ON THE CREATION OF A PICTURE BOOK
Hello Everyone,
I'm very excited about this year, because in September the follow-up to Shhh! - called Keep Out! - will be published. Illustrator Peter Utton and I hope it will provide children and adults everywhere with as much to talk and chuckle about as Shhh!, which is also going to be reissued in a new edition.
In the meantime, we've created a Facebook page for fans of Shhh!, where we're sharing the inside story about its background, creation and other tidbits of information. If you have had fun reading the book to your own children, if you're a teacher and use it in school, or if you remember having Shhh! read to you as a child, we'd love you to 'like' the page and share your experiences. The page address is facebook.com/ShhhSallyGrindleyPeterUtton
We'll shortly create a page for Keep Out!, where you'll be able to follow every stage of the publication process, from concept onwards. I'll let you know as soon as it's up and running.
Talking about the publication process, I'm often asked by would-be children's authors if they have to find their own artist for a story that requires illustration and to submit illustrations alongside their story. The answer is no. In general, the author of a picture book comes up with the idea, writes the words, then submits it to a publishing house. If the publishing house likes it and wants to publish, it is their job to find an illustrator they believe will bring the text to life. Publishers generally have a list of illustrators with whom they prefer to work - or they will seek out an illustrator they would like to add to their list. They are well able to visualise how a text will be complemented by illustration, and what style of illustration will in fact enhance it. I have rarely been disappointed by my publishers' choices (and do, in any case, have the right of veto), and though I write picture books with some idea of how the finished book will look - I'm quite visual myself - I'm surprised and delighted by the way illustrators can take my stories and give them a whole new dimension.
Where Shhh! is concerned, I did in fact send the story to ABC Books, the original publishers, because Peter Utton had already illustrated a couple of books for them, I loved his work, and I thought he would do Shhh! brilliantly. Luckily, ABC Books agreed and the rest is history. But under normal circumstances, I submit a story and my publisher then makes suggestions for me to consider.
Some would-be authors ask friends or family to illustrate their work and then send it in as a whole. That puts publishers in a very difficult position if they like the story but not the artwork and can, in fact, be a deal-breaker - not to mention a relationship-breaker!
I hope that helps.
All the best,
Sally
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Thursday, 3 January 2013
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Hello Everyone,
Well, I significantly failed to keep my promise to post a blog after September, so a very big 'Sorry!' is in order, though to be fair I didn't have a lot to say :(.
I had some great adventures and fun experiences in 2012, and I'm looking forward to more in 2013. One of the best adventures was going to Sharjah, one of the Gulf States, and reading my books/talking about books to children in schools over there. Sometimes my audience was fully able to understand English, but on other occasions I had to work with an interpreter. It made performing SHHH! and KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE? rather surreal, but the teachers did such a good job that the children seemed just as involved as they would have been in a school in the UK.
On the subject of KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE? (now 26 years old!), I've been delighted to hear there will be a Chinese edition coming out in the next few months, as well as a recent South Korean edition. It's very exciting when a book travels to other countries, and it's totally unpredictable. As for SHHH!, it continues to be in the top twelve best-selling books on Amazon in France, and illustrations for the follow-up are being completed by Peter Utton as I write. The follow-up - KEEP OUT! - will be published in September this year, both in the UK and France to begin with. You'll need to beware, because there are bears about in it!
I'm just coming to the end of THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE. I've had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope my agent and prospective publishers will enjoy it. If not, I shall find a corner somewhere and cry into my boots. Alternatively, I'll publish it myself and make it available on here!
On the subject of fun experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed all of my school visits in 2012 and am looking forward to those I have scheduled this year. I certainly never thought I would be invited to take part in a 'live' ceilidh when I wrote about a ceilidh in SAVING FINNEGAN, which seems to have become a very popular class read. I've enjoyed presenting my 'INTERNATIONAL RESCUE' series to schools across the country, especially the quiz section with real and imagined animals to identify. I've heard children running out of school and testing their parents straightaway! The final title in the series - DANGER IN THE DUST - is due for publication in March and is about rhinos in Africa.
