Primary 5 were delighted to meet local children’s author Declan Carville today as part of an AmmA Creative Literacy workshop. Declan treated the children to readings of some of his books including The Magic Harp, The Incredible Sister Bridget, The Lost Seagull, Valentine O’Brien and our class favourite The Fairy Glen!
Declan shared his Top Ten Writing Tips for story writing and story structure. He offered advice to the children when they shared their story planners for a piece of their own narrative writing. He was delighted with their knowledge of story structure. He encouraged the children to use their own experiences to write and like his character Valentine (Kathleen if you live in America), never give up, believe in yourself and you will succeed!
Our children had prepared questions for his visit and Declan answered them all with great enthusiasm and honesty. He told us all about his inspirations for writing and all the processes involved in writing and publishing books. We discovered Declan’s love of stories stemmed from listening to “Hansel and Gretel” on a vinyl record as a child at home. He told us which characters that were based on him in his books.
Declan also shared some of the watercolour paintings that were created by the illustrators for his books. Our children were amazed at the pictures and paintings and learned lots about the processes of book production. They were extremely detailed. We loved hearing all about “the wallpaper’s” of books and we’ll be looking at lot more closely at images in the future.
Declan told us all about his book “The Fairy Glen” inspired by local area in Rostrevor. He shared his local knowledge of the area and even offered us tips on spotting fairies when we are out walking. 🧚♀️🧚
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