BLOG ARCHIVES

  • DIGITALES FOR CBEEBIES RADIO

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Children's Health, Children's Media Campaign, Children's Poetry, Children's stories, Education, Internet Safety, Online Safety, Parenting, Politics, The Children's Media Foundation, Uncategorized, Writing for Children

    Well everyone was banging on

    about the Internet – the dangers, the disasters.  I know – I’ve been involved in the campaigns to improve online safety and privacy, leading up to the Digital Economy Act 2017 and beyond.  And one of the things I’ve learned is that while politicians and vested interests move at glacial speed to make the digital world a safer place, our kids are growing up fast.  So I was chuffed to bits when that brilliant BBC producer John Leagas gave me the opportunity to help children learn a few survival techniques.

    Five stories to download on

    CBeebies Radio

    And just so you don’t miss one, here they are individually-

    Nan’s Gap Year

    The Digital Dog

    When Uncle Hansel Got Lost

    The Mystery At The Window

    The Cat and the App

    Don’t worry, they’re not worthy, preachy or teachy – this is me writing them!  Waggy dogs and lazy uncles… Globe-trotting grannies… And a cat who knows where it’s app.   Have a listen and enjoy exploring the online world with your little ones in these

    …digital… digi-tall… digi-tales…

  • TOP TIPS ON TENNIS, TWINS AND #TISSUES ON #CBEEBIES RADIO

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Books, Children's Health, Children's stories, Education, Parenting, Screenwriting, Writing for Children

    This week it’s all runny noses in my #allergies story.  You can hear  about Shaniqua’s #hayfever with #DrRanj at

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio/tennis-twins-and-tissues

    Why doesn’t her twin sister get it?

    And what’s the top tennis tip?

    Is there a top tennis tip? You’ll have to listen to find out.  Carefully or you’ll miss it.

    You missed it didn’t you.

    Never mind.  The story isn’t aimed at you reading this – I suspect you are much older than six.  All of these allergy podcasts are written to help younger children.  Alongside the stories, children talk about their own allergies and Dr Ranj Singh gives helpful advice.  I hope that your little ones find them useful and of course enjoyable.

  • MY #CBEEBIES #PETALLERGY STORY: IT’S GOT #DRRANJ AND #GUINEAPIGS!

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Books, Children's Health, Children's stories, Education, Nature, Parenting, Writing for Children

    Children and parents and, well anyone else, can listen to my story and find out what happens when a boy brings the school guinea pigs home in  Bohdan’s Beastly Allergy .  OK so the title has given away a bit about what happens but, look it’s got guinea pigs!  And pigeons.  And a little boy who desperately loves animals and cuddles.  And did I mention guinea pigs?

    This was possibly my favourite story in this series because the research involved guinea pigs and learning a new technical term: ‘pet dander’.   Jayne’s top tip: if dander ain’t dandy, then keep tissues handy…  Dr Ranj has proper top tips for sufferers of pet allergies at the end of the podcast.  But they don’t rhyme.

  • MY STORY ABOUT #ASTHMA IS AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD ON #CBEEBIESRADIO

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Children's Health, Children's Poetry, Education, Paddlesport, Parenting, Writing for Children

    Sporty Imogen refuses to let her asthma get in the way of her having fun in this story.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio/imogen-takes-the-plunge

    This story draws on some of my experiences teaching kayaking to school children.   There always seemed to be at least one child with an inhaler in the class and if they were not reticent about trying something that might make them out of breath and/or falling in the river, their teachers often were.

    In this story, I wanted to show that, as long as the right precautions are taken, there is no reason why a child with asthma can’t do fun stuff or go on to make their dreams come true.  I was greatly inspired by stories of Olympic athletes like Rebecca Adlington OBE and hope that children listening to this story will be too and will go on to do amazing things.

    Oh and thanks to the great people at my local sports centre #Dursleypool for explaining why we should shower before rather than after swimming and why widdling in the pool is such a really bad idea…

     

     

  • MY #CBEEBIESRADIO STORY ABOUT #ALLERGIES TAKES THE CAKE

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Children's Health, Children's stories, Education, Parenting

    #DrRanj reads my story Jamil’s Food Challenge and shares top tips on what to do if you or someone you know has a #foodallergy https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio/jamils-food-challenge

    It’s not much fun not being able to share the same food as your friends and it’s not much fun having to spend your birthday in the hospital allergy clinic.  But when the usual allergy tests suggest his body can now cope with eggs, Jamil has to decide whether to stay safe and only eat the food he already trusts or, with the help of his specialist nurse, expand his diet.  Knowing how poorly eggs have made him in the past, it is a scary notion and Jamil has to be very brave.  But maybe, just maybe, this year he won’t have to blow out the candles on a pretend birthday cake made of cardboard but will be able to have his first ever ‘proper’ birthday cake, and share it with all his friends!

    Having known children with very restrictive diets, I have been in awe of their patience and resilience.   From a distance, it can be easy to condemn them as ‘picky’ and to think they’re just being difficult.  But often these children are incredibly brave, having to guard themselves against things the rest of us take for granted.

    My thanks to #CBeebiesRadio for helping with the child testimonies and medical research.  In the spirit of good public service broadcasting, I was happy to  undertake the necessary research into birthday cakes and bouncy castles.

     

     

  • NEW #CBEEBIESRADIO SERIES ABOUT #ALLERGIES : IT’S EYEWATERINGLY GOOD!

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Children's Health, Children's stories, Education, Parenting, Screenwriting, Writing for Children

    I’m so glad to have written the stories for this fantastic series helping kids across the UK who have allergies, while making others aware of how they can help.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio

    Starting from 10th Jan with a new show every Wednesday until 7th February , this cracking series about allergies is not to be sniffed at.

