K M Peyton and others

Being in the job I do does get you some lovely invites to some amazing parties, events, readings etc. Last Thursday was one of those! I was delighted to be invited to a party at Meg Rosoff’s house no less(!) to celebrate the life of K M Peyton. Well, as a lifelong fan how could I refuse? So I dropped everything and attended. This was a lovely affair, held mainly in Meg’s huge kitchen/living space as all good parties are, and with a huge cross section of authors, illustrators, publishers, librarians and other lovely book people. I was saddened to hear that Kathleen had just finished writing what she called her last book – but with such a strong back list of 70 books to go at I know that many of today’s readers will still enjoy her books and then recommend them their children, as I have done with mine….  A huge thank you to everyone who put this lovely celebratory event together – they know who they are…

This followed on from our own (i.e. SLA’s) Information Book Award the day before – we had a really good turn out, with lots of the short-listed authors, illustrators and publishers attending! Children’s Choice winners and Judges Choice winners were all equally as popular. we were glad that the format of the event – with the judges describing their responses to the titles – went down well, and Free Word Centre were very welcoming – the food was great too!