National Literacy Trust #FitforLit Alternative Sports Day Challenge

 

With COVID-19 set to have a disastrous impact on the literacy of the 4.6 million children living in poverty in the UK, the National Literacy Trust is raising money to fund projects to support these children.

The #FITFORLIT Alternative Sports Day challenge invites you to film or photograph yourself doing something active with a book – maybe set up a book obstacle course, or see how many books you can weight-lift!

I decided to attempt to read out loud the first chapter of A Robot Ate My Grandma while out running! Watch the video below to find out how I got on.

 

Why not have a go yourself? Challenge three friends to join in too! Visit the Literacy Trust #FitforLit website for more info and ideas for how to get involved.

If you are able to donate a few pounds it would be much appreciated and a huge help to this important project. Please visit https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/fitforlit or text FITFORLIT to 70085 to donate £3 (texts cost £3 plus one standard rate message). Thank you!

Thanks for reading and watching the video of my pain! Have fun with your own #FitforLit challenge.

Take care and all the best, Dave.

A Robot Ate My Grandma – 3rd story in the Robot Babysitter series OUT NOW!

Hi folks, 

I hope you're all doing OK and staying safe. 

There's not been much to celebrate these past few months, so I'm really pleased to have a small piece of good news to announce. 

The third book in the Robot Babysitter series I've been doing for Stripes/Little Tiger Press comes out today! 

A ROBOT ATE MY GRANDMA finds the gang in another mess of trouble – this time with a mystery to solve. When Grandma goes missing and appears to have been replaced by a mechanical version of herself (AKA RoboGran), the twins' robot babysitter Robin activates his built-in detective mode and gets on the case (with Digby the dog as Dr Watson!). Unfortunately, Robin starts malfunctioning, and then a pair of strange and unexpected visitors arrive. Will they provide what the gang needs to solve the mystery or make things even worse? Only time will tell …

I had a lot of fun writing this one and, as always, Catalina has produced some fantastic illustrations to bring the characters and the action alive on the page. 

If you'd like a sneak preview, there's a video of me reading chapter one at the top of the page – I hope you enjoy it.

Take care and all the best
Dave

PS. If you'd like a sample of the second story in the series, you can watch Is My Teacher a Robot? here.

The first two stories in the series are also available as audiobooks, read by the excellent Peter Kenny.