Phew! We don’t have to be children's entertainers.

Part 2

Hi Pals,

Yes, so as I was saying last time, if we are invited to visit a school, a book festival or do a stage show, we don’t need to turn ourselves into wacky children’s entertainers. We don’t have to learn to juggle or wear big clown shoes. 🤡

We can still be our low key illustrator selves. Phew!

School visits or stage shows are easy if you break them down into bite sized chunks. I promised to show you the stage plan for the last show I did with Owen Sheers. We made the book Drew Moo and Bunny Too together: he the author, me the illustrator. We have performed this show for The Children’s Book Show three times now and loved every minute of it! *

A stage plan helps everyone know what they should be doing and when, including the tech guys who run the sound and lighting.

We make a plan, but we leave room to improvise. We don’t learn lines, my brain wouldn’t be up for that! We just jot a few pointers for things we’d like to talk about.

We broke the time into 5 minute sections, planning a good mix of quiet contemplative moments and funny or exciting moments. We have found that if Owen reads while I draw on a projector that works really well. And mixing those quiet moments with interactive moments where the children can shout out or come on stage makes a good contrast.

My top tip is to not put the Q & A at the end. It seems like a logical place, but that can feel like a disappointing and disorganised ending. I have found that a Q & A followed by a little something to say goodbye on a high works better.

Here is our plan, we actually changed it a bit after a final run through, but you get the idea.

Hope this helps! I’d love to hear your experiences.

Love Helenx

*The Children’s Book Show Art Auction starts tomorrow. I am selling a piece just like this one from Salty Dog, the book I made with Katie Chappell , out next year.