By For his first book event of the year, Jason visited an infant school in northwest London.
He was welcomed by Brookland Infant School, where he had three sessions, with children from Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
The reading for the younger group centred on his early years rhyming book, What Can You See?, which introduces the youngest readers to the world around them through simple rhyme. Jason added an extra level of participation from the children, who were keen to play with the cuddly toys that accompanied him to the school, inviting them to shout if they saw one of the animals in the book – but not to shout so loudly that they woke the snake up. But even the youngest children enjoyed picking out items they could see in Hannah Rounding’s illustrations and helping to complete the sentences by anticipating the rhyming words – the most popular page, as ever, turning out to be the bathroom, with “a toilet to wee.”
Next came the Year 2 group, who were that bit older – and cheekier. During the “lake” chapter, where Jason likes to ask the children how many candles they had on their last birthday cake, he was met by a chorus of “6,7” – the primary school fad which recently caught out the Prime Minister himself and has clearly not yet receded into the history books. After powering through his anarchic rhyming books, exploring the fun that can come from the flexibility of language, I Like To Put Food In My Welly and its follow-up, A Zoo In My Shoe, Jason invited the children to help him come up with potential new chapters. With one of the children choosing “bunny” as the starting word, it eventually led to the sentence, “On my toast, I’d like some money,” which had the 6 and 7 year olds laughing almost as much as they laughed at the situations in the book. And the idea of playing with money gave Jason an opportunity to do a little coin magic to frustrate the children, just as they were about to head back to their classrooms.
Jason pitched the final session somewhere in between for the final group, with more of a mixture of all three books. They were also able to get involved in writing some of their own rhymes – delivering such peculiar situations as getting married with a swing and going to the park to play with a king. And given that this group was about to head for their lunch, it seemed only appropriate to end with the page about the pizza topped with four types of – fleas.
Collectively, all three of the groups were among the most engaged Jason has worked with, laughing heartily in right places, making unpredictable observations and constantly keeping him on his toes.
Jason sold a record number of books at the session, which left him with a sore wrist from signing so many – but gave him an unrivalled insight into the lives of the teachers as they gossiped over lunch in the staff room.
“What better way to get back into the swing of readings than World Book Day in the National Year of Reading,” noted Jason. “The books are getting older for me, but they’re still fresh for each new group of children – so their enthusiasm, hearing them for the first time – and their laughter – really lifts me. And I’m always astounded by their creativity when we come up with new rhymes together. The three back-to-back sessions went by in a flash – it was as much fun for me as it was for them.”
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