The Bath Festival of Children's Literature would have finished today. I hope everyone who went enjoyed themselves. It sounded like a brilliant festival with several good books and authors listed including Jeremy Strong and Terry Deary (Horrible Histories). Syren (Septimus Heap book 5) by Angie Sage was also listed, it is out in the UK as far as I can tell, but due out in Canada (and probably America) on 29th September. Dreadnought (H.I.V.E book 4) by Mark Walden thankfully was also listed, I had not realised it had been released in the UK as here they don't seem to have heard of book 3! (Time to talk really nicely to my Mother-in-Law).

Don't forget you can still see Justin Somper at the Appledore Book Festival, on Thursday 1st October 2009, from 7.00pm he will be at St. Mary’s Primary School (£3) and the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, on Saturday 17th October 2009 with Maggie Stiefvater.

Today (Saturday 26th September) from 5.00 to 5.45pm at Bath Central Library, Justin Somper will be doing his Vampirates show (£4.50) as part of the Bath Festival of Children's Literature. Later on in the week he will be further west in Appledore for their book festival. On Thursday 1st October 2009, from 7.00pm he will be at St. Mary’s Primary School (£3). His show is well worth seeing and you usually can buy his books there and get yours signed.

Justin Somper has written on twitter again. If you are not a follower and would like to be see http://twitter.com/JustinSomper
"Looking forward to returning to my old secondary school - St Albans School - for an event tomorrow."
I wish him the best as he will be remembering everything that happened when he was at school.

Ahoy there my hearties, it be talk like a pirate day today. Is anyone else joining in?

Although International Talk Like A Pirate Day is Saturday, several companies, schools etc are being pirates tomorrow. So to help you here are some phrases that might help you be a pirate too.

Another review of Demons of the Ocean but this time with comments about how reading can be seen as a chore to some and how stories can relate to life around us.
For the article please see www.timesonline.co.uk

Saturday 19th September is International Talk Like A Pirate Day (every year). Please see www.talklikeapirate.com, http://www.wikihow.com/Talk-Like-a-Pirate and www.yarr.org.uk/talk for more information. I have listed out some phrases that might help under our pirates section. You are welcome to write a post for this blog in pirate talk, just send it via the squeak page. Being land locked at the moment, my son has even found a song for us, go and read the Last Saskatchewan Pirate Lyrics. His school's nick name is the pirates and so are celebrating it on the Friday.

Appologies for the delay in publishing the updates it did not go up first time. I was working on the error that is causing the blog to hang each time. I discovered that when my husband upgraded his operating software on his machine from Leopard to Snow Leopard the software (Rapid Weaver) could not cope with the change. The delay was caused by getting an old version of Rapid Weaver to work on a different machine (the one that crashed at Christmas) using Tiger operating system. But if you can read this everything should be back to normal.

From Justin Somper on Twitter.
Howdy, Friday's event is for invited schools only. The public event is on Saturday 12th @ 2:30 pm. Hope that clears things up for you!

I have found Vampirates stop press has more information on the Mountains to the Sea Book Festival in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.
Please see www.vampirates.co.uk/stop-press

Tickets are now available for the Mountains to the Sea Book Festival in Dun Laoghaire 10-13 September 2009 with
Meet Justin Somper author of The Vampirates series at 10am at Hughes & Hughes, Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire (Free)

Acording to www.vampirates.co.uk/stop-press it is Saturday 12 September 2009 and according to Mountains to the Sea Book Festival it is Friday 11 September.

I have found an article on the festival - Book it!
Please see www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/23098

Tickets are now on sale for the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 9-18 October 2009 with
Breaking the Rules: Vampires vs Werewolves: Justin Somper & Maggie Stiefvater on Saturday 17 October 2009 at 5:15 pm (60mins)