SPILLED WATER, winner of the Nestle Smarties Gold Award, continues to be chosen as a class read, in primary and senior schools. That makes me feel very proud. Other titles about the resilience of children living in appalling circumstances are BROKEN GLASS, TORN PAGES and BITTER CHOCOLATE. All of them have been shortlisted for awards and are being used for coursework in schools.
So what will I be working on when I finish THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE? Well, I don't actually know, but I hope to be able to announce something by the time I next blog - which I promise won't be long!
All the very best for an amazing 2013, and Happy Reading!
Sally
I'm just coming to the end of THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE. I've had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope my agent and prospective publishers will enjoy it. If not, I shall find a corner somewhere and cry into my boots. Alternatively, I'll publish it myself and make it available on here!
On the subject of fun experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed all of my school visits in 2012 and am looking forward to those I have scheduled this year. I certainly never thought I would be invited to take part in a 'live' ceilidh when I wrote about a ceilidh in SAVING FINNEGAN, which seems to have become a very popular class read. I've enjoyed presenting my 'INTERNATIONAL RESCUE' series to schools across the country, especially the quiz section with real and imagined animals to identify. I've heard children running out of school and testing their parents straightaway! The final title in the series - DANGER IN THE DUST - is due for publication in March and is about rhinos in Africa.
SPILLED WATER, winner of the Nestle Smarties Gold Award, continues to be chosen as a class read, in primary and senior schools. That makes me feel very proud. Other titles about the resilience of children living in appalling circumstances are BROKEN GLASS, TORN PAGES and BITTER CHOCOLATE. All of them have been shortlisted for awards and are being used for coursework in schools.
So what will I be working on when I finish THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE? Well, I don't actually know, but I hope to be able to announce something by the time I next blog - which I promise won't be long!
All the very best for an amazing 2013, and Happy Reading!
Sally
Saturday, 22 September 2012
IT'S FESTIVAL TIME!
I started out with such good intentions. I was going to blog once every month. So how many times have I blogged this year? Once. That's truly shocking and my report should read: Must try harder!
Prannoy Lal has prodded me into action by writing on my last post that I should blog more often. You're quite right, Prannoy - and thank you for your lovely comments - so here goes with an update on what I've been doing.
This time of the year is festival season, and I've already spent a day in Edinburgh talking to around 250 children about my INTERNATIONAL RESCUE series. Hello to any of you who were there and who read this blog. I hope you had fun - I did!
Next stop is the Bath Festival of Children's Literature on October 4th, when I'll be talking to 120 children from Oakfield Park Junior School. A week later, I'll be at the Cheltenham Literature Festival for a one hour slot, again talking about my INTERNATIONAL RESCUE books.
Three of the titles in the series are now in publication: PAW PRINTS IN THE SNOW (about tigers), SHADOWS UNDER THE SEA (about seahorses), and FEATHERS IN THE WIND (about vultures). All three books are adventure stories, but set against the background of an endangered species.
In November, I'm off to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (I had to look it up!) to spend 4 days at a festival and visiting local schools. That will be my hot sun for the year, though if it's anything like my visits to Qatar I'll be in air-conditioning the whole time! My MAX books have been published in Arabic, so I think I shall be focusing on them.
I've been working on a new book. It's called THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE, and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. It's a bit ghosty and very funny - well, I hope you'll think it's funny. I don't know yet who's going to publish it or when, but if you're in the 6-10 age group then it's aimed at you.
Apart from that, I'm about to meet up with my publisher and Peter Utton, the illustrator, to work on the follow-up to our very popular picture book, SHHH! It's due to be published next September and I can't wait. All I can tell you at the moment is that it's called KEEP OUT! and you should be scared - very scared!
