#supportanauthor – https://jocotterill.com/books/books-for-8-12s/jelly/

Jo is the author of Electrigirl and is getting amazing reviews for her latest work, Jelly:

“Angelica – known as Jelly to her friends – is the life and soul of the classroom. Quick to pick up voices, she loves doing impressions of her teachers to make everyone laugh. Even the teachers can’t be cross with her for long!

But Jelly isn’t quite as bubbly as she pretends. At home, her super-slim mum drinks green tea, runs a beauty business and has an unkind boyfriend. Jelly isn’t super-slim. In fact, she’s the biggest girl in the class – and she knows it.

But when you’re bubbly and larger than life, you’re not supposed to have self-esteem issues, so Jelly keeps her worries confined to a secret book in which she writes expressive poetry. No one, not even her best friends Kayma and Sanvi, know about the book.”

Check out Jo’s website and order your book from your local bookshop. Vive la Revolution!

#supportanauthor – https://clairebarkerauthor.com/buy/

Claire is the author of the bestselling Knitbone Pepper series and is BACK with the amazing Picklewitch and Jack from Bloomsbury:

“Picklewitch is, quite literally, out of her tree. She has a nose for naughtiness, a taste for trouble and a weakness for cake. And unluckily for brainbox Jack – winner of the ‘Most Sensible Boy in School’ for the third year running – she’s about to choose him as her new best friend . . . “

Perfect for fans of… well, brilliant books!

These recommendations are part of my push to get people into proper bookshops again and getting authors into the hands of readers.

https://www.colinmulhern.co.uk/p/home.html

Colin Mulhern writes horrible books for horrible kids (his words, not mine). His latest is Buttercup Sunshine and the Zombies of Dooooom!

“Granny Fondant is waking up to another perfect day in Briar’s Cove – the nicest, safest, sweetest town there ever was, where nothing bad ever happens. She spots Buttercup Sunshine running down the lane, the friendliest, most angelic girl… But wait! How odd. Why would Buttercup be holding a chainsaw?”

Delightfully horrific and horrifically delightful. Perfect gift for your little monsters!

The Twelve Days of Xmas Book Recommendations are randomly picked from my rolodex of awesome authors. Try recommending your own with the hashtag #supportanauthor!

#supportanauthor https://loutreleaven.com/books/letter-to-pluto/

Letters to Pluto is a brilliantly funny book by the equally brilliant Lou Treleaven:

“Jon’s teacher wants to keep the art of letter writing alive and starts an interstellar penpal programme.  Jon is not impressed, especially as his penpal Straxi is from Pluto, the most boring, smelliest and far away place in the whole solar system.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, she is a girl!  A hilarious story of friendship, annoying teachers, planet saving and of course letter writing.”

Younger readers will also love Lou’s amazing picture books. ‘Daddy and I’ is particularly tear jerking!

This is part of my drive to recommend books by non-celeb authors and to get people to frequent their local bookshop. Remember – if they don’t have it, ORDER IT!

Christmas is coming, if you hadn’t noticed, and it’s the time of year for giving. But what to give to your book-loving offspring? Yes, you could wander into a supermarket and pick out the nearest book by attention-hungry celebrity authors writing about their ‘hilarious’ cat or some ghost-written tome about elves and fairies OR you could do the following: Go to a local bookshop (they still exist) and get a book by any one of the hundreds of children’s authors who depend on your support.

So I have put together 12 days of recommendations of brilliant, British children’s authors whose amazing books will knock the socks of any story by certain talent-show judges. I’ve picked at random, and if your bookshop doesn’t have the book you want they will be happy to order it for you – in most cases, they will get it by the next working day!

So stay tuned for awesome recommendations and be sure to click the links to learn more about them. Also – pass it on! Sharing is caring and be sure to recommend your own favourite author who doesn’t have their own TV and/or radio show.

Christmas is coming and so it’s the time of year to flog my wares! I’ve put up a special page on my website where you can buy signed copies of a few of my books. Just head on over to http://danmetcalf.co.uk/signed-books and get busy with the clicky. (UK shipping only, last orders for xmas is 18th Dec 2018)

From 29th November to 5th December, all Amazon customers can enjoy free standard delivery, with no minimum purchase amount, when they use promotional code FREEDELIVERY at checkout. The promotion applies to all items listed as “dispatched” or “fulfilled” by Amazon on the product detail page and is available for millions of items with no minimum order amount, including ALL MY BOOKS! The promotional code can be used multiple times throughout the Free Delivery Week promotion.

So if you want to grab my books before the festive rush, find them on my books page or below!

I’ve been blogging about my recent experiment with school visits. Head over to the Awfully Big Blog Adventure to read.

I have a new book out – kinda. I was lucky enough to be allowed to play in the world of the fantastic CBBC/Netflix show The Deep, all about the Nekton family and their adventures beneath the waves in their amazing submarine, the Aronnax.

A never-seen-on-screen series of original exciting adventure books featuring Ant, Fontaine, Kaiko and William, the stars of CBBC’s number one programme The Deep, for 7+ readers. Watch the action, read the adventure!

The sea is deep and full of secrets … Something is seriously wrong in the South China Sea.

Journeying along the celestial equator, the Nektons – a family of daring underwater explorers – are dispatched on an urgent mission to investigate. Magma is erupting from the ocean floor and sending poisonous gases into the water, endangering the lives of the sea creatures that live there.

But the Nektons get more than they bargained for when they discover that an ancient and secret creature has been disturbed in the depths of the Dragon Hole – the largest Blue Hole in the world! Will they make it out alive? And more importantly, will they find an all-important clue to lead them to the lost city of Lemuria?

Perfect for fans of Beast Quest, Sea Quest and Ninjago

My newest blog post on the Awfully Big Blog Adventure is about how the story of Paw Prints in the Somme found me, and forced me to write it. Have a look here: https://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-story-that-chose-me-by-dan-metcalf.html