Have just returned from a visit to Kettering Buccleuch Academy. This is a part of the country I hardly know at all - though I did visit Oakham years ago - and it's very, very pretty. I went by train via Birmingham, and once we'd passed Leicester, it all got very charming: rolling fields and woods, villages nestling round church spires - and fields of luminous rape. I'm never quite sure what I think about rape fields. They look strangely unnatural, yet there's something appealing about the vivid splash they make. You have to blink to check whether the sun's come out or not.

I was invited to the school by Lesley Palmer Jones, who is on a mission to get her students (years 7, 8 and 9) reading. Earlier in the year she asked them what they thought would help, and apparently the overwhelming view was that they'd like to meet authors. (Thank you, students of KBA!) They've already had Melvin Burgess, Sarah Singleton and now me, and they've got Gillian Cross coming up. It was a great day, with lovely students. It's been a while since I talked about The Willow Man (Lesley asked me to talk about that, as she's read it with quite a few of the students) so I re-read it on the train journey, and found myself picking up little things I'd like to change; I wonder if that ever stops. Probably not!

It was a while before my train back, so we stopped off in Oundle for a mooch round on the way to Peterborough station. It's a lovely little town, dominated by the public school buildings, which like the rest of the town are built out of creamy limestone shot through with grey. Lesley pointed out an ancient inn, the Talbot Hotel. It was rebuilt using material from nearby Fotheringhay Castle, which was where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and executed; including the oak staircase down which Mary walked to her death - and still does, apparently... Mwahahaha! (Not sure if I've spelt that right, it's meant to be a bloodcurdling howl.)

We settled for a seriously good cup of coffee in Beans, a truly splendid coffee shop.

Yesterday I visited Heathfield School, near Taunton. It was a really enjoyable day; I came away buzzing. It's a lovely school, with a relaxed, happy feel to it; when I parked the car, I couldn't see where Reception was, and asked a passing student. She was delightful, just so courteous, and this set the scene for the whole day.

The librarian, Di Osborne, is terrific; very enthusiastic, and with all sorts of ideas for encouraging reading. I was particularly taken by 'Eric'; I think it stands for 'Encouraging reading In Class' - at any rate what happens is that all students spend a little time on private reading at the beginning of the day. The library felt as if it was at the heart of the school, with people dropping in all through the day, and lots of interesting displays - including a beautiful one for my book, Warrior King, with a lovely big painting of a wintry Level landscape and a series of questions to point your way into the book.

And one of the unexpected pleasures of this visit was that it pointed me back into my own book. People asked interesting questions. Quite a few asked about a sequel. I've always thought I'd like to do one, either about Alfred again or about Fleda when she became the Lady of the Mercians; but when I was looking through the book on the night before the visit, I suddenly had the thought that I'd like to continue with the story of Cerys, the magical British woman - not a historical figure, but perhaps my own favourite.

Several people were interested in the way that Alfred's approach to governance relates to the present day; he cared about the ordinary people very much, and also about uniting the different peoples of Britain. And he cared greatly about reconstruction after a time of war; as I spoke, I realised, in a way that I'd forgotten, how pertinent all these matters are: we have politicians who could learn a great deal from Alfred!

The staff were really welcoming and enthusiastic, and it was just lovely to be in a school where reading is clearly so important, and so valued.

When I was writing Warrior King, which is about Alfred the Great and his daughter, there were a number of times when odd things happened. I probably mentioned some of them on the page about Warrior King, but never mind, never mind. There is a point to this.

The first was when I went to Athelney to see if I could find any books about Alfred. I didn't, but I did find myself leaning on a gate, looking at the mound which used to be an island, next to an old man who said, "You'll be looking for Alfred, then?" The second was several months later, when I'd gone on a trip with my daughter's school. I heard one of the teachers asking a pupil to tell her father that was to be an open day at Athelney the following Saturday, and anyone could go round the dig which the BBC's Time Team had filmed. I went, and was rapt when an archeologist explained that they had found a dagger, made in a very high grade steel that only a King could have afforded - and it dated from Alfred's time. They had also found burnt stones - where he may have burnt the cakes, but more likely had had weapons made, for the fight against Guthrum.

