Brentwood's very own independent bookshop and tuition centre!
Author: chickenandfrog
The independent children's bookshop and tuition centre in the heart of Brentwood, Essex.
Owned and run by Mr Frog & Mrs Chicken (happily married book-nerds), with the sole aim of bringing high quality books and tuition to our community.
The past two weekends have been packed full of stories here at Chicken and Frog, and beyond.
We rounded off Independent Bookshop Week with a visit from local author Josie Dom and illustrator, Nic Phine. Josie and Nic shared their delightful book, Lum, with a group of enthusiastic children. They also lead the group through a drawing exercise, inspired by (not so) scary monsters.
Joise and Nic have left behind signed copies of Lum, so pop in for yours before they sell out!
This Saturday, we were joined by Sade Fadipe, who shared her beautiful book, A Fun ABC. The illustrations and text marry perfectly together to breath life into the ABC. There’s so much to see, you could spend an age just studying each page.
We love the way that the sun streams in behind Sade.
Again, Sade has left signed copies behind, so you don’t have to miss out. This book would make a great addition to any EYFS classroom or your bookshelf at home.
We have been nominated for an Essex Mums Award under the section of ‘People, Shops and Services’. We’re up against some very big chains – wouldn’t it be wonderful if a small, family-run independent won?!
This year is the 10th year of Independent Bookshop Week, fondly referred to as IBW. As I am sure I have quipped before, every week is IBW for us, but it is great to have a national campaign behind us, supporting the work that we do.
To celebrate this year, we have organised two author events. The first was with Daniel Whelan on Saturday 18th June. If you missed Daniel, you missed a joyous afternoon, but never fear, for Daniel kindly signed editions of The Box of Demons before leaving us. In fact, we have the last two copies of the limited edition hard back that could be tracked down!
Daniel talked to a very enthusiastic crowd about his creative process, before setting the children the 90 second challenge of drawing their own demons and then naming them. The children’s imaginations were fantastic, with lots of wonderful ideas appearing on the page.
We would like to publicly thank Daniel and his lovely wife, Sylwia, for taking the time to travel to Brentwood for the afternoon, especially as Daniel actually flew in from Sweden just for us. Somehow the box of chocolates we had rustled up didn’t quite seem to match Daniel’s generosity!
Here are a few pics of the afternoon,
Demonic behaviour?Natasha, Daniel and Jim: Superhero Poses!Reading to the crowd
We will continue to celebrate this week with Elmer as our book of choice for Rhythm, Rhyme and Story Time on Thursday at 10:00am. Children who come along for English tuition this week with Natasha will be taking part in the Phoenix Comic Creation Workshops and the week will round off with local author, Josie Dom on Saturday 25th at 3:30pm.
With 18 separate events on offer, there’s plenty of choice, suiting ages from pre-school to teen. The latest (and final) addition to the schedule is Canadian author, Caighlan Smith.
Caighlan was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador on June 1st, 1994. She grew up in the scenic coastal community of St. Philip’s, overlooking the dramatic north-west Atlantic. As a kid, she loved to play in the woods around her house, loved to tell stories and believed in magic.
Unlike many YA fantasy writers, she does not have oodles of cats or dogs or miscellaneous furry friends, as they all make her sneeze and wheeze and tear-up. Inspired by her love of fantasy and the supernatural, Caighlan’s work combines the fun and action of video games with the urgency of post apocalyptic survival.
Join author Caighlan for the exclusive UK launch of her new YA novel Children of Icarus.
Come and hear 21 year old Caighlan talk about her new novel, find out how she started writing as a teenager, how she got her first book deal and her tips on becoming an author. Bring along your work to show Caighlan, ask her about any problems you have in your writing, or quiz her on life as an author.
This event is for age 13+, taking place here at Chicken and Frog Bookshop, on Saturday 30th July, from 6:00pm. Details can be found here.
Writing creatively can be a wonderful experience for many. According to research, there are 5 key benefits to creative writing:
It encourages us to use our imaginations.
It develops reading, writing and learning skills.
It can develop self confidence and identity.
It teaches empathy, as we place ourselves in someone else’s shoes.
It provides an emotional outlet.
We already run a weekly Creative Writing Club, which is very informal – there are no red marking pens! The children are encouraged to try out their ideas, often pictorially to begin with, in a relaxed environment.
