Roll on the New Year! Let's hope that 2021 is a far better year for all of us.Surely it must be!

I am delighted to announce that I have three new picture books due to be published in 2021.

The first is Mix Up Monday - Maverick Books, distributed by the Lerner Publishing Group in the United States. This a fun rollicking, rhyming text to make you giggle. When Farmer Fred wakes up half-asleep one Monday morning, things start to go wrong from the very beginning! And when his animals all join in the mix up fun, things just go from bad to worse!

The second one is Chase Those Witches!, published by Scribblers (Salariya Books) distributed by Sterling Books in the United States. The nasty witches have stolen Barney the beloved pet frog belonging to the hero of our story. In this fun interactive text, readers are asked to tip, bang, yell, pull faces and blow hard to help save poor Barney when he is carried off to the South Pole and comes across more dangers, including a hairy monster and pirates!

And the third is Delightfully Different Dilly (published by Quarto Books) about a baby penguin, who is not afraid to be different, in fact she relishes it! 

  

My latest picture book Billy and the Balloons 

I am so delighted that my picture book, so beautifully illustrated by Patrick Corrigan, was published in September by Salariya Books.

When everyone noticed that just tiny Billy,

Held all the balloons they were really scared silly

"Oh Billy, hold tight to the strings they all cried,

So Bill held tight for a magical ride!

 How Billy wishes he was bigger! It seems that he's always too small for everything he wants to do, like holding the balloons his dad is selling on the street corner on Christmas Eve. But when a gust of wind snatches the balloons from his dad's hands, Billy jumps up and catches hold of them. But the balloons keep going up and Billy is taken on a magical ride up into the snowy night sky. And then he meets Santa making his deliveries! However, Santa has a problem and can’t complete his deliveries. Only Billy's quick thinking and actions can help save Christmas – and all because he is so tiny. It seems that Billy is the most perfect size after all! 

 

Early Readers!

I am very pleased to say that in the last year I have also many more Early Readers published by Maverick and Franklin Watts, including Pet Show Disaster, The Legend of the Flying Dutchman, Flying Solo, Message in a Bottle, Bad Robot, The Fortress of Fear and many more.

My First Non-Fiction Picture Book - Trailblazer!

I’m delighted to announce that my picture book, TRAILBLAZER – the amazing but true story of Lily Parr - the unstoppable force behind women's football - was published by Maverick Books in June this year. Did you know that 100 years ago women’s football was more popular than men’s, with crowds of 53,000 people watching them play with 14,000 stuck outside the stadium? That Lily, the star player in that match, could score from anywhere on the pitch - she had a shot more powerful than any football  player in the country - male or female! So the English Football Association decided to ban women's teams from playing football  on all FA grounds in England for 50 years until 1971. But Lily and her incredibly talented team-mates were undeterred and continued playing football wherever they could. 

Filled with interesting facts and beautifully illustrated by Carolina Coroa, Lily’s story of fighting prejudice and following her dream despite all the obstacles put in her way is hopefully an inspiration to everyone at this difficult time