Kellogg's Funny Faces at Hughes & Hughes

The Kellogg’s Storytime promotion, in association with Hughes & Hughes and the O’Brien Press, was launched last Monday the 1st at Hughes & Hughes in Dun Laoghaire. But I’m only getting the photos now, hence the belated post.
Myself, Maddie Stewart, Enda Wyley and Judy May were there to press palms and smile into cameras as well as to meet the sixty-or-so ‘boisterious’ fifth class kids who turned up for the event. Unfortunately Conor Kostick and Brianog Brady Dawson couldn’t make it, but we felt their spirits among us.
Ryan Tubridy was doing the presenting, but the rest of us actually ended up chatting to the kids while we waited. To those of you reading this from outside of Ireland, Ryan is one of our best known television and radio presenters, who has recently taken over The Late Late Show. He has long been a big fan of children’s books in general and is a Roald Dahl fanatic in particular – a man after my own heart. He assured me that those rumours that he is in fact Snap, from the Rice Krispies gang were untrue. It’s just a passing resemblance.
He was nabbed for press photos before we could start, so we had to play for time, tending to the hyper kids while we waited.
The staff of Hughes & Hughes read some books to them to warm them up, then I did some of my waffle, and then Ryan appeared to officially introduce everyone. He spoke for a few minutes, after which I did a short session, talking my usual gibberish (at the top of my voice, ‘cos the grown-ups were yapping at the back – typical adults), reading one of the Mad Grandad books and then doing a drawing of Mad Grandad while I took questions.
Just to recap, the books being given away in the promotion, along with ‘Mad Grandad and the Mutant River’  are as follows:

• Boo and Bear by Enda Wyley
• Bertie Rooster by Maddie Stewart
• Granny’s Teeth by Brianóg Brady Dawson
• Hazel Wood Girl by Judy May
• Epic by Conor Kostick

You can get the tokens on packs of Rice Krispies, and order your books by post or get them by walking into your local Hughes & Hughes.

Here’s me with the other three authors there that day, and Ryan (the two women haven’t squashed him, that’s the width he is all the time). From the left, Maddie, Judy May, Ryan, Enda and me.
The H&H in Dun Laoghaire is a fine shop with a great kids’ section, and there was plenty of life in the place (helped along by the chatter from the in-store cafe) with lots of mingling and snapshots being taken of the giant cardboard cut-outs of Snap, Crackle and Pop (and a few other funny faces that were wandering around) and the giant box of Rice Krispies. Then most people filtered out among the bookshelves, reading their way towards the front door. The kids were given goodie bags, and were dragged kicking and screaming back to school.
I stuck around and had lunch in the cafe, jotting down some thoughts in my notebook, and then headed out. Thanks to everyone in Kellogg’s, the O’Brien Press and Hughes & Hughes for setting this up – particularly the Dun Laoghaire H&H staff for all their help. It’s one more way to get books (especially my books) into the hands of kids. And that can only be a good thing.