There’s a lot of excitement here at Ardagh & Elwick HQ because the second of our Little Adventurers’ little adventures is out today! Called WHAT BEAR? WHERE?, this latest story finds Finnegan, Floss, Peanut and Sprat hunting around the garden for all types of animals… but they keep coming face to face with things that are not QUITE what they seem.
Elissa (that’s Elwick) and I (who must be Ardagh) had SO much fun coming up with this one. We’ve really got to know the Little Adventurers and how each would react in just about any situation, from how they’d look, to what they’d say.
As with LEAFY THE PET LEAF, there are plenty of things going on in the pictures that aren’t mentioned in the text, including a pair of birds meeting, failing in love and making a nest together. Ahhhhhh* (*as in a sweet sigh, not as in someone accidentally treading on your toe**) (**or deliberately treading on your toe***) (***that would be more of an arrrrgh!)
There aren’t all the Little Adventurer’s pets that appear in LEAFY in this one – except, of course, Peanut has her pet mouse Pocket in her pocket – but there are plenty of other animals to entertain them, from creepy-crawlies to a bear. Not a bear, surely? In a garden? What bear? Where?
In advance of today’s publication, we had a special WHAT BEAR? WHERE? launch at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where EVERYONE got in on the act.
Here’s Roland Gulliver, associate director of the festival, clutching his copy of WHAT BEAR? WHERE? in the author yurt ( a special kind of tent, which is for illustrators too).
And here’s Janet Smyth, Children’s programmer, photobombing a LOVELY photo of us. What a cheek!
And, finally, here we are enjoying some fancy fruit-mocktails in celebration of a fun-packed family event with props and puppets, which ended in our signing our first copies of this new little adventure. I’m the one on the left. I mean RIGHT. I’m the one on the right. The one on the left is Elwick… I think.
To encourage you to be on the look-out for WHAT BEAR? WHERE? in your local bookshop, library or online, here’s Elwick looking through a pair of VERY expensive binoculars… Hard to believe, I know, but I can exclusively reveal – between you and me – that she actually *lowers voice* made them herself.
And what are we working on now? The NEXT little adventure of course. And, this time, the awesome foursome are heading off to the beach.
In the meantime, from me and Elwick, it’s bye for now!