Beccy Blake: ‘Chicken Hill’

Welcome to episode 42, season 3, of the Teacher Book Club Podcast!

This is a recording of one of our Instagram live special author chats from earlier in the year, with author & illustrator Beccy Blake!

This episode is in partnership with Bloomsbury AD | PR

Tara had the pleasure of speaking to brilliant author & illustrator Beccy Blake about her new graphic novel, ’Chicken Hill: Attack of the Zombie Cactus.’ Tara asked her our Teacher Book Club questions plus a few extras! It was great hearing all about the ideas behind the story and characters. We hope you love listening to it as much as we loved recording it!

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Disclaimer: This is recorded from an Instagram live, so we apologise if some of the sound is not the best quality.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Hi everyone, and podcasts. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading. I am excited to bring you another episode which was recorded earlier on this year, actually, on World Book Day. Um, so this was a really great special episode, and it was with author and illustrator Becky Blake. So I chatted to her all about her very first debut novel that she has written. She has illustrated lots and lots of books previously, but this is her first book that she has written and illustrated, and it's a fantastic graphic novel. So this is the first in the series, which is called Chicken Hill, and this book specifically is Chicken Hill Attack of the Zombie Cactus. It is absolutely mad, so children will absolutely love it. Um, but I had a brilliant time chatting to Becky all about it. So I'm going to read you the blurb just to give you an idea of what the book is all about. Welcome to Chicken Hill. Join Ferdy, Gripper, and Tink as they investigate all things strange in their seriously weird town. Three hilarious and off-the-wall stories in one full colour graphic novel, perfect for fans of Dogman and Bunny vs. Monkey. Chicken Hill, just your average, everyday run-of-the-mill small town where the pets can talk, the frogs rule over a secret underwater empire, and you're only ever one day away from an alien invasion. Chicken Hill is home to Ferdy, a tech whiz with a knack for invention and a habit of running into trouble. Always with him is Gripper, his farty and self-obsessed pug, and Tink, his brother's forever-tired cat. Together they investigate the many wild and weird happenings in town. And whether fending off an invasion of zombie cactuses or trying to keep an army of cloned conspiracy theorist cats out of office, there's no shortage of things to keep them busy. Because in Chicken Hill, there's only one rule. If you think things can't get weirder, they always will. And that sums it up, truly. It is weird and wonderful, and getting into the mind of Becky Blake and kind of understanding where all this weird and wonderful things have come from was amazing. So I hope you enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Hello! I'm sorry you've got some of my husband's artwork there. That's okay, how are you? On the table, looking on my handbook.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Don't worry, absolutely fine. How are you?

unknown 2:46

I'm really well, thank you. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Happy Wells Book Day. Happy Wells Book Day. Yes, it's been a lovely day. Full on, crazy, but lovely, full of reading, full of books. It's yeah, been so lovely.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Oh, I'm so pleased.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Yeah, it's cute.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Brilliant day, too. It's been super.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Have you been in a school today?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yes, I was in the school in Bristol this morning. It was just lovely, and they were all drawing zombie cactuses, and they were absolutely amazing. In fact, they were much better than mine. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Brilliant, such fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Oh, amazing. Oh, well, now we've got the fun of speaking all about Chicken Hill. So exciting. I know kids are going to love this. Children are obsessed with graphic novels at the moment, which is wonderful, an amazing gateway into reading and getting them captured by books. And yeah, I think that you've illustrated this fantastically. It's full of life, full of colour, and the stories, I mean, they're crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah, they're out of completely out of my spaghetti brain. And this one's, yeah, this one's the first. Yeah. Um, yeah, so it's really, really exciting. I've never had my own book published before, so amazing.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Oh, I bet lovely. Because you've illustrated lots before, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yes, yes, I'm an illustrator. Um so and then I've always written stories, but I've I've never had the sort of competence to take further, so this is the first time, and it's lovely. Yeah, it's really cool. Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, it is wonderful, and yeah, fantastic as a as a debut book for yourself. Amazing. Did you want to tell us a little bit about maybe what the book's about and kind of where the crazy ideas came from?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, yes, I can do, yeah. So um, it's about I thought I'll hold the book up. So it's about Birdie, little boy, um, who invents things in his shed. Um, and as you can see, the shed takes off, it goes into all sorts of amazing places with the help of snails. He's got an army of snails that um help him invent things. He's a real inventor, Birdie, and he goes off in the community garden, they let him have the shed, and that's where all the action happens.

