Bringing Danger Dan to schools

During the June holidays, we had a break from school talks but once Term 3 began, our school talk circuit kick-started once again.

Lesley-Anne and I were very privileged to have been invited to speak at and conduct a workshop for the inaugural Writer's Congress, organised by the East Zone Centre of Excellence for English Language (Primary).

Some 43 students from various primary schools in the East Zone attended the workshop which focused on creative writing. The kids were very engaged and participative, especially during the game segments.

There was a period when the kids had to wait to leave the classroom and they all whipped out Danger Dan without prompting!

Queuing up for autographs.

After the workshop, the students had to fill in a feedback form and we were sent the results last week. About 80% gave us an 'Excellent' rating and more than 95% gave us an 'Excellent' or 'Very good' rating! Yay! Some of the written comments mentioned that the sharing session was really inspiring and this was one of the best programmes they've attended. Such encouraging feedback - we feel very blessed indeed.

If you're a teacher and would like us to speak at your school, you may contact our book agent, Denise at denise@closetfulofbooks.com or 9146 5522. We have a half-hour talk ideal for morning assembly where Lesley-Anne shares how she grew her love of reading and writing, and how she overcame obstacles to become a published author. We also conduct a 1.5-hour creative writing workshop, similar to the one mentioned above. Target age for both the talk and workshop is p3-6.

Here's a picture of a school talk I did a couple of weeks ago at Corporation Primary School. I did this one solo as Lesley-Anne had lessons in school.

Incidentally, we received this book review from an eight-year-old boy named AJ. We're so thrilled by the effort he put into both the writing and drawing. We think he's enormously talented and we love how he calls Danny's ears "extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely ginormous"! Thank you, AJ, you made our day! 

Increasingly, we've been hearing how kids enjoy our books and that makes us really, really happy. A mum told me that her son has been finding school stressful ever since they returned to Singapore and she's glad to see him chuckle to himself when he reads Danger Dan. Many Singaporean kids are far too serious and have little leisure time, so to know that our books make them laugh is the greatest feeling ever.

So here's a call to action: if your kids are between the ages of 8 and 12 and have enjoyed reading Danger Dan, why don't you drop us a line? We're looking to print readers' reviews in our upcoming Book 4 - Danger Dan Traces the Perilous Poison. Get them to pen a couple of sentences telling us why they like Danger Dan and send us a message on the Danger Dan Facebook page.
 
You can see samples of students' reviews in Danger Dan book 2 & 3 (page 1). Deadline: National Day, 9 August 2014.