Then there was another, when for various reasons I had almost decided not to go ahead with the book. We were staying at a bed and breakfast place near Wantage, which was where Alfred was born. I mentioned my interest in Alfred, and the lady of the house brightened. Her sister was an editor, she said, and had just given her a copy of a book by David Starkey which she had edited, to go with a TV series. it was called Monarchy, and there was a chapter in it about Alfred, with new things that sparked off new ideas. "You must go on with it," she said, her eyes glittering strangely as she passed me a cup of tea. "You must!" So I did.

And now, just as I'm about to go into two schools to talk about Warrior King, more echoes from the past, more synchronicity. Or possibly serendipity - I'm a little hazy on the definitions here. The first was that one of the schools plans to get the children making something to do with the Anglo-Saxons. The teacher had thought of the Sutton Hoo helmet, but this was actually made a couple of hundred years before Alfred. So I suggested something to do with the Alfred Jewel. This is a very beautiful jewel, made of gold and crystal and enamel, which was found near Athelney. Around it are chased the words: "Aelfred het mic gewyrcan": Alfred ordered me to be made. I have just had an email from the other school, asking if I'd noticed that David Dimbleby had chosen the jewel as one of the objects to be featured in his programme, The Seven Ages Of Britain. (I've just watched the programme on i-player, and it's great!)

And the other thing was an item on the news a couple of weeks ago. Both teachers at both schools had heard it, and so had I. it was about Alfred's grand-daughter, Edith, who was the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto - who in turn was descended in some way or other from Judith, a character in WK of whom I grew very fond. They have found Edith's body, and are to examine it. Not sure how much I like the idea of that bit - I suppose it depends what is learnt from it - but again, this sense of voices calling through time. Magnificently spooky!

Had a really lovely morning today. I was just about to set off for the Willows and Wetlands Centre to deliver more copies of The Willow Man and Warrior King, when I had a call from the librarian at Monkton Heathfield School, near Taunton, to say that she had just read Warrior King and loved it, and so would like me to go in and talk to year eight classes about it. She mentioned that a lot of the children come from Burrow Bridge, which is close to Athelney where the book is set, so that they would know the area. I wonder if they will know about the connection with Alfred? I expect so - though it's not advertised much, apart from the King Alfred pub near Burrow Mump. (Burrow Mump is a small but very visible hill, rather like Glastonbury Tor.)

The Willows And Wetlands Centre is near Athelney. They have been growing willow there and weaving baskets, furniture, and all kinds of things for many years. As you drive in, there is a giant teacup and saucer on one side, and a figure of a girl dancing on the other, both made out of willow. Serena De La Hey, who made the real Willow Man beside the M5, is based close by. They stock my books because they fit in with the generally willowy nature of things round there, and they have been selling nicely since spring, which is lovely!

Anyway - there was a great deal of rain over the last few days, though it has been sunny today. Anyone who has read Warrior King, or remembers the story about Alfred burning the cakes, will know that 1100 years ago, the area was marshland and often flooded - and it's not so very different now. So today, many of the fields were covered with stretches of glittering water. Sometimes it looked deep blue; in other places it was milky brown and quite turbulent, licking greedily at the road. The roads are raised above the level of the fields, but even so, when I drove past Athelney towards the causeway which is only the most recent version of one which was there in Alfred's time, the water had covered the road and I could not pass. I stayed a while and watched the clouds of swans and other waterbirds, and then turned round to find another way.

It's a magical landscape, unpeopled and vast - or at least it feels so. There's a great deal of sky and a great deal of space. You really wouldn't be too surprised if time slipped a little, and you found yourself back in the 9th century, wondering who that was who'd just arrived on the Isle of Athelney...

We travelled north from Warsaw by train. There are fast trains in Poland, but on this route we were on one of the slower, older, cross country trains. (Which do have the advantage of being a lot cheaper than British trains!)

It was a very hot day, and you couldn't open the windows very far. There wasn't much leg room, so it wasn't the most comfortable of journeys. But I kept thinking of the journey Dad would have had from northern France. It took several days, and they were in trucks; they didn't have the luxury of seats of any kind, let alone comfortable ones. At that time he would have been 21, younger than my son now. We know now that the war was to last for another five years, and that the Allies would win. But they knew no such thing. They only knew that the last they'd seen of the British Expeditionary Force, it was in tatters, desperately trying to make it to the coast in the hope of escape. The Germans were advancing inexorably, with far superior fire power

Dad was from the industrial Midlands. He'd never been abroad before (what a way to start!) - he'd hardly travelled in England. He and his mates couldn't have known where they were going or what awaited them. What must that have felt like? Were they absolutely terrified, or were they buoyed up by their companionship, and by a sense that there was nothing they could do, so they just had to go along with what was happening - to survive and adapt?