However, we have been frequently asked to provide something more structured, which supports the curriculum. And so we have shuffled our time-table around, in order to offer the following class:
The class is for children who are capable writers already, but find it difficult to ignite their creative spark.
As with all of our tuition, classes are £16.50 for 50 minutes, paid weekly in advance. However, if you book and pay for a term in advance, we are offering one free lesson. This is non-transferable and refundable. As the first block is just a half term, the offer is £16.50 weekly or £107.25 for the half term (one lesson at half price).
This will be quick and I have already shared the photographs on social media, but as I am still smiling about the event this morning, I thought I’d share just once more. So, last night I pootled off to Walker Books to listen to a presentation about their amazing new list. It is, quite simply, stunning. Readers are in for a treat and a half!
However, my main reason for going into London after a long day was the chance to meet the one and only Helen Oxenbury. And I did! Not only did I meet her, but Helen very kindly signed my copy of Alice in Wonderland, which she illustrated. That would have been enough for me, but then, Helen noticed my arms and began quite a thorough inspection of my Alice in Wonderland inspired ink.
I grinned (like the Cheshire Cat), all the way home.
There are many perks – proof copies of books, meeting new readers every day, calling your obsession with reading ‘research’…the list is quite extensive.
However, one of my favourites is meeting authors and having the privilege of seeing them interact with their audience. In the last couple of weeks we have taken not one, but two authors into schools.
The first was Sara Grant, who we have been lucky enough to work with before. Sara was booked in for a talk and signing at Brentwood County High School, with an audience of Year 7s and Year 6s from Holly Trees Primary School. Little did they realise what was in store for them, as Sara not only shared excerpts from her latest book, Chasing Danger, but also lead the pupils through a story planning session. It was a joy to watch – with well over 300 pupils to keep engaged, Sara had set herself quite a task, but it was incredible. I think that the audience (including the teachers) were surprised by the fantastic ideas that Sara teased from them in just one hour.
Reading from Chasing Danger
Sara signing books
Sara also helped to launch a writing competition which is exclusively for the Year 7 pupils at BCHS. We can’t wait to read their stories.
And this week, yesterday in fact, we took Nikki Sheehan into two schools. We started at Ingatestone and Fryerning Junior School and finished at Brentwood County High School, which is rapidly become our second home!
Nikki’s books are beautifully written tales of magical realism, full of believable characters who have extraordinary experiences. The audience at Ingatestone and Fryerning explored the idea of how an animal’s characteristics can be likened to our own. There was a lot of discussion amongst the pupils, as well as a chance to hear Nikki read excerpts from Swan Boy.
The Q and A session was great, with some really searching questions, such as ‘Do you write for yourself or for your audience?’ Nikki says that initially she writes for herself, and then thinks about the audience once she begins the editing process.
Busily signing books
We then whisked Nikki off to Brentwood County High School, for two back to back writing workshops with Year 8 pupils. I will never get tired of watching, in awe, as authors inspire and cajole original ideas from pupils. The creativity was wonderful.
Our thanks go to Sara and Nikki, the willing pupils and the schools for their enthusiasm and promoting of reading.
I know, I know, another hashtag. Kids these days…but this hashtag is a very important one. It’s for Independent Bookshop Week, which is coming up in June. We love #IBW because it highlights the wonderful independent bookshops across the UK (including us of course) and the authors and illustrators who share their genius with us.
This year we are just a little bit excited to announce that we have not one, but two author events taking place here at Chicken and Frog.
Just yesterday afternoon we received confirmation that Daniel Whelan, of The Box of Demons fame will be kicking off the week with us, on Saturday 18th June! That’s all we know so far, but to say we’re thrilled is an understatement. As soon as we know more, we’ll pass it on.
And the end of the week will be celebrated with a local author, Josi Dom. Details of Josi’s event can be found here. We’re also taking Josi into a local primary school, so it’s all go!
We’ve finally got around to placing some shelf talkers around the shop. If you don’t know what a shelf talker is, they look like this:
They’re a great way of recommending a favourite title (although we find it very difficult to choose). Yesterday we put up three in our fiction section, using the amazing Dyslexi font. And then one of our lovely customers pointed out, that to make them more dyslexic-friendly, we should use yellow paper, so we have:
If you have a book recommendation that you’d like to share, pass it on and we’ll add it to one of the shelf talkers. Happy reading!
Chicken and Frog Bookshop 
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