Children's Author Visit - Alex Milway

On Tuesday 19^th January, the Junior School were treated to a visit by the children's author, Alex Milway. He has written a series of books: ‘The Mousehunter’, 'The Curse of Mousebeard' and 'Mousebeard's Revenge' . Below is the blurb on the back of his first book.

Strange things are afoot in the mousehunting port of Old Town…

One dark night, a pirate is washed ashore with a box tied around his lifeless neck. It bears a warning to Isiah Lovelock, the town’s most prominent mouse collector, from Mousebeard, the most feared pirate on the Seventeen Seas. Soon Emiline, mousekeeper to Lovelock’s prized collection is pitched aboard Captain Drewshank’s ship to hunt Mousebeard.

Emiline must find answers in a world of spies, ship battles and sea monsters; a world where the Nosferatu Mouse flits at night, the Howling Moon Mouse haunts exotic islands and the Cadaver Mouse sniffs out dying sailors…

Alex Milway treated the children to a wonderful hour, during which he showed pictures of the animals which inspired him to write; lemurs, rats and his beloved cat. He showed us how a character's name helps create an impression of the type of character he or she is, such as the name Cruella de Ville having within it the words, 'cruel', 'evil', 'vile' and 'devil'.

Alex then moved on to how the way a character is drawn helps create a sense of the type of character they are. He drew some wonderful characters on a board, as not only is he the author of these books, but the illustrator too.

Following this, he read a short extract from one of his books and then invited the children to draw and colour their own mouse characters, while he went round helping with ideas and style.

All the children had a wonderful time and learnt a great deal about where how an authors gains inspiration for their characters and how to create interesting names and images for characters of their own.