CBI Irish Children's Book Awards

My dear friend Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick has just won the CBI Book Award for her novel Hagwitch.
The presentation in Dublin was a lovely event, and it was great to catch up with Marie-Louise and her husband, Michael Emberley, as well as the other shortlistees, Siobhán Parkinson, Paula Leyden, Derek Landy, Sheena Wilkinson, Oliver Jeffers and Eoin Colfer, our new Laureate na nÓg.
We had a lovely time celebrating with a great bunch of publishers, agents and families, as well as all of the lovely folks from CBI.
And I was lucky enough to pick up the CBI Award for Illustration myself for my work on Mysterious Traveller by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham.
Many thanks to Anne from Hodder for our lovely celebratory lunch.
Here are some photos from the day. 

PJ Interviewed by Dr Pat Donlon, at the NLI

A few years ago the National Library of Ireland and Children's Books Ireland co-hosted an event in which I was interviewed by my dear friend and famous bibliophile, Dr Pat Donlon.
Pat was formerly the director of the NLI, and it was she who arranged for the Library to acquire a large collection of my original illustrations way back in 1994.
The interview has recently gone on-line and can be viewed, along with a great selection of other interviews, at this link.
It's always a happy occasion chatting about books with Pat.

Meeting Shaun Tan in Dublin

Yesterday, those lovely people at CBI arranged for a group of Irish illustrators, including me, to meet the amazing Australian illustrator, Shaun Tan.
I have been a big fan of Shaun's work since Marie-Louise FitzPatrick showned me The Red Tree and a few other of his early books about six years ago.
When Shaun's book "The Arrival" came out last year, I was asked to write a review of it by Inís Magazine.
You can read that review and see some more pictures from our meeting at the Scamp website.
Big thanks again to Mags and all at CBI for arranging the event, and to Shaun for a wonderfully inspiring morning, and for patiently inscribing on all of the books we had brought along.

L to R, Alan B, Donough O'Malley, Steve Simpson, Scalder, me, Joven Kerekes, Shaun, BrenB, Micheal Emberley, Marie-Louise FitzPatrick, Niamh Sharkey, Adrienne Geoghegan