small, green, wooden cage covered inwarning
notices. In the cage, amongst the foliage,
was a small, snarly creature. Thiswas really
a glove puppet operated bymy invaluable
assistant, whowas also the personwho’d
cut the hole in the table-top and table cloth
tofit her armthrough. (Seewhat I mean by
invaluable?) So goodwas her puppetry, no
child
dared
stick afinger through the tiny,
wooden bars.
I also hired two professionals: a close-up
magician, who has since turned up inDownton
Abbey as a love interest for LadyMary, and
a human bush. Yes, you read that right, he
looked like a piece of topiarymade from
a privet hedge: a privet-hedge person. He
was
superb
, though the victimof a little too
much attention froma group of particularly
boisterous children.
Now, I suspect that the brighter ones
amongst you have spotted a theme here.
Thiswas a tent where nothingwas quite
what it seemed. It wasmy very ownHouse of
Illusions and I peopled it with guest authors
26
TEACH READING & WRITING
I
once curated a tent in a London Square,
where adults were only granted access
if accompanied by a child.
Minewas one
of a handful of tents of varying shapes
and sizes, but
my
tent contained a corner
of an upside-down room. Built especially
forme by students fromStMartin’s College
of Art, it had a laid-table – candle and all –
hanging down fromthe ceiling (which looked
like afloor), and an upside-down picture
(of
me
of course) on thewall. Alongwith a
fewother odds and ends, thismeant that if
youwere photographed sitting on thefloor
(which looked like a ceiling) and then turned
the photo the other way up, it looked as if
youwere somehowsitting on the ceiling.
Confused? Howdo you think I felt?Who’d
have guessed be a children’s author could be
somuch fun?
Elsewhere inmy tent, whichwas erected for
the very first Pop-Up Festival (pop-up.org.uk),
therewere optical illusions on thewalls, and
by the entrance therewas a table, covered in
a red table cloth, in themiddle of whichwas a
SHOES?
Wheredo
yougetyour
What happens when
Philip Ardagh
and
Axel Scheffler
pop up in your
school? Kids get curious – about
Gruffalos, Grunts and size-16 feet...
accordingly, eachweaving his or her ownword
magic. As a genuine two-metre-tall giant with
a genuine bushy beard and genuinely large
feet, I was about the only thing there that was
what it seemed. This
was
a place of wonder,
with thewonder of stories – thewonder of
words – at its very heart…
…and that wonder of words has continued,
in a different form, inmy subsequent
involvement at Pop-Up. One of the things
thatmakes Pop-Up so different fromthe
majority of children’s festivals is that each
class involved gets a set of the author’s
book in advance –
That’sme! I’mthe author!
That’smy book!
– so the classes have a real
opportunity to use it as little or asmuch as
possible long beforewe arrive. When I say ‘we’,
I’mnot referring tome and t’other authors
but tome andmy illustrator because, for the
past couple of years, I’ve sharedmy events
with the illustrator of TheGrunts series.
When I saymy illustrator, I don’t actually have
himall tomyself. His name is Axel Scheffler
and he’s known to have done the occasion
illustration for other authors such as Julia
Donaldson. In fact, he’s theman behind the
woman behind
TheGruffalo
(if they all stand
in a neat line). By having the books in advance,
thismeans that Axel and I have been able to
go into classrooms, school halls or theatres in
the knowledge that just about every child in
the audience has at least some rudimentary
knowledge about the characters or story.
“After the events, some children have then gone away and,
through their own initiative, finished the story, or edited it,
or re-told it theway they think it should have gone”
PHILIP ARDAGH
is a children’s author, best known for his Eddie Dickens series
Illustrations: Axel Scheffler