unknown 5:16

It's the centre of Chicken Hill. Um, and this is Gripper and Tink. So Grippa's his little pet bug.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

She's poking out there, she's very, very naughty and lively, and she just wants to film everything on her teammate brother's phone, and everyone gets really annoyed with her.

unknown 5:33

And she sparks a lot, that's her one problem.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

And then Tink. Um, he's um Grippa's long-suffering best friend. Um, and he's a large grey cat, he just has to sleep a lot. So they go on loads of thrilling and unexpected adventures into other worlds, um, from chasing UFOs uh to meeting a big small monster um that resides in the community pond.

unknown 5:59

So that's that's quite exciting. Um, and there's lots of characters, and each book's got three, so this one's got three snackable chapters in it, which is really cool. Um and they're all quietly linked as well. Each chapter, if you go back, you can sort of read them.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

There's a map at the front, so you can refer to the map when you love a map. Yeah, I love maps. I was that when they said would you draw maps? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Oh amazing, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

I was really happy. They've just done it, they're just um yeah, they do. There's lots of all all sorts of really exciting things coming up. So lovely. Um and there's some jelly at what we call jelly at the back, which is some how to draws and a game. So in each book there's some of that, um, which is quite nice because I I think when I be doing events, children love drawing along and learning drawing characters. And um, so that's been a lot of fun. I've always loved comics. Um my dad was a printer, so he used to bring loads of paper back, and he also loved comics and he chucked comics at me as a child. And I used to draw my own, and I think that's how I became an illustrator because I was like, oh, you can draw for a living.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Sort of. And then um, yeah, I got I went into that. I did a work for an animation company being storyboarding, which is similar to comics.

unknown 7:20

Yeah. So I said that's quite that's quite interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Um, and then uh Chicken Hill came about, um the catus was the first. Um from when my children were having swimming lessons, I started drawing them a comic about their pets. We've always always been a big animal loving family. Um and when they got out of their swimming lessons, they would say, Oh Mum, have you done another comic? And they'd tell me if they thought it was rubbish or not.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Children are honest.

unknown 7:50

It's very truthful.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

But I just had so much fun doing that. And I sometimes sitting next to the other parents, I say, What are you doing? And I said, I'm talking a comic for my kids. And then they'd have a bit of a gig one. And I I thought, oh, there's I think there's uh it's there's legs in this. I I'm gonna try and pull it all together and um make it story around this sort of um completely bonkers place. Um anything can happen.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Amazing. Lovely, and you said you have kind of all these all these ideas have just come from your brain, which is brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Unfortunately for the world, yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I love it, it is crazy, but kids love crazy, so it will definitely go down well.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, I I think hunger child is at heart. Yeah, got to be, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Okay, so we are teach the book club, so we're a group of educators, and we love to speak to authors and illustrators and find out kind of all about their thoughts behind the book, so when we share it with um the children that we teach, we can you know give them more of an insight, and yeah, it's brilliant for us. So thank you so much for joining me. Um, so we've got a few questions. No, you're welcome. I have a few questions to ask about the book. So uh my first question is who is your favourite character and why?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Oh we know this, it's Tink. I'm just I love the quiet life, and I love my favourite thing in the world is lying on the sofa reading a book. Absolutely. I know yeah, Tink just like asleep a lot, and he he's one for the simple life. And I I think because my brain is so completely and also Tink dreams, his dreams are amazing, and I've always had a really big dream, so which is possibly where some of the ideas have gotten.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Yeah, maybe, yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

And he's always a sensible one. Um I'm not terribly sensible, but I do admire that in Tink, and I wish I was more sensible. And he sort of looks after Gripper and he makes sure she doesn't get into any trouble. And I did have a friend like us at school, and she always looked out for me and made sure and didn't get too silly and chat too much in class and things. I think, yeah, I love Tink. He's just so gentle and big and lovely, and he's got the most amazingly magnificent stripy tail, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Absolutely. Oh, I love it. I mean, I'm a cat lover, so I definitely agree. Um, I also really liked the slugs. I loved all of their little comments as they kind of kept popping up.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

We think he wouldn't be able to do all these interventions without the snails because one of them, uh Sebastian, who's got the half moon glasses, he went to Oxford, you know, and studied botany, so he's very, very clever. He probably just locusted his way through the botanical gardens and they got rid of him for shrunk or something I didn't do.

