Author: chickenandfrog

On Saturday we were visited by Linda Button, author of Frog Meets a Bog Beast,

Linda was fantastic! Not only us she passionate about books, she’s also dedicated to making sure that the children she meets enjoy the experience. Linda bought with a whole host of fabulous activities, including carnivorous plants to look at under a microscope, biscuits to ice and decorate with jelly frogs and chocolate logs, as well as colouring sheets and if course, her lovely book.

Here are some pics of the day,

The book is a great narrative poem, beautifully illustrated and complimented with an interesting information section at the back if the book. We have two signed copies left, don’t miss out!

Ok, today it doesn’t feel like the summer holidays are almost upon us,

but they are! So get ready. We have plenty going on here to keep the kids busy (and you partially sane), from our infamous Lego Challenges, to cooking, to tuition to keep the brain active and the cogs turning.

All of our holiday activities can be found on our calendar page and our Face Book page too! In addition to the creative bits and bobs, we are also providing a tuition calendar for the summer, which looks like this:

Year 5-6 English Tuesdays at 2p.m.

Year 3-4 English Thursdays at 2p.m.

Year 3-4 Maths Thursdays at 1p.m.

Year 5-6 Maths Tuesdays at 1p.m.

11+ Fridays 1p.m. and 2p.m.

Each class is 50 minutes, costing £15. We guarantee no more than 6 pupils per group in the holidays (4 during term time).

Phonics Fun Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3p.m.-3.30p.m. @ £7 per session, with discounts available for multiple sessions.

Summer Hol 2014

If you want to find out more or book in, please give us a call on 01277 230068, email events@chickenandfrog.co.uk or pop in when you’re in town!

The past week has been absolutely crazy! We’ve had so much going on to celebrate Independent Book Week (IBW), culminating in Brentwood’s marking of Independents Day on Saturday.

Here’s a round up in pictures, of all that we have achieved. Before the pics though, a few thank-yous are in order: Julie Earle, Eva Katzler and Yasmeen Ismail – the fab authors who spent some time with us. Pupils from Brentwood Prep, St Helen’s and Hogarth – you were a delight on Monday. The long suffering Mr Frog aka Maisy Mouse! The Renaissance Group for supporting our indies in Brentwood. Siobhan – a lovely uni student who’s helping us out at weekends and last, but by no means least, my brilliant parents for ferrying authors and shop sitting! Not to mention our customers, new and old, as well as other indies (including Mi Neni, The Brentwood Kitchen, Caffe Essex, BMCycles, French Quarter, The Hair Company, Petit Cherub, Brentwood Library, Piccola, Magical Mirror Princesses, Balloon Boutique…) who work so hard to make Brentwood a great place to live.

That was a long list. Sorry if I missed you off…it’s still early!

‘What does that mean?’ I hear you ask, in a slightly perplexed voice. Well, IBW is short for Independent Booksellers’ Week and 2014, well, that’s pretty self explanatory really.

For us, it’s a chance to show off about being an indie. So far this week we have been visited by two lovely authors. The first was Julie Earle on Saturday afternoon. Julie’s book, The Magical Gate, inspired our creative writing club to create magical works of their own.

And on Monday the gloriously talented Eva Katzler joined us for the whole day. Eva met with over 80 school children from local schools, sharing Florentine and Pig,

as well as inspiring the children to create pirate bunting to take back to school.

What a fabulous time we’ve had so far. Don’t forget that this Saturday we have Yasmeen Ismail with us from 11:00-12:00, Maisy Mouse wandering around the town, the gorgeous Princess Belle in from 15:00-16:00 and (yes, I know, and) Creative Writing Club from 16:00-17:30.

Wally’s back in town, from Saturday 5th July, for just two weeks! If you want to find him and be entered into a prize draw for a stash of awesome books, just drop in to grab a search list.

The prize draw will take place on Saturday 26th July at 3p.m., right here at Chicken and Frog.

Last week we started our monthly book club with a bang. Well, with a robot actually. At the end of the session I asked for reviews of Boffin Brainchild, so here they are:

‘I thought the book was quite slow in the first chapter, but then on each new chapter it just got more and more interesting. I really liked the ending because it was really happy how it ended. Also it left you in a bit of a position of you have got to keep on reading it.’ (Maya, aged 10)

‘I couldn’t stop reading this book. Some of it was a bit sad but I still think it’s good. It was very exciting. I really liked the ending. My favourite character is Tom.’ (Ellie, aged 9)

‘So far I am enjoying Boffin Brainchild. It is a fun, hilarious book about a robot by the name of Boffin who decides to run away with Tom. So far this has been a great read and I can not wait to read on!’ (Alex, aged 10)

‘So far I have enjoyed the book. The occasional chats make you think harder about the story line and details of the book. From first glance the book didn’t look exciting but when I started reading, it began to get more intriguing.’ (Robert, aged 10)

All in all, Jill Jennings’ book got a thumbs up! So, if you haven’t read it yet, pick up a copy soon.