Paragon School Event Reviews

Reviews have started coming in for events over the first weekend of the Children’s Literature Festival. These two students from the Paragon School have written about the Robert Muchamore event and The Wimpy Kind Show.

Robert Muchamore

On the 28^th of September I had the pleasure of watching Robert Muchamore perform in the Bath Children’s Literature Festival. Robert Muchamore is a well-known writer who writes books for ages 12-14. He has written the series Cherub which is 15 books long and is still going, he is expecting to write another two books in this series. He has also written the series Henderson Boys, which is 7 books long.

He got the idea of writing books for kids when he was in Australia and his nephew Gareth was having trouble finding a book for older kids that wasn’t like Harry Potter,  but wasn’t quite ready to start reading books for adults. He decided to write adventure books that would appeal to Gareth and other people his age.

Robert started off wanting to be three things: a photographer, an architect and a writer. He tried being a photographer but didn’t enjoy it. He then tried architecture but pulled out of college because he realised he would have to study for 7 years. He then did writing and found it really fun. He feels he is lucky to be doing something he enjoys.

His new book in the Cherub series is called Black Friday. He named it this after the day following Thanksgiving in America. The shops in America are always busy on Black Friday with sales and he thought this would be the perfect day for a terrorist attack to be launched. He also includes a strong emotional aspect in his books. This makes people care about the characters, and become more involved in the books. He makes the Cherub series feel realistic so that readers feel they could become spies themselves.

The first book in the new series he is currently writing is called Rock War. It is about how a couple of bands start up and the personalities in the bands. It is for every child who dreams of one day becoming a rock star! He told us that some of the bands do actually make it and become famous but others go back to school with nothing.

Various questions were asked. I liked one in particular: Would there ever be a movie of the Cherub series? I hope there will be! Film rights have been sold to a company but….they are waiting for funding.

I enjoyed the talk and look forward to reading Black Friday.

by Ollie

The Wimpy Kid Show, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid

The Wimpy Kid Show was presented by a Wimpy Kid Superfan Alistair, who was fun, interactive and great to be with. The author, Jeff Kinney, couldn’t be present, as he is currently promoting his latest Wimpy Kid book (Hard Luck) in the US, which comes out on the 6^th November. However, Alistair made a great intro to the show and overall it was very funny. There were a variety of games, video clips and quizs, and catchy music at the start that got everybody in a good vibe!

One of the activities was drawing your own Greg (Wimpy Kid) which was popular with everyone and Alistair encouraged us all to have a go. Jeff Kinney (on screen) showed us how. There were also games like Wimpy ‘rock, paper, scissors’ where Rowley beats Rodrick, Rodrick beats Greg and Greg beats Rowley (to represent your character you needed to do an impression of them)! The last game was Wimp Wars, which was literally a buzzer quiz on DOAWK facts, with fabulous prizes like a movie set, posters and stickers.

One of the highlights was the recording of the author speaking about how Hollywood made the first DOAWK book into a movie, and particularly how Jeff Kinney was involved in choosing the actors for the film. But my favourite part of the show was a funny clip from DOAWK ‘Dog Days’ film where Rodrick tried to impress a girl, but ends up having mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with a sunburnt, balding, middle-aged man! We also got to see a sneak preview of the new DOAWK book Hard Luck.

There were quizzes where half the room would compete with the other half of the room, and lots of prizes were handed out. I sure learnt a lot of new things about LÖDED DÏPER and ZOO-WEE-MAMA!! It was a great event and I would recommend it to all the people who like Diary Of A Wimpy Kid and even those who don’t! It was great family fun!

by Tom