unknown 10:49

I love the snails.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I'm I'm a great fan of snails. My nephew loves snails, he's tiny and he's uh they're just they're just great. And I know they eat your garden, but they are they are so cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think they were brilliant characters to have in the book. Yeah, really, really brilliant. Um, I also really liked Uncle Russ as well. Yeah, but particularly in the first story, obviously, I just yeah, I thought his character's brilliant. And he there was one quote, he said something about young people, you know, young people these days, something like it's because he goes off looking for it, UFOs against it.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Young people these days they have no appreciation of the complexities of the universe. He's only looking based on um, yeah, he's based on my talent.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Fantastic, yeah, and I think we all know someone who could say something like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

He's quite he's quite grandpa like he's sort of the grandpa of uh chicken hell he's lovely. Oh really, he's just and he's a conspiracy theorist he disbelieves in Bigfoot, the love face monster.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, fantastic. And the way he just sort of went off right, I'm gonna deal with this myself.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Oh yeah, absolutely. He's the oldest, yeah. You know, wouldn't he?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Exactly. Yeah, I thought he was brilliant. So my next question is what was your favourite part to write and also your favourite part to illustrate?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Oh, there's two bits I really loved doing. I love doing um without getting too much away, um I loved, I think, drawing the shed turning into a skateboard and thundering through the Mexican desert. I think that was my favourite spread and working out how the shed would bounce as it turned into a giant skateboard and then come crashing down. Um I've got lots of moving references in my um book for the parents and teachers making.

unknown 12:46

And that was that was one with um Colin the guinea pig with his guitar, and he's making such an awful din and upsetting all the zombie cactuses. But that's from a very famous movie where there's flames come out of a guitar.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Yes, love that. Brilliant.

unknown 13:00

I that was one of my favourite. Then my other favourite is the one where I've a double paced bread of gripper and she's farting her way out of the door crate underwater. Um yeah, you'd have to read a book to be what happens after that, but it's that's I love drawing that, it's just such fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

And everyone was giggling like mad and went and sent the sort. Yeah. It's a bit risky.

unknown 13:23

No.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

No, absolutely brilliant. Um, I I really well, all of the illustrations are wonderful, and I do love how full every page is. It makes it remind me a bit of when you look at a words wally page, and there's so much to see, so much to look at. You're sort of looking for the characters that you know you want to find out where are they, what are they doing? And I think children will love that aspect and will be you know doing that, they'll be searching and seeing, oh, where are they? What are they saying? Yeah, I think it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

I do, I do love, I do love a bit of detail myself. I always over overdraw.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Yeah, yeah, I love it, and I think my my favourite part of the whole book, but the initially the first story, I think all I'll say is baked beans. I just wasn't expecting it. And it really made me laugh when it just took a turn.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, no, yes, yeah, powered by baked beans.

unknown 14:32

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

You know, yeah, that's it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 14:38

One of my favourite paintings.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, absolutely brilliant, yeah. I can just imagine children literally getting to it and laughing out loud.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Oh, yeah, I was yeah, I was very, very sad laughing at my jokes, and I did draw that and I thought. I don't blame you. That's what I get from her.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Oh, yeah, fantastic. Um, so my next question is do you have a favourite quote from the book?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Um it's yeah, I do. Sorry, it's very rude. I think it reminds me of um when I was in the car with my grandfather and he had loads of purple words because he wasn't a very competent driver, I think. Yes. Oh no, oh, grandfather's father. So I kind of translated that um to the UFOs, um, because they're not very good at uh um driving the spaceship.

unknown 15:37

They keep you from bumping into it.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Well, I won't get it, I won't give it away. My favourite quote was all the naughty words they use, like, oh clattering intergalactic buttocks, what's wrong with the engine, um, and oh wobbling space bogies, and oh pink big space glitternickers, um, and oh moon bug burps, and then the technical one says, uh, what's what's a moon bug? So it's it's just yeah, asking questions as well. I I don't know. It's really, I mean, really silly, um, a silly bit to pick out of the book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

