For the launch of my fourth book Sunk! I will be doing a free event at Waterstones Piccadilly branch in central London, and YOU'RE ALL INVITED! Please come along (bring the kids) on Sunday 12 March at 12.30pm for some stories, some drawing, some pirate hat-making and some signing. It'll be lovely to see you if you can make it.
Well that was a busy few days. Busy, but FUN.
It started with a trip up to Glasgow for the first leg of the World Book Day Biggest Book Show on Earth, organised by the fabulous and indefatigable Kirsten Grant and hosted by the brilliant Steven Butler. It was a real honour to be part of this amazing line-up.
Left to right: Frank Cottrell Boyce, Clare Elsom, me, Joanna Nadin, Sir Chris Hoy, Lydia Monks and Cressida Cowell.
We were performing at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which was HUGE (hi publicist Sarah!)...
...and it was soon full of two and half thousand very excited and VERY noisy children. My fifteen minute slot consisted of some drawing and some GRRRRR! reading. When it came to the part that needed a very loud GRRRRR from the audience they nearly took the roof off.
I was first up on stage so afterwards was able to relax and watch Lydia, Frank, Chris, Joanna, Clare and Cressida do their thing. It's so nice to see what other authors do at their events - it's rare that I get the chance. They were all brilliant, obviously.
Then it was back to London (through the snow) for evening at home before setting off for a schools day in Oswestry with Tim, Carrie and Peter from award-winning independent bookshop Booka Books (see below right for their fab Sunk! display - the first time I've seen it in a bookshop).
On world book day itself I visited Norland Place school in west London. The kids (and teachers) were resplendent in their book character outfits. I, on the other hand, came as... myself. Poor show, I know. Still, we had a great day and to make up for my lack of costume here are the gang from Blown Away and Sunk! dressed as their favourite characters (click a pic for a closer look). Happy World Book Day everyone!
This week HarperCollins sent me copies of some of the Odd Dog Out international editions - always an exciting moment. Here are a few pics of the Greek, Spanish, French, Chinese, Catalan, Russian and Korean editions...
As you may know I worked at the Observer newspaper in London for nine years before becoming a full-time children's author, so I was thrilled to be asked to illustrate the cover for Food Monthly’s annual OFM-50 issue. It was lovely working with the team again and I'd like to pass on my thanks to Allan Jenkins, Gareth Grundy and Paul Reed for the commission. It was a lot of fun to draw and nice to work in a slightly different style to usual. Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's a White Park cow.
Mammoth Sunk! signing session tonight. Luckily I had my two helpers by my side (still wearing their dance festival make-up). My signature started looking a bit ropey by the end though...
It is exactly one month till Sunk! hits the shelves, so I made a little teaser GIF thing...
Yesterday I went to the awards ceremony for the Bishop’s Stortford Festival of Literature Picture Book Award because Odd Dog Out was one of the nominated books. This is a really nice prize because it is entirely voted for by kids so I was hugely flattered to be included.
The shortlist was incredibly strong.
A Beginner’s Guide to Bear Spotting by Michelle Robinson and David Roberts
A Child of Books by Sam Winston and Oliver Jeffers
A Dog Called Bear by Diane and Christyan Fox
The Koala Who Could by Rachel Bright and Jim Field
Max and Bird by Ed Vere
Odd Dog Out by Rob Biddulph
Oi Dog! by Jim Field and Kes and Claire Gray
This Book is Out of Control! by Richard Byrne
Tidy by Emily Gravett
See? Anyway, guess what. We won!
Exciting, huh? It was SUCH a proud moment for me when the great Korky Paul read my name out as the winner.
I was at the ceremony with my brilliant editor Alice Blacker and my equally brilliant publicist Jo Hardacre, which was a lot of fun. Here we are straight after the result was announced...
I'd really like to thank Alice, Jo and the entire crew at HarperCollins. Making a picture book is a real team effort and, even though it's a cliché I'm still going to say it: this award is just as much theirs as it is mine. I love working with these guys.
It was great to meet some of the other shortlisted authors and illustrators too. Here I am with Richard Byrne, Emily Gravett, Diane Fox, Christyan Fox and Ed Vere.
Such a talented bunch and really nice people too. It was a privilege to be shortlisted alongside them.
So Odd Dog Out is now an award-winning book. That is a nice sentence to be able to type. Now then, just got to get the next one finished...
