MICHELLE ROBINSON - CHILDREN'S AUTHOR
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All the latest updates from me.

The Pawed Piper - coming April 4th!

1/23/2019

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10 REASONS I LOVE THIS BOOK ​

​1: It's my first book with Chinlun Lee, a truly wonderful Taiwanese artist and big-hearted animal lover.

2:  The Pawed Piper is also my first book with Maria, Dee and Tanya and the rest of the wonderful team at Walker Books. 

3: It's absolutely crammed with Chinlun's funny and beautifully observed cats -- on one spread you're invited to try and count all 67!
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The Pawed Piper will be available from all the usual places you like to buy books, including your local independent book store.

MEANWHILE, Ernie Robinson has been missing since last June. I do hope the Pawed Piper helps him find his way home . . . 
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All art by Chinlun Lee
​4: It's dedicated to all the actual cats who appear in it.

5: . . . Chinlun even squeezed in the Robinson family cats, Ernie and Muesli. 

6: It's a smidge autobiographical -- like the girl in the book, I used to take my cat book to bed to cuddle until I had a cat of my own (emotional blackmail works, kids).

7: Chinlun based the family in the book on editor Maria, her husband and baby. 

8: The 'lost cat' endpapers are magnificent.

9: It's genuinely lovely to read aloud.
​
10: All the missing cats get home again -- who doesn't love a happy ending?

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Goodnight Spaceman – thumbs up to Tim Peake!

3/8/2016

 
Excuse the excess exclamation marks, but GOODNIGHT SPACEMAN has been created in collaboration with Tim Peake!!!!

ESA ASTRONAUT TIM PEAKE.
SERIOUSLY - TIM PEAKE.
TIM ACTUAL FACTUAL PEAKE.
THAT'LL BE TIM FLIPPIN' PEAKE.


Tim is an incredible role model for everyone, particularly young children. Part of his mission, and ultimately his legacy, is to engage primary school children with science, numeracy and literacy.
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​We made GOODNIGHT SPACEMAN as a companion book to Tim's ESA Principia mission to the International Space Station. The book centres around two young children whose father is an astronaut. They imagine visiting him and his crew mates onboard the ISS, before returning home to bed. While the story was written with Tim's own family in mind, we hope it speaks directly to each and every young child who looks to the stars and dreams.

There aren't enough exclamation marks in the world to adequately express how thrilled me and Nick are to have Tim involved in this latest instalment in the Goodnight series. We're incredibly grateful to Tim and to everyone at Puffin Books and the ESA for making it possible. You could say we're over the moon...


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The book is filled with beautiful illustrations by Nick East
​On a personal note, life here on earth has been a little rough recently. An hour after watching Tim blast off in the Soyuz, my own father called me to tell me he'd been diagnosed with cancer. He's since started chemo and had a huge operation, just three days after I had a very similar big op myself. So for me and dad, secretly knowing the big GOODNIGHT SPACEMAN reveal was on the way has been a great tonic.

It's been truly inspiring and cheering to follow Tim's adventures. That constant grin of his is quite something. If a dad can walk in space, me and my dad can handle a little bit of a wobble down here on earth. 'Onwards and upwards' is our motto, so I think there must be a little bit of astronaut spirit in us all.
​
Enough slushy stuff. In closing: THUMBS UP TO TIM PEAKE!

77,562 thank you's

1/21/2015

 
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I've been a little quiet, forgive me - Christmas removed any sign of routine from day to day life, and it feels like my year is only just starting. But what a start.

Yesterday was 'PLR day', the day authors and illustrators receive a statement from the Public Lending Rights team letting them know how many times their books were borrowed from UK libraries over the past year. Turns out my books were loaned out a whopping 77,562 times in twelve months. Wowsers.
My husband informs me that, if you got those library lenders together, they wouldn't quite fit into Old Trafford. So of course I have spent a good deal of time daydreaming about headlining a gig there, with a delightfully intelligent audience who all have exquisite taste.

​My most borrowed book was 'Goodnight Digger', which by happy coincidence is tonight's CBeebies Bedtime Story at 6.50pm.
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Nicky Campbell reads Goodnight Digger on CBeebies
​
Thank you to the PLR team who work so hard keeping track of library loans. Most of all, thanks to the librarians who stock my books and to the lenders who take them home (and who absolutely do not tear them or scribble on them, right?) If I could give you each a hug, I would - and as today is International Hug Day, consider yourself gently squeezed.
​
P.S. I really struggled over whether to use an apostrophe in that heading or not, and I'm still not convinced I've got it right. Where's an editor when you need one?

    About me

    Michelle Robinson is a
    best-selling, major award-winning, sausage-outfit-wearing children's picture book author.

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