We'll blame you then if children start saying these weird and wonderful things.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, Michael, I'm so sorry. I've got some chance.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Brilliant. Far better than swearing, so it's absolutely fun. I love it. I've um written down a quote that just really tickled me. Very minor. Again, it is the slugs. Um, so one of them said, This is not good news at all. The other replied, Kev, you are such a drama slug.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I just loved it. Yes, Kevin always frets about everything. Yeah, bless him. A drama slug.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Loved that, yeah, yeah, yeah, really loved it. Just tickled me.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Oh my god you enjoyed that. Yeah, we like lots of laughter.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Exactly, yeah, absolutely. My next question is um, what do you want readers to remember most from the book?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

I think having lots of fun reading it. Um yeah, new words, yeah, new insults would be cool, wouldn't it? Um a deeper level, um, I'd like to think they they get lots of friendship values come through the book. Yeah, definitely. Um and working as a team, Birdie and the gang, they all work as a team, they look out for each other, yeah. Um, and appreciating differences, and all the monsters that they meet, they aren't necessarily monsters who are sometimes good ties to them, or they're good monsters pretending to be bad, you know. It's that sort of thinking about characters. Yeah, I quite like them to sort of take away friendship and laughter.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Oh, absolutely, yeah. No, I think they're really strong themes throughout through each of the stories, definitely. And like you say, teamwork. I mean, yeah, we're always, you know, talking to children about working together and you know being able to get along with others and kind of problem solve together, so yeah, I think they will definitely take that away from it. Oh yeah, no, it's brilliant, and obviously fun. They're gonna have a lot of fun. So, do you have a top three children's books that you could recommend? I know three is an impossible number.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Endless there's loads of loads and loads, loads. Oh my goodness. Um yeah, because you had Sophie's early on last week, and I would absolutely recommend on Paul. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Fantastic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

It was so beautiful, so beautifully written.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Um Nature Lovers, Spooky Story Lovers, friendships in there. It's just it's beautiful it's a beautiful book, so that's my number one.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah, absolutely. I do agree.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Um I d I don't know. I've an old one that my children love as well, which I don't know, is Bartholomew and a bug by Neil Layton. I don't know if you've heard of that book. I haven't heard of it, no. It's such a favourite in our house. Um you know, I've got that up on my shelf many books on my shelf. Yeah. And I it's again, it's it's about friendship again, and it's it's a it's a lovely picture book. That's a lovely picture book. Um, and I think um I mean I love tall freeman's work, I love Pablo's dash that he's my favourite time travelling penguins, and so cool. Brilliant. Um I I can't think of a third one. I I loved um The Worst Class in the World by Joan Addin and um by Rick and Correct. I think maybe that one. I just it's so cool. I just loved it as a child, haven't we? I read it as an adult. Yeah. My kids were a bit older, they won't they missed it, but I it's it's a stupid book. Yeah, I think that might have.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, great recommendations. Thank you. Um, so do you have any tips for us teachers? Obviously, we teach children writing every day. Do you have any advice in yeah, in terms of kind of helping children with their writing and ideas?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

But you guys are all such experts. I I feel like they're non-experts.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

No, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I think actually you could use comics because of the background, a bit of background in animation, and I well, animators uh you start off with doing a storyboard, which is like a comic, and that's like a plan.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

And sometimes when you're writing stories, it's quite good to have a very rough plan of where you're gonna go. It can change, that's the beauty of it.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Um, and to think about their characters and get to know their characters. I've been doing these little zines for my characters.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

I don't know if the children know how to be on maybe a Friday downtime.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yes. It's like a dine. Um, I've done one on Gripper and Tink here. I do mine double-sided.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Oh, I love it, yes. Oh, I'm definitely doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah, that'd be quite I think children learn I don't know. I whenever I sort of work with children in the past, they've always sort of liked the make something. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, do yeah, do different things and and try and get to know their characters and also about the scene. Think about the scene, is it night or day? What's the mood like? Is it sad, or is it here's all the emotions as well? So it's just but you've got to have so probably do that anyway. But no, no, that's great.

unknown 21:40

Uh making a sign really helpful when I'm getting to know my character. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say for children if they're writing a story, that's the first thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Well, my autocalls, but yeah, brilliant. No, I'm definitely stealing that. That's brilliant. Yeah, children will love that. I mean, they're so creative, yeah. As soon as you start folding the Piece of paper, they'll be away.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah, to make a little book that they keep and take away, it's it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

That is lovely. And any tips for budding illustrators as well? I mean, my class at the moment are obsessed with drawing and making their own comics, and I think it is because of books now having those lovely bits at the end where they can copy and kind of create the characters themselves. I just yeah, I think it's brilliant. But yeah, if you have any advice or any tips I could give them.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