We were going to Torun, which was where the first camp was in which he was held. The station didn't look as if it had changed very much since the war; when Dad got off the train at last, he probably saw much the same view as we did. We knew that the camp had been south of the River Vistula, whereas the town, where we were staying, was on the northern bank. Torun, which is the birthplace of Copernicus, has a lovely medieval centre. Its mellow brick buildings are reflected in the calm waters of the broad river. People sit out in cafes on warm summer evenings, eating piroghi (pasta parcels) and drinking beer. It struck me forcibly that Dad might not have seen the actual town at all - it's difficult to know. They were sent out on work placements; he'd done road building while he was at Torun (or Thorn, as it was known then), so he may have gone through the town, or he may not.

At the tourist bureau, they said that there wasn't much left to see of the camp. No attention had been paid to such things in the Communist era; recently, though, more people had come searching - people like me, trying to find traces of their parents' lives. The camp had been based on a series of 19th century Prussian forts which ringed the old town, but it was known which nationalities were kept where. Many of the British prisoners were kept in a hutted camp south of the river, and that was probably where Dad was.

We decided to get a taxi to take us there. By an astonishingly fortunate chance, it turned out that our driver's father had also been imprisoned in the camp, and that our driver himself had played as a boy in some of the derelict buildings. So he was able to show us the whereabouts of some of the remnants. Some of the forts were now in use by the army, others were crumbling and overgrown. Of the hutted camp itself, little remained save a few concrete fence posts and lumps of concrete debris. The site, like all of northern Poland seemed to be, was flat and exposed. It must have been bitterly cold in the winter, when the wind whistled down from the Baltic.

Later, we went south to Lublin, to stay with my son's partner's parents. while we were there, Joanna's father suggested we should visit Majdanek, which was a concentration camp on the edge of the city. I felt doubtful. I thought, I suppose, that it would be too upsetting. In fact, my reaction was not quite what I'd expected.

The huts are just as you've seen a hundred films and documentaries: long, single storey, creosoted. Cold in winter, hot in summer. No windows. The gas chamber and the crematorium are much as they were when this place was in use. The chamber isn't all that big: this was primarily a work camp, not a death camp - though death was the planned end for all these prisoners, whether from gas, disease, exhaustion or execution. In one of the huts there are great cages filled with human hair, shoes, suitcases. The hair was used to make insoles for soldiers' boots on the Eastern Front.

It's the cold-blooded industrialisation of death which is so appalling. Nothing was to be wasted, everything was to be documented, probably in triplicate.

How could anyone have worked there, in any capacity whatsoever, and been able to live with themselves afterwards? I stared at the great pile of ash in the mausoleum, and felt not sad, as I'd expected, but angry. Very, very angry.

I've kept a diary all my life, but it must be one of the most intermittent ones ever written - I can go years without writing anything. And sadly, it looks as if I'm just as erratic with blogs - am shocked to see I've written nothing since July. Oh well; it's a dreary wet November morning - another one - so I'll mend my ways and do some catching up.

I'm at various stages with a number of writing projects, but the one which I'm furthest from writing has actually been near the front of my mind for probably the longest time.

My father was a prisoner of war for almost the whole of the the Second World War. He was one of the 30 000 or so who were not rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940, but were stranded in the aftermath of a chaotic retreat. He spent the rest of the war as a 'guest' of the German Reich, in various prison camps in what is now once again Poland, but was then an unwilling part of Germany.

Like many veterans, he didn't talk much about his experiences. Often, as he watched Remembrance Day services, he would shake his head and ask what was the point of remembering it all. But he did say more as he grew older; funny stories mostly, like the Christmas the prisoners brewed some hooch from potatoes, and got the guards drunk - or a story he was particularly fond of, about a German guard who in his former life had been a violinist in an orchestra. "He was a hopeless soldier, that one. He used to pretend he was playing his violin, and if an officer came, we used to give him his rifle and spruce him up ready."

