Welcome back!

Last Saturday was a busy and exciting day for me. I was so pleased to be invited to the Scholastic Book Feast at their headquarters in London and I had an amazing time.

I thought I’d do a blog post on what I got up to that day and maybe talk about the wonderful book goodies I left with…!

En route to That London

I am not usually thrilled by the idea of an early start in Winter. My coach left my home city at 6.15am and it was dark and a bit dreary. However, part way into my journey the sun started to come up and we were treated to the most glorious skies.

Scholastic, Talks, and Books

Once I’d arrived in London I headed straight for Scholastic’s offices. Book bloggers soon started piling in and we made our way to the seminar room where we’d be treated to talks by some wonderful authors, publicists, and illustrators.

Everyone spoke wonderfully and each panel was different and engaging, but if I had to choose I’d say my favourite authors present were Laura Wood, Paula Rawsthorne, and Alice Broadway.

So onto the good stuff – the books!

In our goodie bags we received:

The Surface Breaks – Louise O’Neill
Under A Dancing Star – Laura Wood (Extract)
Becoming Jo – Sophie McKenzie
The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali – Sabina Khan
Night Flights – Philip Reeve

Out of this pile, I am most looking forward to Laura Wood’s as yet unfinished novel Under A Dancing Star and Sabina Khan’s The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali. Khan’s book deals with some difficult topics and I’m hopeful this will get coverage in mainstream media.

At the end of the day, we were allowed to choose from a selection of books. I was really careful to only take books I know I’ll actually read, however tempting some of the covers were…

So after some consideration, I chose:

A Sky Painted Gold – Laura Wood
Oh My Gods – Alexandra Sheppard
Lightning Chase Me Home – Amber Lee Dodd
Shell – Paula Rawsthorne
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

My eyes must’ve lit up when I saw copies of Laura Wood’s A Sky Painted Gold. How do I not own this book?! The mind doth boggle.

I also went straight for a copy of Little Women to go along with my copy of Good Wives. I now have both versions of the story where Beth survives in one and dies in the other. No idea what I’m talking about? Check out this article from BookRiot.

We were lucky enough to have Alexandra Sheppard come talk to us about her debut novel Oh My Gods. Apart from the fact this book has an amazing cover, I love the concept of mixing the super modern and the ancient.

On my journey to London I’d been reading Paula Rawsthorne’s The New Boy and enjoyed her writing style so I picked up a copy of her book Shell. To round off my pile I went for Amber Lee Dodd’s Lightning Chase Me Home as I’d never heard of it but sounds interesting.

Other Bookish Adventures

I had a few hours until my coach back so I decided to explore a couple of bookshops in London. I have to be honest, by this point, I was pretty frazzled but I wasn’t about to leave without visiting Belgravia Books, part of the wonderful publishing house Gallic Books.

Gallic is home to Little by Edward Carey, of which they had so many beautiful (and signed) copies. Sadly they did not have any signed paperback editions so I came away without a copy.

Considering it is not a particularly big bookshop it has an amazing selection of children’s books. I nearly squealed with delight at seeing so many Jon Klassen books and also at the amazing selection of books with diverse historical figures or diverse characters.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos but I left with two board books for a special little person in my life to add to her fast-growing library.

Homeward Bound

With that, I started my journey home, laden down with books and ready for a brew. But I just had to swing by my favourite cupcake place first…

Thank You

A huge thank you to Scholastic UK and especially Harriet Dunlea for inviting me along to this amazing event.

Comment below

I hope you enjoyed my foray around That London! Let me know in the comments what books you’re looking forward to, and as always, links are welcome here.