I would say, um yeah, just think about again, think about how they do their frames. You can do different shaped frames, you can have things bursting out of frames or no frames at all. Um and again you can tap into the emotions of the characters if it's um if somebody's really excited, speech bubble can be um speech bubbles because you've got the thinking ones that are like a lovely cloud.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Yeah, lovely.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, and think about yeah, think about your characters too and what they like doing. So I've got a bunny rabbit in Chicken Hill who's just like very mellow, and everyone goes to her advice.

unknown 23:12

You can actually look at your adults and think, could I make them into a character? You know, go for a walk.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah, that's quite cool. If you could if you take an adult on a walk and have a picture, it's like a journey, yeah, and you can always write about your journey, and um it's that's quite a nice way of writing stories and illustrating as well. Just draw, don't don't over plan things. That's my advice to children as well. Just get really stuck into it straight away, and yeah, it'll come.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah, fantastic, yeah. And I think also I forgot to mention the game as well at the back of the book. So fun. I think now children are gonna want to make games as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Oh it's good, yeah, it's good, it's good fun. I I love making up games. Um I've got another one which you might particularly like growing up in book two.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

How intriguing.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, that's a little a little Easter egg.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Okay, exciting. Amazing. Yeah, no, that's great. So, what is next for you? Obviously, more Chicken Hill is in the pipeline.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

I'm currently writing book three. Wow. So that that's good fun. Um I've got um I'm gonna be uh co-working uh on a pitch book, I think, which is really exciting. Um and some board books too. I've got some ideas for board books for really tiny people, I think.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah, oh lovely.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

So that that's gonna be lovely. Um lots going on. Lots going on, yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

When is book two out?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Oh book two is out end of July, I think beginning of August, so it's the summer time.

unknown 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Um yeah, and that is um frozen squirrel rescue mission. Um and yeah, there's a bit of a nod to climate change in that one because it's got a very icy cover, but it's coming out in August.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

So if you teach it, you'd be like, oh and then book three, I think, is next book three or oh next and coming out after that anyway, at some point maybe no, still writing and amazing.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

How long does it take you to create the whole book? Obviously, all of the illustrations and the text.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah, it's a long, long time. Um my first book took the longest, and I think that probably took nine months.

unknown 25:40

Yeah. I went over. They were so lovely.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I've got a lovely team and uh Bloomsbury after me, and it was so cool. Um but the second book I really gathered up speed, I think you get really into it at that point. So that was about seven, seven, eight months. It's a long time for a graphic novel. I think it's great to have a long time to do them, and then you can really really get stuck into them.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

So it would be amazing, but don't quite have that luxury.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

No, yeah, well uh clearly an awful lot of work goes into it. Yeah, and the detail in on every page is amazing, so I'm not surprised it takes that long.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Yeah, but you sort of I was telling a little uh the child asked me earlier in the week, said how long does it take? I said, six months, six, seven, eight months.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

You know, that sort of yeah, they probably can't really fathom that either.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

No, it's not you know, month is uh December. Oh we've got Christmas, and then it's really difficult for them to sort of work out, yeah. It's totally oh amazing.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Well, lots for us to look forward to then, which is brilliant. Yeah, I hope that you enjoy the books too. Yes, I'm sure we will. I mean, I can't wait to take this into school now and share it with my class. There they are, I know I know already that they're gonna snap it out of my hands, so there'll be a long waiting list.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I hope they they really enjoy it and um yeah, get lots of jokes out of it too.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah, thank you so much. It's been lovely talking to you, Becky. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

You're very welcome. Thank you. Good luck with the next few books.

unknown 27:32

Oh thank you, and best of all the best to you as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Thank you, C soon. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

That was my amazing interview with author and illustrator Becky Blake. I really hope you enjoyed it. It was lovely getting to chat to her earlier on this year, for especially as it was World Book Day as well, which was really lovely. So I hope you enjoyed it, and please do keep downloading and listening. If you are able to give us a star rating as well, we would really appreciate that. And yeah, keep listening and thank you so much if you also listen and watch any of our author live chats. We are doing about one a week at the moment, and there will also be a few over the school summer holidays as well. Um, because I wanted to still keep it up, so I will keep releasing podcast episodes, and then we will also have the live chats over on Instagram as well. So thank you for listening. Uh speak to you again soon.