Top children's author Ian Whybrow was full of praise for Northbourne Cof E Primary School on his recent visit.

The creator of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs and Sniff said to BBC Radio Oxford:

"They are really on the ball. They are tremendously keen on reading and that's what my job is - to build on what they're doing and to try and inspire the children to read and help them think about their writing which is great and the sort of thing I love doing.

"Everyone knows if you're a happy, confident and self-propelling reader you're going to make a success of your life so I think we're doing something really important."

Ian spent a day working with all of the children in the school. Grey, Mauve and Brown class had an inspirational talk on writing and the creation of narrative. Ian explained how he gets ideas for stories such as Harry and the Snow King which came from a childhood memory.

He told the children how he adapted the story to make it more exciting for the reader and showed them the importance of layout and language use in building anticipation and excitement when creating a book.

Purple, Pink and Yellow Class enjoyed a lively storytelling session. They learnt how Ian came up with his ideas for Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs. Ian explained that he had once visited a garden centre and met a young boy who was playing alone with a bucket of dinosaurs among the plants. Worried that the boy was lost Ian returned the boy to his mother who said he was fine and played amongst the plants each weekend while she was there shopping. This meeting led to the creation of Harry along with his dinosaurs and the books were soon a huge hit with children around the world. The session ended with a quiz about Robin Hood. Mr Woods and Miss Holloway proved to be very knowledgeable on the subject as did the children!

At lunch time children, parents and staff met Ian and had their books signed. The books were so popular that we sold out of the ones for older readers and had to give away some posters to be signed instead!

Children from Orange, Green and Red Class re-enacted the story of Harry and the Robots showing some brilliant acting skills which were supported by a crowd of dinosaurs! The children were delighted to become a part of the story and were very convincing as little dinosaurs!

Orange Class gave letters to Ian they had written and received the following reply by email:

"Dear Orange Class

It was a treat to meet you all yesterday.

Thank you for your letters asking me how I am feeling. The answer is: IN THE PINK.

Yes, I like reading books and writing them.

I think you know how I thought of the Harry stories, now. I'm so glad you enjoy them.

It takes me quite a long time to come up with ideas for Harry. The next one is about playing as a team. Its title is: Harry and the Dinosaurs United.

Have you been practising your dinosaur moves? Go on then. Have a go at:

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Pteradactyl
Triceratops
Stegasaurus

Did you remember them? Well done.

Give yourselves a loud RAAAAAH.

Yours cheered-upply,

Ian Whybrow

Everyone at Northbourne School would like to thank Ian Whybrow for his visit, which we all enjoyed thoroughly and which was a great benefit to the children.

While Ian was visiting the school he was interviewed by BBC Radio Oxford. We are grateful to have been given permission to reproduce the clip from the Breakfast Show here for you to listen to: