guillain as they perform Doughnuts for a
Dragon and Pizza for Pirates, illustrated by the award-winning Lee Wildish. In his latest adventure
George sets off on a high seas adventure in search of pirates! There’ll be strange noises, scurrilous
sea dogs, marine monsters, a feathered friend, a bit of silly dressing up and funny songs!
Pizza for Pirates is the fourth in the team’s George’s Amazing Adventures series (shortlisted for the
Roald Dahl Funny Prize). For more information and activities related to this series:
www.georgesamazingadventures.co.uk
To find out more about Adam’s & Charlotte’s writing: www.tinnedspaghetti.co.uk
Supported by OUP, Pearson and Scholastic
Shen Roddie
Shen Roddie was born in Singapore but she now lives in Oxford. She is the author of over 30 picture
books including The Gossipy Parrot, Please Don’t Chat to the Bus Driver and Colour Me Happy. She
began her career as a graduate journalist and got to interview the crew of Apollo 17, the last men to
walk on the moon! Since then she has worked as head of media for a large oil company, spending a
dizzy amount of time on the waves to-ing and fro-ing on ferries from the mainland to a large island
refinery. She has also been a copywriter, radio presenter and, for the last twenty years, a children’s
writer.
John Foster
John Foster is one of the nation’s best loved and highly regarded children's poets.
He was born in Carlisle, then educated at Denstone College in Staffordshire and Brasenose College,
Oxford. For over twenty years John taught English at various Oxfordshire comprehensive schools. He
is now a full-time writer and much in demand in schools and libraries as a performance poet. John's
poetry anthologies present children with original and contemporary poetry, proving that poetry is
both accessible and fun.
http://www.johnfosterchildrenspoet.co.uk/