Tag Archives: summer holidays

#100mphdog @Library_Plus Northamptonshire

This summer storytellers John Kirk and Dan McGarry are presenting Jeremy Strong’s The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog in Northamptonshire libraries.

Streaker is a mixed up kind of a dog.  She’s part greyhound, part Ferrari and unless Trevor and Tina can train her before the end of the holidays arch pain Charlie Smugg is going to throw them both into a bath full of frog spawn!  Come along and see if Trevor and Tina can avoid their early bath in an action packed story that just gets sillier and sillier.

 

On the 18th August see John Kirk at..

10am Rushden Library, 12.30pm Raunds Library, 2.30pm Higham Ferrers Library

On the 21st August see Dan McGarry at..

10.30am Wellingborough Library, 2.15pm Irthlingborough Library, 4pm Wollaston Library

On the 25th August see John Kirk at..

11.30am Long Buckby Library, 2pm Brackley Library, 4pm Middleton Cheney Library

 

On the 1st September see John Kirk at..

10am Desborough Library, 1pm Oundle Library, 3.30pm Thrapston Library

On the 4th September see Dan McGarry at..

10am Hunsbury Library, 12.30pm Duston Library, 3pm St James Library

This presentation lasts 40 minutes and is suitable for families with children age 6+.

#100mphdog

NB: John will also visit Nottingham City (17th and 22nd Aug) and Barking and Dagenham Libraries (31st Aug) during the summer holidays with this presentation.

The Hundred mile an hour Dog is up and running! #100mphdog

The summer holidays are here and my retelling of Jeremy Strong’s “The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog” is up and running.  Literally.  Although I have been working with mainly school groups I have already met over 1200 children and families.  This is all the more staggering when I think that I still have 70 presentations to do.

This is a story about pace told at pace which presents me with a variety of challenges.  Firstly there’s loads to remember; over the course of the story I introduce lots of different characters including Streaker the Super Dog.  There are elements of participation, water pistols (of course) and every time I tell it, the story just seems to get faster and faster.  At points it  feels like a ginormous tongue twister which falls out of my mouth three times a day.  Its great for my articulation but with names like Tina, Trevor and Streaker being regularly repeated its more than a mouthful.  It isn’t just a verbal challenge.  At 36 I am not getting any younger and in the 30+ degree heat we’ve been experiencing in the south east of England I am sweating up a storm as I tell the tale.

Sometimes I think maybe its too fast but then this isn’t the book, its a story.  In Jeremy’s book he throws in loads of lovely jokes, witty observations and one liners which in a 40 minute presentation I simply do not have time to deliver.  This story is a bit like a situation comedy; that much of the humour comes from things getting worse and worse for the characters involved.  Its in all this mania that I find my task for even when the story seems to be out of control I have to be master of its rhythms for there to be any kind of momentum.  As crazy as what I’m doing might seem, most of the time I’ve got these rhythms on a tight leash and as a result when I do slow down, pauses have real impact and key bits of narrative can be easily stressed.

For all the challenges I am really enjoying myself and when I get the rhythms right the story feels right.  So what would I say to you about my retelling of “The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog”?  Well in a nut shell its big, its brash and its a lot of fun that I can’t wait to share this summer.  Follow my summer on social media; search for the hashtag #100mphdog.

#100mphdog

Things are coming together nicely for the summer tour of Jeremy Strong’s “The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog” and today I thought I’d share the poster image.

We are doing 99 presentations of  the story (I say we because these days its a team effort; Joseph Attenborough has agreed to create the soundtrack, the poster image for the project was created by Dan White and Dan McGarry is doing some presentations for me this summer so that I can have some time with my new family).  The dates are now up on the website so have a nose through and see if we’ll be passing your neck of the woods.

To keep in touch with what we get up to I’ll be using the hashtag #100mphdog on social media between June and October 2017.  I look forward to seeing you this summer!

What a summer!

The Mad Hatter in HullAs we reach the end of the summer holidays I find I have a couple of minutes to myself and that its time to begin reflecting on a very busy time.

Over the past seven or so weeks I have met a lot of people, visited a lot of new places and had a generally wonderful time.  I’d like to thank all the libraries (and festivals) who made me so welcome this summer.  I got booked up very early this year and so there were a few regular haunts that I didn’t make it to (Hackney and Brent) but I hope we can arrange a visit later in the year.

In 2015 audiences were generally up on previous years.  This may be because I offered a selection of stories; Terry Deary’s The Sea Monsters, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!, Arabian Nights, Superlative Tales and The Elephant’s Child and other Just So StoriesLibraries were able to choose a story to suit their audience and I saw a lot of people at more than one session (ie they came to two or more different stories).  In one instance a mother and daughter travelled from Westminster to Feltham to see me again (get a map out, that’s a long way)!

StickersAs I went along I handed out business cards and stickers and have seen the reaction to my work on this website, my Facebook and Twitter pages.  I also used my tour to promote the work of Grace House and to date have raised just over £300.00 (to donate visit my Justgiving page).

Its been a fantastic summer and it seems strange that on Friday I’ll finish up in Walthamstow – it doesn’t seem five minutes since I visited Kingston to help launch their reading challenge!  Once the last dates are honoured I will look to the future and how I can continue to build audiences and offer high quality storytelling to libraries and library users.

If you joined me this summer and supported an event – thank you, it was appreciated.