That's all for now. More at the end of October - I promise!
Sally
Prannoy Lal has prodded me into action by writing on my last post that I should blog more often. You're quite right, Prannoy - and thank you for your lovely comments - so here goes with an update on what I've been doing.
This time of the year is festival season, and I've already spent a day in Edinburgh talking to around 250 children about my INTERNATIONAL RESCUE series. Hello to any of you who were there and who read this blog. I hope you had fun - I did!
Next stop is the Bath Festival of Children's Literature on October 4th, when I'll be talking to 120 children from Oakfield Park Junior School. A week later, I'll be at the Cheltenham Literature Festival for a one hour slot, again talking about my INTERNATIONAL RESCUE books.
Three of the titles in the series are now in publication: PAW PRINTS IN THE SNOW (about tigers), SHADOWS UNDER THE SEA (about seahorses), and FEATHERS IN THE WIND (about vultures). All three books are adventure stories, but set against the background of an endangered species.
In November, I'm off to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (I had to look it up!) to spend 4 days at a festival and visiting local schools. That will be my hot sun for the year, though if it's anything like my visits to Qatar I'll be in air-conditioning the whole time! My MAX books have been published in Arabic, so I think I shall be focusing on them.
I've been working on a new book. It's called THE SPIRIT OF ROSIE MALONE, and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. It's a bit ghosty and very funny - well, I hope you'll think it's funny. I don't know yet who's going to publish it or when, but if you're in the 6-10 age group then it's aimed at you.
Apart from that, I'm about to meet up with my publisher and Peter Utton, the illustrator, to work on the follow-up to our very popular picture book, SHHH! It's due to be published next September and I can't wait. All I can tell you at the moment is that it's called KEEP OUT! and you should be scared - very scared!
That's all for now. More at the end of October - I promise!
Sally
Sunday, 8 April 2012
A WHALE OF A TIME
One of the things I enjoy most as a children's author is meeting my audience. Normally, this happens when I spend a day in a school or library, or take part in a literature festival. Recently, though, I had an opportunity to interact with my audience on a completely different level - at a ceilidh!
Let me explain. One of my novels, SAVING FINNEGAN, features a ceilidh. It's based on a true story and centres around the efforts of Scottish islanders to save the life of a fin whale (second largest after the blue whale) that becomes stranded on one of the island's beaches. Sadly, the whale dies, but the islanders turn their attentions to retaining the whale's skeleton as a tourist attraction - in the face of determined opposition from forces on the mainland that want it as an exhibit in the capital's natural history museum.
We follow the trials and tribulations of the islanders (all of them completely fictitious) as they go about their daily lives, and as they secretly plot to keep the skeleton. Key to their plans is the island's much-cherished and anticipated annual ceilidh.
The supremely enterprising Julie Page, teacher of Kite Class at Lindridge C E Primary School in Worcestershire, chose SAVING FINNEGAN as a class read. That's not why she's supremely enterprising, but she earns the plaudit - and many more - for the way in which she inspired her class in spin-off activities from the book, culminating in the ceilidh (administered by the specially created Kite Entertainment - expert ceilidh planners). Those activities included making clay whales, marking out the size and shape of the whale (52ft of it!) on the field (by the cows) in blue spray paint, pretending to be the Minister for Tourism on the island and come up with good ideas, holding discussion forums, and fund-raising for a trip to the Natural History Museum to see the whales there.
When I received an email from Kite Class inviting me to the ceilidh, how could I resist? They'd sold 120 tickets, they'd been practising dances like the Gay Gordons and Stripping the Willow, piles of cheese were blocking the fridge in readiness for 120 ploughman's suppers, and Hettie's mum promised she'd make more whale biscuits. Of course, I said yes!
