Author Visits

Building a Hero Workshop (40 minutes)

Based around the idea of heroes in Arthur and Me, we look at building a character, giving them unique characteristics. We then take them on an adventure through a collaborative story-building session, showing how the characteristics we give our hero can be used in our story.

Animal Detectives Workshop (40 minutes)

Based around the character-building for Max the Detective Cat, this session starts with a short talk about how I developed the characters and story for Max, taking inspiration from my own pets and my experiences in the theatre. We then think about the characteristics of different animals and what character traits make a good detective. We finish by building a new animal detective character and setting them a problem to solve.

Cakes, Codes and Ciphers (40 minutes)

Based around the codes and ciphers in the Alice Éclair series, this session starts with a short talk about how I created the Alice Éclair series. We then create our own spy, complete with a codename, and decide where they will be investigating to find their secret plans or track down a villain. We’ll learn some simple codes and ciphers, from the oldest one recorded (did you know you could use a rolling pin to create hidden messages!) to using a cipher wheel. As we learn each code, we’ll think about how our spy might use them to pass on their own secret messages.