Lost Dogs Let Loose

I should be working on Deep Deep Down but instead I spent the day making fliers for the launch of Lost Dogs this weekend. If you happen to be in Belfast please join us in No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue, on Saturday, October 30th, 2pm. Please note the early hour of this event. All welcome. There will be doggy biscuits!


1, Lay them out and 2, print them out.


3, Cut them out and stick them to the wall for a photo. 4, post to your pals.

The book review website thebookbag.co.uk has been the first to read Lost Dogs. Read their opinion here.

Drawing Ballydog

I visited with the older kids at Kirkistown Primary School in Cloughey, Co. Down lately. We had a good discussion, I talked about my own writing and writing stories in general. Before my arrival the students had been creating drawings based on The Badness of Ballydog. They filled a whole corridor wall and it was wonderful to see them.

Miss Grope does not really appear in the book, she is only mentioned in relation to the fact that Andrew and his pack tap electricity from the mains supply in her garage. One student at Kirkistown felt poor Miss Grope deserved more attention.


Miss Grope. That’s the Villa in the background, a bit taller than I’d imagined it.

There was also a drawing of the fish finger factory, complete with a poisoned seagull dropping from the sky. That looks like the janitor in the foreground, about to scoop up the dead bird and throw it in with the rest of the fish finger's ingredients.


This is pretty much exactly how I’d imagined the fish finger factory. The janitor also happens to be May’s dad and I think he looks about right in this drawing too.

Thank you to all the artists and to everyone else at Kirkistown for the very enjoyable visit.

If anybody else out there has any drawings based on my books or characters I’d love to see them. It would be great if you could take a digital photo or scan them in and send them to me. I will try to put them on this blog.

Ballydog has a Good Day

The Badness of Ballydog has been shortlisted for the Heart of Hawick Children’s Book Award 2011. Hawick is in the Scotland/England border region and deciding which book wins the award involves ten schools in the area. 600 students will soon begin reading and reviewing the shortlist and will vote next year.

A brilliant addition to the usual book prizes is that students are able to win awards for the best-written reviews. Next May someone will be voted “Best young reviewer of the year.” So everybody gets a go at entering their writing for honours.



Students also make short animations based on the books they’ve read. Last year children from six primary schools worked with an animator at Hawick Public Library to make the above trailer. It is for a book called Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee. In a month I happen to have a book coming out called Lost Dogs, that’s a good enough excuse to show their trailer on this blog.

Here’s the whole 2011 shortlist:

Meteorite Strike by A G Taylor.
Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts by Emma Kennedy.
The Chess Piece Magician by Douglas Burton.
The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies.
The Badness of Ballydog by Garrett Carr.

Thank you to everyone involved for the nomination of my book. Click here to visit the award’s website.