Sue Pavey will be in-store tomorrow, sharing her shiny new book ‘The Alphabet Friends and Their Animals’. She’ll be with us from 11.00-12.30, telling stories and encouraging all to draw some wonderful animals.
Sue’s illustrations are bold, brightly coloured delights, sure to capture the interest and imagination of your pre-schooler! So come on down tomorrow, pull up a fluffy cushion and join in the fun!
Usually my posts are full of terrible puns and light-hearted affairs. I make no apologies for this one being different.
There is a very special little boy called Sky Harrington-Ellis who needs your help. In 2011 Sky was was diagnosed with a Grade 3 Anapalastic Ependymoma(Brain Tumour). Since then he has undergone surgery multiple times with partial success in removing the tumour. He has been having high dose chemotherapy for 9 months with all the side effects this entails.
If you can’t attend, but would like to make a donation, please follow the link below:
http://www.gofundme.com/SkysFund#description
You can follow Sky’s progress here http://friendsofsky.wordpress.com/?blogsub=confirmed#blog_subscription-2
This morning we had a lovely story-time session with some mummies and their little boys. It all went swimmingly; they listened, then they had a bit of a roam around, wandered back to me again and left smiling and waving. Job done! I love the fact that when children come in to see us they feel comfortable enough to choose books for me to share with them and that they can go off to have a good old nosey at the books.
But that’s not what I’m egg-cited about (I know how much you enjoy my egg-related quips). As they were going out of the door, one of the mummies said ‘Oh, you have French Rhythm and Rhyme, you should do a Romanian one…’ Now, she was half-joking, but I ignored that and swiftly replied, ‘Are you offering?’ To my mild surprise she did not run away at top speed, but said that she may well be interested.
This is egg-actly (see, they just keep on coming) what we wanted when we started (er-hem) hatching plans for the shop. We want to create a sense of community, providing services that the families want and need and after just a couple of weeks we are already fulfilling our promise to the people of Brentwood and beyond.
Who knows what the future holds…if anyone has any ideas that they would like to share, please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!
Have you got a hidden writer-in-the-making at home? Would you like to encourage their creativity? Well, we have the solution. During this week we are running a selection of creative writing sessions for children. As of Saturday, there will be a ‘Creative Writing Club’ every week, running from 16.00-17.30. There is no need to be tied to coming every week, but you are more than welcome to do so. The cost is just £5 and will include a drink and biscuit to keep the brain working.
Our first session this afternoon and was a roaring success, producing some pretty gruesome stories about vampire hamsters and such.
The premise behind the club is simple; I want to encourage children to write. It’s not a literacy lesson. The children are free to write whatever they want, in the style of their choosing. We share our ideas, critique each others writing (no pressure though, only if you want to hear it) and even ‘magpie’ some fabulous vocabulary.
I use a range of techniques, including role play and these amazing little storytelling cubes (which we will be stocking very soon),
The grand plan is to publish some of the children’s writing right here on the blog. You never know, we may discover the next Dahl or Rosen!
Here at Chicken and Frog we are rather fond of a story or two, or three…pretty handy as we are a bookshop. We run storytime sessions every week for our pre-schoolers, but wanted to provide something specifically for dads and their offspring.
And so, we have come up with a Saturday morning regular slot, ‘Bring your daddy to storytime’. This allows mum to have a bit of peace and quiet at home, whilst dad spends some quality time with the kids. It’s a win, win situation.
Our Daddy sessions will begin on Saturday 3rd November at 10.00-10.45, and then move to a regular time slot of 9.45-10.30. There’s no need to book in, just drop in, pull up a fluffy cushion and let Natasha soothe you with her storytelling.
OK, it’s not been a week yet, but we’re pretty close to it. Anyone who tells you that running a shop is easy is either a liar, has a huge number of self-motivated/ managed staff or is a little bit loopy. I didn’t think for a moment that it would be ‘easy’, but equally, I wasn’t aware of quite how much goes on behind the scenes day-to-day.
I should have realised though. My parents ran a shop when I was a child and they worked their socks off. My father-in-law owned a garden centre and did the same. But seeing from the outside is very different from actually doing! I am not complaining. This whole experience has been a huge learning curve for me and Mr Frog, which I am sure will continue to get steeper over the coming weeks and months ahead.
You know what makes it worth it? The fact that we still get excited by what we’re doing. The fact that opening a box of books or a bag of goodies from a publisher fills us with glee; that’s magical to me. And the fact that children come in to have a good old nose at our glorious selection of books. They are interested in what we have to offer. Don’t get dragged into the media hype that kids don’t read, it’s a myth. They do read, they just do other things too.
The future is looking bright for Chicken and Frog. Long live the book!
Ooh, we’re going all continental at Chicken and Frog. Yesterday we booked J.N.Paquet for a French-English storytelling session and today…
…A lovely lady by the name of Julie came by to see us. She is indeed tres jolie! From Monday 5th November Julie will be running French Rhythm & Rhyme sessions for pre-schoolers, 1.30-2.30, for just £3.
There’s no need to book, just drop by.
Guess what we did today.Go on, have a guess…oh, alright I’ll tell you. We opened our shop for the first full day of trading. At 9.30 the door sign was gingerly flipped over to ‘Open’ and we were officially in business, after 23 years in the dreaming, 18 months of proper planning and just two weeks of go, go ,go!
I am not sure that I have felt this tired since our radishes were little bambinos who had no concept of sleep, but I am also extremely happy. We were super busy today, selling loads of beautiful books and getting to know our new customers. Claire was a busy bee too, filling up her diary with names for her wonderful events and selling her ‘Beautiful Things.’
Julie D Irwin, Tamsyn Murray and Lucy Coats all came along to help us launch the shop and I can honestly say that they were all wonderful. It is inspirational for children (and adults too) to meet such creative people. Max (youngest radish) spoke to Julie on the phone this morning and was beside himself. He beamed ‘I spoke to a real author!’ Priceless.
Pip and Posy bounced along Brentwood High Road handing out bookmarks,
And Horrid Henry behaved appallingly for much of the day,
Here’s to more days of mayhem, cake and bookselling!
Chicken and Frog Bookshop 
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