Each folder contains twenty or more reviews written by the students and presented to Elaine Forrestal

Imagine being trapped on a broken-down bus with 24 excited students on their way to a Meet-the-Author session!  Or arriving, in the pouring rain, at an unknown shopping centre where 60 students are waiting for you, and not being able to find the library! How did we ever survive Children’s Book Week before we all had mobile phones?

I do love Children’s Book Week, though.  It puts me in touch with students I wouldn’t otherwise get to meet and this year they came from vastly different environments. The ones who were stuck on the bus came from the enormous Campbell Primary School which has over a thousand students. Later in the week I met students from the tiny Kerry Street Community School where numbers vary from week to week but do not rise above 50. And there were lots of others in between but their enthusiasm was just as infectious and, as always, I had so much fun.

This year Children’s Book Week was book-ended by Awards Presentations. After the personal excitement of the Muriel Barwell Award on Friday 17th there were the Tim Winton Awards on Monday 20th and the NIE Young Writer’s Awards on Saturday 25th These presentation ceremonies are life affirming events for writers and aspiring writers, young and old, as we see new groups of talented people emerge.

Now it’s back to my office and the task of licking into shape my new manuscript, To See the World: a voyage of discovery aboard the sailing ship Uranie. It is very encouraging to know, from experience, that I will be able to draw on the excitement and energy generated by the past few weeks for quite some time.