What a wonderful evening I had. It was a pleasure to spend time with the children, their parents and grandparents. They may have been excited at having a real live author in their midst, but it was just as exciting for me to see how a story I had written had triggered such inspiration, motivation and enjoyment in a class of 9-11 year-olds. Not only that, but it was the first opportunity I'd had in years to dance the Gay Gordons! So thank you Julie Page, and thank you Kite Class. You're the very reason I write for children.
Let me explain. One of my novels, SAVING FINNEGAN, features a ceilidh. It's based on a true story and centres around the efforts of Scottish islanders to save the life of a fin whale (second largest after the blue whale) that becomes stranded on one of the island's beaches. Sadly, the whale dies, but the islanders turn their attentions to retaining the whale's skeleton as a tourist attraction - in the face of determined opposition from forces on the mainland that want it as an exhibit in the capital's natural history museum.
We follow the trials and tribulations of the islanders (all of them completely fictitious) as they go about their daily lives, and as they secretly plot to keep the skeleton. Key to their plans is the island's much-cherished and anticipated annual ceilidh.
The supremely enterprising Julie Page, teacher of Kite Class at Lindridge C E Primary School in Worcestershire, chose SAVING FINNEGAN as a class read. That's not why she's supremely enterprising, but she earns the plaudit - and many more - for the way in which she inspired her class in spin-off activities from the book, culminating in the ceilidh (administered by the specially created Kite Entertainment - expert ceilidh planners). Those activities included making clay whales, marking out the size and shape of the whale (52ft of it!) on the field (by the cows) in blue spray paint, pretending to be the Minister for Tourism on the island and come up with good ideas, holding discussion forums, and fund-raising for a trip to the Natural History Museum to see the whales there.
When I received an email from Kite Class inviting me to the ceilidh, how could I resist? They'd sold 120 tickets, they'd been practising dances like the Gay Gordons and Stripping the Willow, piles of cheese were blocking the fridge in readiness for 120 ploughman's suppers, and Hettie's mum promised she'd make more whale biscuits. Of course, I said yes!
What a wonderful evening I had. It was a pleasure to spend time with the children, their parents and grandparents. They may have been excited at having a real live author in their midst, but it was just as exciting for me to see how a story I had written had triggered such inspiration, motivation and enjoyment in a class of 9-11 year-olds. Not only that, but it was the first opportunity I'd had in years to dance the Gay Gordons! So thank you Julie Page, and thank you Kite Class. You're the very reason I write for children.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
THE YEAR IN REVIEW, A PREVIEW OF THE NEW YEAR
It's that time of year when we look back over the past twelve months and forward to the next twelve - so here goes!
2011 saw the publication of my eight-book series called ARK ADVENTURES, designed for early readers to tackle themselves. The books provide an insight into the problems Noah might have had getting some of the animals onto the ark - and Noah is a little hapless so nothing is straightforward, especially where chameleons, giraffes, giant tortoises, bears, penguins, kangaroos and chimpanzees are concerned! As for the sharks - do they really need to come on board? They seem to think they do!
My eighth young novel, MY NAME IS ROSE, came out in June. It's about a Romani gypsy girl, who is so traumatised by the loss of her parents that she loses the ability to speak and finds herself being torn away from everything she has ever known. Displaced and friendless, she encounters much prejudice and exploitation, before summoning the willpower to reverse her circumstances.
My first picture book for some time came out in July. BUSY DAY has a simple verse text and follows a group of animal friends as they set off for the seaside on a big red bus. On the way they pass lots of different forms of transport. Barbara Vagnozzi's illustrations are wonderfully colourful and packed with details for young children to spot.
I've done a lot of writing in 2011 - and finished the year with a bang! I was delighted to be asked by Bloomsbury and the Zoological Society of London to write a series of young novels about endangered species. I spent hours researching each one and discovered many amazing - and disturbing - facts. The first four 'International Rescue' titles are practically put to bed, with PAWPRINTS IN THE SNOW (about Amur tigers in Russia) due for publication in February 2012, and the other three scheduled at regular intervals over the following nine months.
