Have Dog Will Travel - Megan Rix

Traffy started coming into one of our local primary school to listen to children read with me back at the end of April and I have been surprised at how much she loves it (pulls me into the school) and the children love her and how successful it's been. Now when anyone asks me if I think they should do it I give a resounding yes. As she walks around the school everyone greets her and seems pleased to see her and judging by her wagging tail she's just as pleased to see them.

At the end of summer term when the Year 4 children she'd got to know left to move on to their next school Traffy was given a beautiful card with thank you note bones attached to it and a packet of treats - most of which she ate there and then.

I really look forward to our one hour sessions (I wouldn't want Traffy to do longer as all the attention is tiring for her) and love listening to the children read. There are usually lots of dog books and funny books to listen to. I'm always excited to see what story the children have chosen as I must say I love being read to. Plus, because we see the same 8 children for the year I get to see their reading as it develops and they grow more confident. One or two of the children now even give their characters different voices when they read the story and Harry very kindly asked for the interesting 'animals who carry things' book over and over from the library so I could hear it right to the end. I've learnt lots and I think it's helped my writing too as I like to imagine one of the children picking up a book and reading it. Also it's been interesting to learn things that I'd have thought children would know but they don't always. One of them was really confused about the word chrysanthemum and had no idea what on earth it could be.

A few weeks ago Traffy arrived quite stressed at the school as I'd been away and only come back that morning (totally my fault and I should have thought it through) as one little girl was reading Traffy proceeded to be sick next to her (horrors!) luckily the lovely staff member with us cleaned it up and we didn't make a thing of it and carried on. The next week when we got there one of the boys had made Traffy a get well soon card.

Traffy also came into 2 local schools during my book tour and went out on stage at  the Bexhill Pavilion when I collected my East Sussex Children's Book of the Year runner up prize. I love taking her with me into schools when I visit as part of my talk is about her and her sister Bella as puppies and how my work with assistance dogs led me to want to write about dogs and the jobs they did during World War 2.

Traffy as a puppy learning to open a washing machine

Emma taking out the washing

One boy asked if I was writing a children's book about my dogs and I said I'd love to and then another child pointed out they were already in all my books and proceeded to read from the front:

'Megan Rix lives with her husband by a river in England. When she's not writing she can be found walking her two golden retrievers, Traffy and Bella, who are often in the river.'

Recently I've worked with Travelling Books who organised 2 school visits to schools that were close by and that Traffy could come to too. One of the schools she came to and the other she didn't in the end because some of the children had allergies. Truth be told the one where she didn't come ran a little smoother but I don't know that smoothness should be the aim.  I love this beautiful portrait of her that one  of the children did.

Megan will be speaking at the StoryStock Festival on the 1st November. Traffy will not be there as she will still be celebrating her sister Bella's's birthday by eating chews and going for walks by the river.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye-eee.... Megan Rix / Ruth Symes

How time has flown. I've just looked back at my blog posts and see I started way back in November 2011 and here we are 3 years later and my last post for now.

I've just finished my latest book tour as Megan Rix. This time it was for my book 'The Hero Pup' and we got to have guide dogs and hearing dogs and medical alert dogs, as well as my own two, Traffy and Bella, coming along to different sessions. It was fantastic! My favourite tour so far :) Back in 2011 I hadn't done any week long book tours and now I have 5 under my belt. I'd also never done a ppt presentation but now when we turn up at a school and they're having problems setting it up I'm (don't want to jinx it) so will just say usually able to sort it out. And requests to speak to 700 children plus staff at once - a breeze - done it twice now.

This year has been amazing. Two children's book
of the year award wins - one for 'Victory Dogs' at

lovely Stockton-on-Tees and one for 'The Bomber Dog' at beautiful Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury even provided a dog to come out on stage with me - not a german shepherd like Grey in Bomber Dog but a lively ball loving spaniel who works as a bomb sniffing dog.

Dogs are so wonderful and I never tire of telling children all the brilliant things they can do as well as showing pictures of the things my two get up to. Fortunately I have lots of pictures and the one where Bella as a tiny pup is trying to bury a sock always goes down well. As does the fox poo one :)

I've been so proud of Traffy coming into our local school with me to listen to children read. She's been such a hit and is always ready with a wag of her tail as a new child coos over her. Her special reading mat with letters on it was a true find and the children who've read to her have shown improvements even more than the school had hoped for.

