Children’s author, Jane Hardstaff, who grew up in Manton, and later went to live in London visited Class 6 at Preshute Primary School, on January 20.
She has written three books including The Executioner’s Daughter and The River Daughter. Her dad was a biology teacher. When she was growing up she wanted to be just like her dad as he took her on lots of adventures. She enjoyed collecting bugs and playing in the river but when she grew up she became an author.
Class 6 listened attentively to Jane Hardstaff. She showed us an amazing powerpoint which told us about her books and her childhood. She showed us pictures of places in Marlborough where she had played when she was young, but which had also inspired settings in her books.
She also shared the different designs of her book covers and explained how the illustrators had changed their ideas. She told us that she did not have a say in what the book covers looked like but she is pleased with the final results.
We asked Jane to give us some tips to help us with our own story writing as we are planning to enter the Radio 2 500 words story competition. She told us to practise writing and to try to engage with our reader by thinking about the characters in our stories.
Here are some more questions we asked the brilliant answers she gave us :
- Why does one of your books have an American remake but the other one doesn’t?
- The reason is because my books are more based in England and the first one didn’t really take off in America so they haven’t made an American version of the second one.”
- When you were researching, did you write things down on a note book?
- I use a laptop to write things down but I know that other people write things down in a note book.
Year 6 really enjoyed Jane’s visit. Before she left she signed some paper and books.
Obituary: Sue Bailey – 1946 – 2020
