The New Year is well underway, although it will still be some time before I remember to write “2016” on inscriptions in books, cheques, or anything else requiring a date. My head is far too full of stories and pictures, with a tumbling assortment of book projects lined up. This year The Magic Sword will […]
Category: Ella Bella
This is a post category for posts about Ella Bella Ballerina and includes posts imported from the original Ella Bella Ballerina blog on Google Blogger.
Ella Bella’s Midsummer Magic!
Bursting out of the enchanted woods…A little late for Midsummer, but still full of magic, Ella Bella’s new adventure is now out. Inspired by Mendelssohn’s music for Shakespeare’s best-loved play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this story sees Ella Bella embrace the world of the fairies as she tries to help Puck restore the love between King Oberon […]
Edinburgh Book Festival – illustrator in residence
I am absolutely thrilled to be Illustrator in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this Summer. I’ve had such a long and happy relationship with this wonderful city and it seems a most fitting way to celebrate a quarter of a century in children’s publishing. It was Katie’s Picture Show that set the ball […]
Ella Bella competition winners!
Here are the three wonderful winning entries in the Ella Bella costume competition. As always, it was tough to choose the winners (I had a LOT of entries!). But these three charmed me. Aren’t they fantastic? I love them! Well done Alice, Anja and Linnea, I am sure Ella Bella would love to wear any […]
Ella Bella Best Seller!
The term best seller is a bit overused, but thanks to all my friends in America, it seems it can be legitimately applied to Ella Bella now. Barron’s have recently issued two special twin-packs of books; one is called the Magic Gift Set the other is the Enchanted Gift Set. The former reached No.2 on […]
White August
Many summers ago, as a curious child, I asked my mother what she was reading. It turned out to be a Sci-fi book, by an author called Boland, about an apocalyptic world with snow in August. It’s a marked memory because that very afternoon, on a picnic, there was a freak summer storm with enormous […]
Ella Bella Blossom!
A new magazine for “girls who like to learn” has been released, and Ella Bella features in the very first issue. BLOSSOM magazine (which comes with free flip-flops) has aroused comment for the amount of pink on display. But it also shows many positive role models for girls and is, I think, reasonably aspirational for […]
Merry Christmas from Ella!
A Nutcracker Window
It’s extraordinary how firmly linked with “The Holiday Season” (what I like to call “Christmas”!), the image of a nutcracker has become. It seems that nutcrackers – in particular THE Nutcracker – is just as familiar now as Santa (sorry… “Father Christmas”) and his elves. Is this wholly because of Tchaikovsky’s music? Would Hoffmann’s dark […]
An Ella Bella Tea Party!
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to meet Zoe Toft, who has one of the very best book review sites you could hope to find. Playing By The Book explores children’s books with a rare passion and attention to detail. Zoe and I met in Lichfield when I was performing with the Orchestra of […]
