Here's an update of things I've been up to now Otto has been relased onto the shelves. Firstly, I had a whole bunch of events to do when Otto was released in July. My absolute favourite were the two events I did at the Just Imagine Story Centre in Chelmsford, Essex. Just Imagine is the creation of Nikki Gamble, who is an expert on children's books, and knows everyone in the industry. My two events held there (one for adults, one for children) were just a joy. If you live anywhere in the area, it's definitely worth a visit. Nikki asked me to do an Otto window display for her shop, picture below of the large Otto I made for it. The hardest part of that day was climbing down into the window, in a dress, without showing Chelmsford more than I'd have liked to. Thankfully I managed it, although one man did walk past the window twice (which Nikki found very funny, ha!)
I also went to Waterstone's Piccadilly to draw Otto on their chalkboards, I visited some schools, and held mask-making workshops at a couple of bookshops. It was a thrill to read Otto to children for the first time, and he proved very popular! In other Otto news, he was picked as Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week. I'm a Times reader, and so seeing little Otto in The Sunday Times made my heart pound with excitement! Otto also had a very lovely review on LibraryMice and over at Playing By the Book. I also picked my '8 books en route to becoming an illustrator' for Zoe at PBTB, you can read it here.