The final edits have been made to MOBILE MATILDA, my picture book about a gadget-mad meerkat, and it's set for publication in September 2012. I love Margaret Chamberlain's pictures - she's done a wonderful job and really captured the 'essence' of meerkat. Whilst paying a visit to London Zoo as part of my research for International Rescue, I was allowed into the meerkats' enclosure and was lucky enough to be able to feed them with handfuls of live mealworms - which don't feel anywhere near as bad as you might imagine! One of them even ran over my feet - a meerkat, that is, not a mealworm.
I'd long thought about doing a follow-up to SHHH!, one of my most successful picture books, and I've had an idea on the drawing board for quite some time, but although the idea was a good one I didn't think it was quite there - so I put it away and turned my attention to other things. When, eventually, I looked at it again, I was excited! It was much closer to being 'finished' than I had realised, and after a few tweaks it was ready to be submitted to my publishers. They're excited too! I'm not even going to tell you what it's called - yet - but watch this space.
That's the bang I'm ending the year with. Now I'm looking forward to an inspired 2012, with my first project being a new novel. I've been invited to take part in the Edinburgh Festival and the Birmingham Young Readers event and I'm in the process of setting up a nationwide tour of schools and libraries. I would be nothing, though, without my young readers, parents, librarians and teachers, and I would like to thank all of you for your great support.
Have a very happy festive season and all the very best for a fantastic new year.
2011 saw the publication of my eight-book series called ARK ADVENTURES, designed for early readers to tackle themselves. The books provide an insight into the problems Noah might have had getting some of the animals onto the ark - and Noah is a little hapless so nothing is straightforward, especially where chameleons, giraffes, giant tortoises, bears, penguins, kangaroos and chimpanzees are concerned! As for the sharks - do they really need to come on board? They seem to think they do!
My eighth young novel, MY NAME IS ROSE, came out in June. It's about a Romani gypsy girl, who is so traumatised by the loss of her parents that she loses the ability to speak and finds herself being torn away from everything she has ever known. Displaced and friendless, she encounters much prejudice and exploitation, before summoning the willpower to reverse her circumstances.
My first picture book for some time came out in July. BUSY DAY has a simple verse text and follows a group of animal friends as they set off for the seaside on a big red bus. On the way they pass lots of different forms of transport. Barbara Vagnozzi's illustrations are wonderfully colourful and packed with details for young children to spot.
I've done a lot of writing in 2011 - and finished the year with a bang! I was delighted to be asked by Bloomsbury and the Zoological Society of London to write a series of young novels about endangered species. I spent hours researching each one and discovered many amazing - and disturbing - facts. The first four 'International Rescue' titles are practically put to bed, with PAWPRINTS IN THE SNOW (about Amur tigers in Russia) due for publication in February 2012, and the other three scheduled at regular intervals over the following nine months.
The final edits have been made to MOBILE MATILDA, my picture book about a gadget-mad meerkat, and it's set for publication in September 2012. I love Margaret Chamberlain's pictures - she's done a wonderful job and really captured the 'essence' of meerkat. Whilst paying a visit to London Zoo as part of my research for International Rescue, I was allowed into the meerkats' enclosure and was lucky enough to be able to feed them with handfuls of live mealworms - which don't feel anywhere near as bad as you might imagine! One of them even ran over my feet - a meerkat, that is, not a mealworm.
I'd long thought about doing a follow-up to SHHH!, one of my most successful picture books, and I've had an idea on the drawing board for quite some time, but although the idea was a good one I didn't think it was quite there - so I put it away and turned my attention to other things. When, eventually, I looked at it again, I was excited! It was much closer to being 'finished' than I had realised, and after a few tweaks it was ready to be submitted to my publishers. They're excited too! I'm not even going to tell you what it's called - yet - but watch this space.