You could only occasionally get a glimpse of the darker side. Mum always loved chocolate and cake, but Dad never snacked. If anyone said they were hungry, just from time to time there'd be a thoughtful look in his dark eyes, and he'd say: " You don't know what it's like to be really hungry. You don't know what you're capable of..."

Anyway - I had a go at putting some of his experiences in a book a while ago. It was called The Hornby Engine, and it was about other things as well - his childhood, his family, and trains. People liked it, but it was said to be too 'quiet' to be published. But in the last few years, several excellent non-fiction books have been published about the experiences of prisoners of war, which seemed before that to have been largely ignored by the history books. And I decided I wanted to write a book about a POW; and because I write fiction, it would be a novel.

As it happens, in the last few years Poland has come into my life in a different way. My son has a Polish partner, and I now have a half Polish grandchild. I've even tried to learn Polish. (I have learnt a bit, but oh dear, it's hard!) I've read a lot about Poland, and particularly its history during the war, and been shocked at how little I knew about it, and how terribly the Polish people suffered. I went to the National Archives in Kew, and was handed a document in my father's own hand, written when he'd been liberated. He would have been 26 then, and he'd been a prisoner since he was 21. I found out from that exactly where he'd been imprisoned.

And this summer, I went with my son and his partner to northern Poland, to see if I could find any trace of the camps where he'd been held.

To be continued...

Went to the library on Tuesday. Now, this is a bad confession to make in the National Year Of Reading - especially as I'm on the Somerset steering group for the NYR and am therefore heavily committed to encouraging people to use libraries - but I haven't used a library for ages. When I was a child, we didn't have many books (and lived in a shoebox, all  went to work down the mines when we were three years old, etc etc - all the kinds of things that happened in Ilkeston all those years ago), and I used school libraries and the town library to the hilt. I even got a part time job at the town library, which meant I could take out an unlimited number of books, and not have to worry about fines. It was the most impressive building in the market place, the Carnegie Free Library; it easily outshone the Town Hall and the two pubs. Though the Scala Cinema, just off the square, would have run it a close second; it's often used in TV series nowadays, because it's so well preserved.

Anyway, yes. I used to use the library a lot. But these days, with books being relatively cheap, and looking so tempting all spread out at the front of bookshops, I have tended to buy rather than borrow. The result is that we end up with piles and mountains of books, most of which I know I will never want to read again. So using the library makes sense, then I can read as many books as I want as quickly as I want, and not feel guilty (except in that I'm not supporting fellow authors. Sorry, everyone.)

One of the books I took out on Tuesday was The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy. Now, despite reading so much, it's not often that I read a book and feel really excited by it - that sense that this is it, this is what I wish I could do, this matters. Keeper, by Mal Peet, was one. The Changeover is another. It's a reissue, originally published in 1984. I've read and admired other books by the author - The Tricksters was one, and my two sons loved it too. This is earlier, and the two books have much in common; teenagers at the turning point between childhood and growing up; dangerous, somehow completely believable and potentially sinister magic; the New Zealand countryside as a vivid and dramatic backdrop. Well, more than a backdrop; it's part of the fabric. Oops, mixed metaphor, but I hope you know what I mean. I'm not going to tell you any more about it; just read it - whether you're an adult or a teenager, it doen't matter. It's a beautiful and powerful piece of writing.

And use your local library! Libraries are a wonderful resource, and they're under threat - at least the book part of them is. Library budgets are being cut all over the country. At a time when library staff are more successful than ever before at reaching out to people - old people, young people, children, book roups, disadvantaged groups - to encourage them to read - the budget for buying books to feed the need is being eroded. They need your support, and you need their books.

Frome Festival took place recently, and one of the events had writers in residence working in shops and cafes in Frome for four hours, writing anything they wanted to on the theme of Fellowship and Community. I was lucky enough to be asked to judge this. There was a great variety of work, including poetry, non-fiction, short stories and even a song lyric, and I really enjoyed reading it all. The winner, a story set at the Glastonbury Festival, was easy to pick, but it was difficult to choose among the rest - they were all so good.

