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Goodreads giveaway for Disenchanted
Paperback giveaway Want to win a paperback copy of the brand new comedy from Heide and Iain? Here’s the description: Ella Hannaford has a small business to run, an overworked father to look after and a future stepmother who wants a perfect wedding. Can she avoid a girly night out with her clueless stepsister? Can…
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Egg-tapping, girl-whipping and the power of Ozric Tentacles – Easter and Fairy Tales
Easter is an intriguing time of year. It is the most important Christian festival, celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The English name for the festival is possibly take from the name of the pagan goddess, Ostara, who may or may not have been a goddess of the dawn. For most of the…
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Adrian Mole’s 50th Birthday Celebrations
Winning a commission to write a new Adrian Mole story We’ve blogged before about visiting the Sue Townsend archive at the University of Leicester. When we saw the news that there were to be commissions for new Adrian Mole stories to celebrate his 50th birthday, there was no question – we had to try and…
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Mother’s Day and the fairy tales linked to it
Mother’s Day, celebrated on different days around the world, is nonetheless a concept common to nearly all world cultures. But what of mothers in fairy tales? What do fairy tales have to teach us about mothers and motherhood? Let’s take a look. Mothers don’t have a great life expectancy in fairy tales. In Snow White,…
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Fairy Tales relating to Spring
Spring time in fairy tales What do fairy tales have to say about spring time? Quite a lot, it seems. To celebrate the equinox, let’s take a look. DIY The familiar zeal for carrying out maintenance tasks on the home during spring time is seen in the fairy tale The Wayward Castle where a servant…
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Fairy tales associated with St Patrick’s Day
It’s St Patrick’s Day, a day which is celebrated by billions around the world by pretending they have Irish heritage and drinking more Guinness in one day than they do in all the other days of the year combined. We’d like to take this opportunity to look at some fairy tales that have links to…
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Fairy Tale traditions associated with Pancake Day
Pancake day and fairy tales. Pancakes are traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday (or indeed any Tuesday). In medieval times, the pancake was seen as terribly indulgent. Eating pancakes was a way of letting your hair down and celebrating the end of week. We should point out that, before the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582,…
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Book page markers – make some today!
Why book page markers? An upcoming event where we will have a book stall made us think about a small craft activity that we might offer. It needed to be book related, family-friendly and cheap to do. We decided that we would take along materials to make these book marks. They are the ones that…
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10 ways to fight Blue Monday
Blue Monday – a fake media construct? Blue Monday used to refer to washing, but in recent years it’s the day that the newspapers tell us that we are all supposed to be at our most miserable. The combination of weather, dark days and debt culminates specifically on the third Monday in January, we are told. For…