That's the bang I'm ending the year with. Now I'm looking forward to an inspired 2012, with my first project being a new novel. I've been invited to take part in the Edinburgh Festival and the Birmingham Young Readers event and I'm in the process of setting up a nationwide tour of schools and libraries. I would be nothing, though, without my young readers, parents, librarians and teachers, and I would like to thank all of you for your great support.
Have a very happy festive season and all the very best for a fantastic new year.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Are you watching David Attenborough's FROZEN PLANET? Wow! The photography is extraordinary, as are the lives of animals living in polar regions. There have been some hilarious moments too - penguins 'stealing' stones from each others' nests and seemingly trying to look innocent, fledgling albatrosses (is that the plural?) attempting to fly and crash-landing, and polar bear cubs romping in the snow and giving mum a hard time.
On the subject of polar bears, some years back I wrote a picture book called POLAR STAR about a mother polar bear and her cubs. I think it's still in print. It was heavily based upon what happens in real life and I did a lot of research at the time. I was gratified therefore to see my story played out before my very eyes in one of the episodes of FROZEN PLANET - gratified because I always worry that I might have got a detail wrong.
From an author's perspective, the great thing about animals is that their individual quirks and oddities provide a huge variety of starting points that can be built upon to create endless possibilities for stories. And a bit of research, even for a less-than-realistic approach, can throw up the most unexpected bits of information that can be incorporated within a story. For instance, when researching giraffes I discovered they like onions! I used that nugget in a book, but always wondered how accurate it was, until I had it confirmed recently by a giraffe keeper at London Zoo.
Use a bit of poetic license and add the odd human characteristic and animals can take on a whole new life in story form. I used a lot of poetic license when I wrote MOBILE MATILDA (to be published in 2012). Matilda, a meerkat, is so obsessed with gadgets that she neglects her meerkat duties. She inhabits a meerkat world of digging and sentry duty, but she herself has lost much of her meerkatishness - which is why she nearly comes to a sticky end. The story wouldn't have worked nearly as well with another animal in the starring role.
I didn't, by the way, jump on the meerkat bandwagon because of a certain television advertisement. MOBILE MATILDA was conceived some time before those comparative meerkats first appeared. It just took a while for a publisher to spot its potential. I hope it won't take readers quite so long because I rather like it, and Margaret Chamberlain's pictures are delightful.
Now, I wonder if I can come up with a story about the elephant seals I saw on FROZEN PLANET... Mmm, maybe not!
On the subject of polar bears, some years back I wrote a picture book called POLAR STAR about a mother polar bear and her cubs. I think it's still in print. It was heavily based upon what happens in real life and I did a lot of research at the time. I was gratified therefore to see my story played out before my very eyes in one of the episodes of FROZEN PLANET - gratified because I always worry that I might have got a detail wrong.
From an author's perspective, the great thing about animals is that their individual quirks and oddities provide a huge variety of starting points that can be built upon to create endless possibilities for stories. And a bit of research, even for a less-than-realistic approach, can throw up the most unexpected bits of information that can be incorporated within a story. For instance, when researching giraffes I discovered they like onions! I used that nugget in a book, but always wondered how accurate it was, until I had it confirmed recently by a giraffe keeper at London Zoo.
Use a bit of poetic license and add the odd human characteristic and animals can take on a whole new life in story form. I used a lot of poetic license when I wrote MOBILE MATILDA (to be published in 2012). Matilda, a meerkat, is so obsessed with gadgets that she neglects her meerkat duties. She inhabits a meerkat world of digging and sentry duty, but she herself has lost much of her meerkatishness - which is why she nearly comes to a sticky end. The story wouldn't have worked nearly as well with another animal in the starring role.
I didn't, by the way, jump on the meerkat bandwagon because of a certain television advertisement. MOBILE MATILDA was conceived some time before those comparative meerkats first appeared. It just took a while for a publisher to spot its potential. I hope it won't take readers quite so long because I rather like it, and Margaret Chamberlain's pictures are delightful.