This week there was an event at the Garden Cafe to hand out the prizes and listen to the writing. It was fascinating to hear the extra dimension which performance added to the pieces; the song writer not only sang his song, he got us all joining in the chorus, and the poems really came to life. Tremendous - congratulations to all the participants, and to Sally Gander who organised the event.

It was great to be a part of it, and a huge treat to be given some flowers - great golden sunflowers, red daisies and white chrysants, all beautifully arranged. Lovely.

Warrior King came out in April, and there was a launch for it at the beginning of May at Waterstones in Wells. Lots of people came and it was great; many thanks to Amalie at Watertones, and Tim from Walker Books (who supplied the wine). We had cakes (not burnt ones!) in honour of Alfred, even though they didn't really and truly go with the wine. I read the bit from the book where Alfred and Fleda arrive in Somerset, because that seemed appropriate.

The week after, I went to Norton Hill School, near Midsommer Norton, to talk about The Willow Man. Particularly enjoyed a session with a Year 8 group, who'd read the book in class, and had apparently really enjoyed it. We talked about the structure of a story, and how at the centre of it there must be a hero/heroine who has a problem they must overcome. (This is advice I've just realised I ned to follow more closely in my own writing - but that's another story!).

Then there has been a small series of talks to school children in libraries about Warrior King - this was in connection with the National Year of Reading - I'm on the steering committee for the NYR in Somerset. Incidentally, there's to be an NYR event in October at Dillington House, organised by Sarah Cooke, who is a literacy adviser for primary schools. It sounds as if it's going to be great, with all sorts of activities themed round the Somerset Big Read book for this year, The Wind In The Willows.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Dunster School, to work witha group of children drawn from four of the Exmoor Coast Federation schools. Dunster is a really lovely school, with little surprises round every corner - a wooden train where the children can sit and eat their lunch, a walled garden, a sort of tunnel which lead through to another playground - brilliant. We had most of the day to work together, which was lovely, becuase it gave me time to get to know the children. We started off with games, and then I talked about The Willow Man - the children had all been given a copy of the book and read some or all of it, so they had lots of interesting comments and questions. Then we went on to talk about other mysterious monsters, and the children made up their own and began to write about them. There was a real buzz - a great day, brilliantly organised by Peter Hoyland.

In February, I went to Broadlands School, in Keynsham near Bristol. Jo Blair, the head of English there, ASKED me in to talk to year sevens about The Willow Man. I explained to them where the ideas behind the book came from, and read some bits, and then they asked questions. Jo had used a really excellent resource to introduce the book to those who hadn't read it, as a way of getting them to think about the kinds of questions they might ask, and she's given me permission to publish it on the site - click here  to see it.

It was a really enjoyable morning, and we agreed that I would go back to do some creative writing workshops, and also to talk to students about my new book, Warrior King.

At the beginning of March I went to Haygrove School in Bridgwater, again to talk about The Willow Man, at the invitation of Jill Thompson, the librarian. Bridgwater is the home of the real Willow Man, and Jill had organised a number of events that week to do with willow and the local area, including a visit to The Wetlands Centre.

I worked in the morning with a group doing creative writing as part of The Creative Arts Award, focusing particularly on place. I talked about the importance of setting in both The Willow Man and Warrior King, reading relevant extracts, and used the book covers - both very atmospheric - as starting points for the students to write guided poems, either based on the the covers or on a place which was important to them. They produced some lovely work.

In the afternoon, I talked to a bigger group of year sevens, about the inspiration behind both the books. By a lucky chance, I'd just received an advance copy of Warrior King, so I was able to try it out for the first time on a live audience. There's always a big gap between writing a book and meeting up with it again in published form, and it was with a real sense of excitement that I encountered my characters again through reading it aloud. The audience seemed to enjoy it too!

Yesterday was the turn of Ashley Down Junior School in Bristol. Don Collins, the Literacy Co-ordinator, has organised a writing week, with story tellers, authors and a sports journalist, Alex Kee. They have just opened a new library.

It's a big school, in a beautiful old building, with arched windows, beamed ceilings, and decorative brickwork. The classrooms are big and roomy, and so they have a great setting for the library - but what they've done with it is amazing. It's a colourful, tremendously inviting space, with comfortable seating, big squashy jewel coloured cushions - and the most terrific big collages, based on drawings and thoughts about books contributed by the children. These were done with the help of an artist who collaborates with the school on a regular basis, and they were absolutely stunning. Oh - and of course, there are lots of books!