    I’ll stop right there with the puns because allergies are only funny until you have one yourself.  Then it can be tiresome, disruptive, frightening, especially when you’re not yet even six.  To be the odd one out, with special food, special gloves, special medicine, when you’re feeling poorly, doesn’t feel very special at all.

    This series of five audio downloads explores different chronic conditions that some children may suffer: asthma, allergies to pet dander, nuts, dairy, pollen… what’s it like to suddenly react badly to something?  What’s it like when it happens to your friend? What’s it like to have to guard what you eat or drink or touch?   What’s it like to not be able to eat your own birthday cake?

    When you put it like that, it’s all a bit grim.

    So I didn’t put it like that.

    After all, these stories are for CBeebies and CBeebies is never grim.  So expect fun stories with nutty detectives, cub scouts, tennis aces, guinea pigs and pigeons, all read beautifully by the wonderfully reassuring Dr Ranj.

    Of course the stories answer all of those questions above: I based them on patient testimony and the expertise of a specialist nurse.  You can hear some of the children talking about their conditions in each episode as well.  My lovely producers were pleased with the result. I hope that you and your little ones will be too.

     

  • MY EPISODE OF LITTLE ROY IS ON I-PLAYER AND IT’S GRAND!

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Animation, Children's stories, Children's TV, Parenting, Screenwriting, Uncategorized

    Oh this was fun to write! Have you seen Roy on CBBC? The cartoon boy in a real world. Well this is the prequel – Roy is five years old instead of ten. So it’s less about fitting in and more about finding out. He is a great character and the show is a lovely crossover from preschool to big kid content and I was very pleased to be involved.

    This episode, Dr Roy, which involves bandages, biscuits and a ‘ba-doom ba-doom’ big hearted little boy, was broadcast a week or so back on CBeebies and of course I missed it. But hooray for catch up telly! If you would like to watch it, then here’s the web address: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08ffx89/little-roy-18-doctor-roy

  • I’M IN THE HUMAN ZOO

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Animation, Screenwriting, Uncategorized

    My first radio interview will be broadcast tomorrow Tuesday 26th July, 1530hrs BBC Radio 4.  What’s the aural equivalent of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’?  Probably ‘poke your finger in your ear to scoop the wax out’.  Although if your ears are fairly clean you won’t miss it all as my bit was going to be about five minutes long.

    It came as a big surprise. That tremendous journalist, comic and role model Timandra Harkness got in touch to talk about how incongruous cinematic moments can throw us out of the film’s story world.  We’ve all groaned at plot holes and continuity errors but what about when a filmmaker does this sort of thing deliberately?  What’s going on and why? And why was the tremendous journalist, comic and role model Timandra Harkness asking me these sorts of questions?

    The Human Zoo looks at current events through the lens of psychology.  This episode is called News of An Atrocity, the Psychology of Rare Events and looks at why we are more attuned to the dangers of exceptional situations, such as acts of terrorism, than to more everyday threats such as a car crash.

    Part of the programme looks at how we use stories to make sense of the world around us. How the patterns, rhythms and themes of a constructed world help us deal with the fears and uncertainties of real life and contribute to our well being.  That was where I fitted in although I will have to listen to the programme myself to remember exactly what I said.  I know there was talk about Doctor Who, and the importance of getting the right breed of cow in your costume drama and I may even have said “Verfremdungseffekt”.  ‘m pretty sure I mentioned Gumball, Ned Stark’s death and David Lynch, although possibly not in that order.

    And we came up with the title of my forthcoming Screenwriting manual: “Bury the Wizard.”

    Thing is, I didn’t know I had a forthcoming screenwriting manual.  Another example of how life is full of plot holes.

  • SOME VERY APPY NEWS

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Books, Children's stories, Education, Screenwriting, Uncategorized

     

    tm_storytime_coverThere is now a Tee and Mo story live on the Cbeebies Storytime app.  And I wrote it!  Those lovely people at Plug-In Media asked me and I was more than happy to say yes.

    If you don’t know Tee and Mo, they are a delightful monkey mother and son combo who get up to all sorts of collaborative fun in the forest.  They collaborate together and also with you, the preschool child/care-giver in their Bafta nominated games (also found on the Cbeebies website).

    Narrated by BBC6 Music’s Lauren Laverne, Tee and Mo is the brainchild of Plug-In’s creative director Dominic Minns.  I love the way he and the other clever people at Plug-in have devised the games to encourage children and their adults to play the games together, to have fun and enjoy each other’s company.

    Who Did the Footprints is my first interactive story.  I want to say very clever things about extending the reading experience and kinesthetic learning but that would sound terribly dull and I’d much rather you and your Cbeebie went together and gave your Cbeebies Storytime app-watching device a good shake (You’ll understand once you’ve downloaded the story)  so I’ll just say that it was enormous fun writing it and I hope that you have enormous fun reading it.

    tm_storytime_interaction

     

     

     

  • SHAMELESS SELF PUBLICITY, TODAY “IT’S A BING THING”

    AUTHOR: // CATEGORY: Animation, Books, Children's Media Campaign, Children's stories, Children's TV, Education, The Children's Media Foundation

    Today, Friday 28th November, and Monday 1st December, I have episodes of “Bing” screening on CBeebies.  Today’s episode is called “Jingly Shoes” and goes out at 9.10am and 1.10pm.  If, like me you were doing something this morning and missed it, it will also be on BBC i-player.

    “Looking After Flop”, goes out at 9.10am on Monday and then repeated at 1.10pm (and then also on BBC i-player.

    I loved writing for these delightful characters; each one is full of raw emotion, wonder and real love, reflecting the lives of the very special people this show is aimed at, three to six year olds and their carers.  I hope you and more importantly, any little ones you know, enjoy watching them.  I’d love to hear what you think.