Now, I wonder if I can come up with a story about the elephant seals I saw on FROZEN PLANET... Mmm, maybe not!
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
VULTURES
I've never been a big fan of vultures - apart from the three in Disney's version of The Jungle Book, which are hilarious! - yet I've written two books about them.
THE SULKY VULTURE is one of my most successful picture books and is often used interactively by teachers in nursery and reception classes. The story was inspired by my mother's observation that with their heads pulled down and their shoulders hunched up they look grumpy!
Now I've tackled the subject of endangered vultures in India, as part of my series for Bloomsbury and the Zoological Society of London.
FEATHERS IN THE WIND (to be published in 2012) is above all an adventure story, but it's set against the background of the annual kite festival in Ahmedabad. The festival, on January 14th, is a major part of the celebrations surrounding Uttarayan - the day when the sun starts to travel northwards marking the end of winter. Sadly, numerous vultures and other birds are seriously injured or killed by the kites, many of which have their lines covered in ground glass to enable their owners to cut competitors' kites from the sky.
Vultures are also endangered because of a brand of antibiotic used by Indian farmers to keep their cattle healthy. The birds feed on the carcasses of cattle, an essential 'cleaning up process', but where the antibiotic has been used it is often still present in the carcasses, and has been found to be lethal to the scavengers. In the absence of vultures, wild dogs are moving in, many of them rabid, and becoming a problem in towns and villages.
Much is being done by conservationists worldwide to ensure the survival of the various vulture species in India (and Africa, where there is a similar crisis), including the establishment of breeding programmes. Birds seriously injured during the kite festival and unable to fly again, are now introduced into the breeding programmes to help boost future populations. In the meantime, farmers are being encouraged to use a different, safe antibiotic, though the higher cost means there is some resistance. It's one of those cases where the interdependence of humans and animals is both vital but contradictory.
As for the kite festival, it's too important a tradition for anyone to suggest that it should disappear, however, kite flyers are being encouraged to avoid early morning and evening flights, when birds are most active. Meanwhile, vets and volunteers do all they can to save those birds that do become entangled in the dancing lines.
THE SULKY VULTURE is one of my most successful picture books and is often used interactively by teachers in nursery and reception classes. The story was inspired by my mother's observation that with their heads pulled down and their shoulders hunched up they look grumpy!
Now I've tackled the subject of endangered vultures in India, as part of my series for Bloomsbury and the Zoological Society of London.
FEATHERS IN THE WIND (to be published in 2012) is above all an adventure story, but it's set against the background of the annual kite festival in Ahmedabad. The festival, on January 14th, is a major part of the celebrations surrounding Uttarayan - the day when the sun starts to travel northwards marking the end of winter. Sadly, numerous vultures and other birds are seriously injured or killed by the kites, many of which have their lines covered in ground glass to enable their owners to cut competitors' kites from the sky.
Vultures are also endangered because of a brand of antibiotic used by Indian farmers to keep their cattle healthy. The birds feed on the carcasses of cattle, an essential 'cleaning up process', but where the antibiotic has been used it is often still present in the carcasses, and has been found to be lethal to the scavengers. In the absence of vultures, wild dogs are moving in, many of them rabid, and becoming a problem in towns and villages.
Much is being done by conservationists worldwide to ensure the survival of the various vulture species in India (and Africa, where there is a similar crisis), including the establishment of breeding programmes. Birds seriously injured during the kite festival and unable to fly again, are now introduced into the breeding programmes to help boost future populations. In the meantime, farmers are being encouraged to use a different, safe antibiotic, though the higher cost means there is some resistance. It's one of those cases where the interdependence of humans and animals is both vital but contradictory.
As for the kite festival, it's too important a tradition for anyone to suggest that it should disappear, however, kite flyers are being encouraged to avoid early morning and evening flights, when birds are most active. Meanwhile, vets and volunteers do all they can to save those birds that do become entangled in the dancing lines.
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