I was working with years three and four, and had been asked to talk about the process of writing a book, from idea to publication. I based this mostly on Spook School, as I have all my notes, plans and drafts to illustrate the process. We spent some time on good names for ghostly teachers, and class 3J in particular were very good on making extremely scary ghostly noises and spooky faces.

One interesting postscript. I noticed that the school's architecture was very similar to that on the cover of Spook School. I showed the children an early sketch which the artist had done of the cover; it featured a chandelier, and I told them that I'd suggested that this wasn't right, because everyone knows schools don't have chandeliers. Whereupon Mr Lewis, the teacher, pointed out a square piece of metal in the middle of the ceiling, and said that, actually, this one did - it used to have gas chandeliers! So apologies to Lynne Chapman , the illustrator - not for the first or the last time, I got it wrong!

I knew it had been a long time since I added a newsletter (I think it makes more sense to stop pretending this is a proper blog, and call it newsletters instead) - but almost four months? I'm covered in shame.

So first, school visits. To pick out a few from last year: last February, I went to Berrow School, a primary school in Somerset. I was lucky enough to be asked to open their new library, as well as to do workshops with three groups of children. I talked to them about the Willow Man, and about other magical monsters - like Ted Hughes' Iron Man, and the Green Knight from the middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The children came up with their own ideas for a magical monster - then they went on to design book covers for the stories they'd thought up. It was an excellent day, with enthusiastic teachers and children who were full of brilliant ideas.

I'd intended to talk to them about the library in Ilkeston in Derbyshire, where I come from. It's a very imposing building in the market place, called the Carnegie Free Library. Andrew Carnegie was a wealthy American, who gave lots of money away, particularly for things like libraries. Ilkeston wasn't a wealthy place, and not many people actually went out and bought books. So the library was really important. I went every week and got out as many books as I could, and then when I was old enough I got a Saturday job there, which meant I could take out even more, and not be fined when they were late. Libraries now are used for all sorts of things apart from lending books - you can get information there, you can use computers, you can borrow DVDs and so on. That's great, but still, at the centre of it all, there must be books. Books can be and do so much. They are gateways to other worlds.

Off the soapbox! Other visits... in May, I spent three days at Grassroyal Junior School, in Yeovil, working with years 3-6. We did the magical monsters again, and again, I was amazed by the inventiveness and imagination of the children - they came up with ideas for monsters made of chocolate, diamonds, gold - all sorts: and thought up terrific words to describe them. Some of the children showed me stories they'd written, and I talked to them all about how I started writing - I showed them a book I wrote stories in when I was about their age. They thought the pictures were hilarious!

Grassroyal is in the middle of a town, but they've recently refurbished their playground, so now they have raised beds and shelters where they can eat their lunch out of the sun. I thought it was great.

Last one: in September I went to Kings of Wessex, in Cheddar, to talk to sixth form English Language students about writing children's books - they have a module on that. Also did a session with a group of ninth years, about creating character. Many thanks to Bridget, the school librarian, for setting that up and looking after me.

One book to recommend hugely - Mal Peet's Keeper. It's a ghost story about football in South America. I'm the least sporty person you could possibly meet, and I don't have a clue about football, but I loved this. One of the best books I've read in a long time - absolutely gripping, and just a beautiful whole - every bit of it worked.

Woke up early this morning and finished 'The Secret Countess' by Eva Ibbotson. I had to finish it (over breakfast - I almost read it walking down the stairs) because I was completely gripped by the story; but now I feel quite cross with myself, because I was enjoying reading it so much and now I'm outside its world. I remember feeling like that the first time I finished reading 'Lord of the Rings', when I was about 13 or 14; just desolate because I was back in this boring world of school, bus journeys and homework - and because there were quite definitely no hobbits in Ilkeston.

Anyway, 'The Secret Countess'. This is a warm and wonderful book, with the most fantastic array of characters. The countess of the title is Anna, a refugee from the Russian revolution. Her family has lost all its money, and to help make ends meet she takes a job as a maid at Mersham House. the obvious thing here would be to make her put-upon and silently suffering - but Eva Ibbotson doesn't do that. Anna actually enjoys being a maid, and she's one of those charactes, like Lyra in 'Northern Lights', who just makes everyone love her. But she's not sickeningly perfect either; she's funny and perceptive and kind.