I am very excited to be part of World Book Day's Biggest Book Show on Earth for the second year in a row. This time I'm off to Glasgow on February 27 to speak to over 2000 kids in the Royal Concert Hall. The author line-up is: Cressida Cowell, Sir Chris Hoy, Lydia Monks, Frank Cottrell Boyce and, er, me. Gulp. Anyway, if it's anything like last year it should be a lot of fun. And quite noisy.
Hi. Today I have TWO (count them) books publishing with HarperCollins.
Firstly the paperback version of Odd Dog Out...
and secondly Christian O'Connell's brilliant Radio Boy, which I have illustrated...
Thats' right, I'm only doing yellow covers from now on. Click the links (or the covers) for more details. Hope you enjoy them.
In the meantime here are some Odd Dog Outtakes (dachshunds that didn't make it into the book for legal reasons!)...
and here are some early cover tries for Radio Boy...
It's Christmas tomorrow and that means that I don't have to draw any more #PackedLunchPostIt notes for Poppy for a week or two. HURRAH! Oh, and it also means that you get to spend quality time with your family, eat turkey and open presents and stuff. Yes. That too.
Anyway, here are all of this year's advent post-its. Merry Christmas!
Earlier this week I headed over to HarperCollins HQ to be interviewed by my brilliant editor Alice Blacker as part of a series of Facebook Live events. I love chatting to Alice so we had a lot of fun. I even taught her how to draw a hula-hooping dachshund.
See it in it's entirety below...
Look! I've done a painting, an actual painting using paint and everything, of a sausage dog dressed as David Bowie! It's called 'Doggy Stardust' (well, of course it is*) and you, YES YOU, can own it.
It's part of the Stars On Canvas 2016 auction which is raising money for Willow Foundation, which is a great charity providing special days to seriously ill young adults. The ten-day auction started yesterday and runs until 27 November. Click here to bid now. GOOD LUCK!
*I also considered "David Bow-wow-ie"
The brand new range of Odd Dog Out cards, gift wrap, notebooks, bags (and lots more cool stuff) is out now. I've made these in conjunction with my friends at Roger la Borde and they are available at all good boutique card shops, museums, posh shops like Liberty & nice garden centres. So, y'know, places like that. Keep an eye out for them. If you prefer to buy from the comfort of home, you can browse all the products on my site (click here) and order online.
Want to win a signed and personally dedicated copy of Odd Dog Out (I'll even draw a sausage dog in the outfit of your choice!)? Enter my twitter competition by Friday 11 November to be in with a chance...
My old website broke a month or two ago so I've built a new one. It features all of my book stuff (including some previously unseen bits and pieces), my cards and gift wrap, #PackedLunchPostIt, my limited edition print shop (included a special website-launch 20% discount), lots of free downloads for the kids, event info, FAQs, press cuttings and all of my latest news. And probably more stuff that I've forgotten to mention too. Have a browse at www.robbiddulph.com. Hope you like it
I had a great time this afternoon at the award ceremony for The Book People's Bedtime Story Competition this afternoon. It's a nationwide competition for 5-11 year-olds which aims to find the best young writer in the country. I was honoured to be asked to read 8 year-old Mae Osbourn's prize-winning story Harley Asks a Favour. It's astonishingly good. It's about a little dog who wants some help getting his frisbee down from a tree. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of young Mae in the future.
The ceremony was hosted by Kate Silverton and head judge Fearne Cotton was also there to present the prizes. I also got to meet fellow authors/illustrators Cressida Cowell, David Roberts, Neal Layton and Mark Walden. So, all in all, an inspiring and fun afternoon. Thanks very much to everyone at The Book People for putting on such a great event and to Jo Hardacre at HarperCollins for accompanying me.
Hurrah! The Grizzly Bear Who Lost His GRRRRR! is published in the US today by HarperCollins 🇺🇸🐻🏅🏅🏅❤️
Some special spookiness from my sketchbook to you...
Uncle Fred
Watercolour owl
The deep dark wood. With a cat in it.
Here are some pre-Halloween pumpkins I've just painted in my sketchbook.
It's half term! So here are a few bits and bobs to keep the kids busy for, oh, about three seconds. First up, can you spot the sausage among the sausage dogs? 🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭
Next, can you (or your little ones) navigate the maze and help Odd Dog find herself?
This one is a bit trickier. Can you spot the 6 differences between these two cow dogs?
I've saved the hardest until the end. Can you spot the 12 seasonal words hidden somewhere within this illustration?
There you go. Hope you had fun :)