How to follow Olaf and Elsa at the Barnet Christmas Fayre

Jason was delighted to be invited to share his books with children at the Barnet Christmas Fayre 2024, where he’d be bringing activities in the Performance Tent to a close – directly after Elsa and Olaf from Frozen had posed for photos with children and their grown-ups.

With the soundtrack from the popular Disney musical playing behind the pair, children lined up for photos on the red carpet, while Jason was setting up for his session.

It couldn’t have been more different than his last event – at a local library – with dozens of people streaming through the venue to loud music, with noisy chatter from the other end of the tent, where children’s craft activities were taken place – including some of Jason’s own activity sheets, based on his books.

With hits such as Let It Go, Love Is An Open Door and Some Things Never Change still ringing in his ears, Jason sat down to read his books to the expectant children.

He started with the rhyming anarchy or A Zoo In My Shoe, which elicited the usual howls of laughter from children, who didn’t relish the prospect of having slippers for breakfast or fleas on their pizza.

Next he moved on to highlights from his earlier book, the BookTrust recommended I Like To Put Food In My Welly, which prompted the same response from the children, confused by the idea of swimming in a cup of tea or drinking an apple tree.

Finally, he treated some of the younger children to the simpler What Can You See?, inviting them to come up to the front to point out items such as the cat, the tree, the sand-castles and the toilet.

“Usually at these kind of events, I follow other authors, so I felt a lot of pressure coming straight after two of the biggest film characters in recent years,” began Jason. “But I think I managed to hold my own. There weren’t as many people queueing for photos with me – but I certainly got more laughs than they did!”

Before leaving, of course, Jason couldn’t resist having his own photo taken with them. He was particularly keen for Olaf to see Hannah Rounding’s illustration of children learning to ski, from What Can You See?