The school was also the first one to hear a very early first chapter of 'Cornflake the Dragon' my new Secret Animal Society series that I'm writing as Ruth Symes. The Ruth Symes books tend to be for slightly younger children than the Megan Rix ones and I love getting letters from readers and pictures of the toys that have been made of the characters. I especially treasured an email I got recently about 'Dancing Harriet' and how the book was being used at a school in India to help teach tolerance and inclusion.

I'm going to miss not writing for ABBA for a while (other than hopefully an occasional guest post) but I've just got a bit too overworked what with running two careers as Ruth Symes and Megan Rix and so it's best to step out rather than find blogging a chore rather than a pleasure. But I'll still be reading it and looking forward to catching up with what's happening  :)

PS Just found out 'A Soldier's Friend' is one of the nominated books for 2015's Carnegie medal - yahoo! Good luck to everyone with books in it xx

PPS Thanks so much to Carol Christie for saying her son got switched back on to reading by The Bomber Dog I hadn't seen the comment at the end of my Dog Days posts until I looked back at the old posts I'd done yesterday. That's what it's all about :)


www.ruthsymes.com and www.secretanimalsociety.com and www.meganrix.com

Talking about Books - Megan Rix

I've been having a nail biting, train zooming, speed-writing, brain tingling time recently. Deadlines have loomed and thankfully been achieved. Awards received (thank you Stockton-on-Tees and Shrewsbury) and talks and presentations for children and adults given.

My first Hay Festival talk went well (even though my dogs who'd been given special dispensation to come along too decided to lie in muddy puddles just before and had to be washed off with bought bottled water from the Co-op.) They're appearing in Edinburgh next.

I got final edits done and lots of emails from my website replied to whilst on the train to Roehampton University to talk to final year teaching students for Reading Zone and more done on the train up to Manchester to talk to teachers and student teachers with Andy Seed, Kate Pankhurst and Jon Mayhew about Reading to Inspire. We were invited by the lovely Nikki Gamble from Just Imagine. Andy told everyone how when he was a teacher the books he pitched to the children were the ones that were most read and it reinforced how important it is that adults show how much they enjoy reading and talk about books they love to inspire children. Our enthusiasm rubs off.

I love days when I can cuddle up with a good book and be transported into another world. It's just the best. I especially used to like Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle as a comfort book.

But my favourite book of all time is Charlotte’s Web. It was read and re-read more than once when I had whooping cough as a child and had a whole term off school. Every week my mum would bring me back all the books she could from the library and I went from a non-reader at the start of my illness to a child with the reading bug by the end.

Thumbs up to the brand new reading group for 8-12's  @suttonlibrary that launched on Saturday 7th June. Hope you all keep on having a brilliant time.

At the Shrewsbury Bookfest the children were so passionate and knowledgable about the short-listed books. They even made book trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFPl5xbxxQ and had videos of them talking about their favourite books. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qJvlICSuOA

This week I received a letter from a school I visited during my last book tour:

'Every time we go into one of our classrooms, we see someone reading one of the books that they bought when you visited- Even one of our teachers, who isn't an animal-person, read your book overnight and loved it. 

When we knew we were going to write to you we wondered what our friends thought of your books -so we asked them! Ben in year 6 said they took me into another dimension in my learning about World War 2 and I found it hard to escape. Year 3 came up with words like 'awesome', 'epic' and 'can't wait 'til the next one.' And finally, Jessica in year 5 actually made up a new word - 'AMAZEYBULLS!'

Nothing beats letters and emails from happy readers.

I've been taking Traffy in to listen to children read at our local school. She loves it and the children love it and I'm very pleased to say that the children who've been seeing her each week have shown significant improvement in their reading. 

I'll be at the Higgins Museum for the first Bedford Bookfest on Saturday 5th July at 11am talking about 'A Soldier's Friend'. Sadly Traffy and Bella won't be allowed because of the risk of dog fur on the exhibits (probably just as well!) :)