Her counterpart - and rival for the love of Rupert, the owner of Mersham - is Muriel, beautiful but dreadful, who is obssessed with the science of eugenics, with its creed of genetic purity. She's trapped Rupert into becoming engaged to her, and he's far too honourable to jilt her: despite all, canTrue Love possibly triumph? Well, of course it can...

It's got something of the flavour of Dodie Smith's 'I Capture The Castle'; it's fresh, and vivid, and fun, and lusciously well written. Very highly recommended for girls from ten to a hundred.

It will be immediately obvious to the millions of you who have been following my blog that so far, there's not been very much to follow. I think it will be an evolving blog; for the time being at least, it will also be an irregular one. I have been thinking a bit about what it will be about, and I've decided that it will centre on books and writing, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's looked anywhere else on my website.

My Very Good Intention is to write a little bit about all of the children's books I read. I recently met Adele Geras at a writers' retreat/conference type thing (organised by the SAS - not the Special Armed Services, but the Scattered Authors' Society. We do sometimes have wild fantasies of ourselves crawling through grass wearing balaclavas, but so far as I know only two or three of us have ever actually done this). Anyway, Adele mentioned that she keeps a note of every book she reads, and I think she said her husband has been doing this ever since he was about 11. I was extremely impressed by this, and really wish I'd done the same. So I'm going to make a start here. I think I'll stick to children's books, in the hope that that might be useful for children, teachers and librarians who visit this site - but I might get to like the sound of my own voice so much that I write about other books too. We'll see.

So, what have I been reading recently? Well, I reviewed two books for Armadillo, which for those of you who don't know is an online magazine about children's books, run by Mary Hoffman and her daughter, Rhiannon Lassiter. The first was Hazel, by Julie Hearn. It follows Ivy, and has some of the same characters - Ivy is the mother of Hazel, who, as you might guess, is the subject of this book. It's for teenagers - really mainly for teenage girls, I would think - and is a very engaging story which sweeps from Edwardian London and the suffragettes to the exploitation of workers on a sugar plantation in the West Indies. The exotic location of the second part and the chance it provides to explore important issues is good, though I did have the feeling that this really could have been two books rather than one.

The other book was The Deep, by Helen Dunmore, which is the third in her series about the Mer People and about Saffy and her brother, who are half Mer, half human. This is a wonderful book, again for teenagers. It's beautifully written and the world it creates is absolutely convincing. But it's the portrayal of the characters and their relationships that struck me most; it's very subtly done, very real - which makes you easily accept the semi fantasy world created in the novel - the chracters are real, so the world they inhabit must be also.

Have also just read Mortal Engines, by Phillip Reeve. I know this has been around for quite a while, but I've only just come to it. I enjoyed it very much - extremely inventive, a story that sweeps you along, and three interesting central characters. I want to get to know them better, so will read more in the series.

There are more, but will save them for another post.

Welcome to my brand new blog! The first entry is about an event in Bridgwater last Friday. I was lucky enough to be asked by the librarian, Tricia, to introduce a willow workshop which she had organised together with Ben from the Blake Museum, which is just across the park from the library.

We started off in the library, where I told the children about how I came to write The Willow Man and about going to see Serena de la Hey, who created the giant figure beside the M5 which the book is named after. I talked a bit about willow, and how you can make amazing things from a few withies (thin, pliable pieces of young willow.

Then Ben explained what was going to happen next. He was going to show the children how to make creatures out of willow. Tricia had some books ready for them to look at for ideas, and then we would walk across the park to the museum, looking at the river on the way and watching out for insects and creatures which might give us more ideas.

It was a beautiful day, so the children worked in the courtyard outside the museum. They all had brilliant imaginations, and made fantastic creatures, including sharks, a cat, spiders, butterflies, a dragonfly, a bat, a pig, a fish and an owl, and then they all worked together to make a huge caterpillar. Ben kindly supplied drinks half way through which we had in the museum, in the company of a slightly spooky life sized figure of Admiral Blake, after whom the museum is named.

It was a really excellent morning, and many thanks to Tricia and Ben for organising it and inviting me. Take a look at the Gallery page to see some pictures.