A Selection of Jo's Books
Jo Simmons
Type of Artist:
AuthorBook talks, readings, and creative writing workshops
I use lots of humour to tell children about my recent books, I Swapped My Brother On The Internet and The Dodo Made Me Do It.
Swapped has been shortlisted for the Lollies 2020, several local book awards, and was included in 2018’s Summer Reading Challenge and Tom Fletcher’s picks for his 2018 WHSmith Book Club.
It throws up lots of questions about family and sibling relationships, while Dodo looks at the idea of home and responsibility.
My latest book, My Parents Cancelled My Birthday, is about a boy struggling to arrange the birthday he feels he deserves, after his parents let him down.
My presentations involve a PowerPoint of images, lots of questions to keep the children thinking and engaged, quizzes with prizes, challenges and reading extracts from my books.
I typically show children my notebooks, too, and an edited draft of my first story, complete with my editor's comments and whole pages she has deleted, to explain the whole process of producing a story, from first ideas to final edits.
Details
Preferred age range:Any primary age children from Year 3 to Year 6.
No of sessions per day:
Maximum of 3 sessions per day
Session Length:
Approx 45 minutes for a talk, questions and signing; about 60 minutes for a workshop
Areas prepared to travel to:
If travel and overnight expenses are met, anywhere. I live in Brighton in East Sussex.
Transport:
Rail and taxi preferred.
Fees:
Please indicate which author you are interested in
DBS/CRB:
No
Titles include:
My Parents Cancelled My Birthday
I Swapped My Brother on the Internet
The Dodo Made me do it
Super Loud Sam
Super Loud Sam and Birdman
Testimonials:
'Jo spoke about her own road to becoming a published writer and read from her book, both of which really captured the interest of the children. Jo answered the children’s questions with great respect, honesty and good humour.
The children were engaged throughout and thoroughly enjoyed meeting her.
She had a lovely manner with the children and communicated with them on a very appropriate level without being at all patronizing. The children were very enthused about the book and learning about becoming an author.' Teacher, Stanford Junior School
'I accompanied Jo on a 1-day tour of schools in Lewes, East Sussex, to promote Pip Street: A Whiskery Mystery. Jo did a fantastic job and I had great feedback from the schools, who had all enjoyed the visit. We visited three different schools, and Jo spoke to quite a wide range of different group sizes and age ranges. One of the schools wanted all the pupils from Yr 1 right up to Yr 6 to see her, which can be quite challenging for an author, but Jo managed to keep them all enthralled!
Anna Morgan, Owner of independent children’s bookshop Bags of Books in Lewes, East Sussex
Published work:
