CBCA Book Week 2024
The theme for the CBCA Children’s Book Week 2024 was ‘Reading is Magic’ and I was thrilled to be invited to spend a day at the Victoria Park Library, talking to children about how reading (and illustration) is magical.
Three Sessions
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Three schools
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320 kids
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Three Sessions 〰️ Three schools 〰️ 320 kids 〰️
Image courtesy Opalina Yip
Over the course of the day I spoke to a total of 230 kids (and their teachers) from Victoria Park Primary School, East Victoria Park Primary School and Regent College, ranging from year one to year six.
I shared a little bit about my journey to becoming a children’s illustrator, and how to improve at drawing through practice and critical evaluation. Then we discussed why reading is magic, how illustration is magic too, and looked at some of the ways we can work our magic through illustration.
Session One was years 3&4, and we looked at how many mythical creatures are created from two or more animals combined (the mermaid is half human half fish, the pegasus is half horse half bird and (my personal favourite) the Wolpertinger is part rabbit, part squirrel, part deer and part pheasant… with fangs! We designed some creatures together on the whiteboard, and then played a game where we came up with lots of different creatures by having one kid draw the head of an animal on a piece of paper, fold it over and pass it to someone else to add the body (no peeking!), fold it over and pass it to someone else to add the legs.
Session Two was an epic group of year ones, year threes AND year sixes from two different schools, so we kept things simple. After discussing what makes us feel magic, we all did a draw-along of Myrna (because she makes ME feel magic!) and then the kids could draw something that made THEM feel magic.
Session Three was the largest group - 117 year fives and sixes! As these were big kids we all designed our own magical mash-up creatures, and then did a comics jam, where each kid put their new magical creature into the first panel of a comic, then passed it along to someone else to add the next bit of the story, for a total of four panels. This always results in some WILD stories!
Image courtesy Opalina Yip
It was a huge day, and a lot of fun. The kids drew such good pictures (even though they were racing against my timer!), asked such good questions, and had such mature thoughts as to why reading is magic, and how we feel when we are feeling magic ourselves. I definitely see big things in their future!