‘A Bit Lost’ theatre production
The Dutch version of A Bit Lost (Mama Kwijt) was made into a school theatre production for special needs children. The actors (parents and a grandparent) have used gestures to re-enforce the narrative for the children. The school’s speech therapist plays the little owl. Thanks to Lenie for mailing me about this! WOW! Its a real honour to see the story being used in this way.
for more about the wonderful events for A Bit Lost in Holland take a look here
blog.chrishaughton.com/nationale_voorleesdagen
A Bit Lost: Worksheets
I was just sent these great worksheets by my lovely spanish publishers. Please feel free to print out and use. The animals are all on A4 but the forest scene can be printed at any size.
To download them all as a zipped file click HERE
Nationale Voorleesdagen
Im in shock at all the events in Holland! The dutch version of A Bit Lost, ‘Mama Kwijt’ won the Dutch Picture Book of the Year 2012 and as part of the Voorleesdagen (read aloud week) there are many amazing events across the country. It was awarded by CPNB, a read-for-fun/literacy non-profit equivalent to Booktrust or CBI. Each year they choose a book for its read-aloud qualities and on the 18th Jan they celebrated by hosting ‘reading breakfasts’ (complete with pancakes!) in libraries and schools across the country. Its the 9th year of this award you can read more about it here Im so proud of the book’s success in holland as im a huge fan of dutch design and dutch picture books
Many celebrities were pictured taking part for the press including Princess Laurentien from the Dutch royal family and prime minister Mark Rutte (!) In the last photo there is even a real owl at the school!!!!
There was even a reading at Schipol Airport Library
There are puppet performances too. The second to last performance was by Ton Meijer in the oba library (the little girl in the picture is pretending she is a sleepy owl about to fall) and the last was by Pagetti jeungdtheatre
It was interesting to see how the story was adapted to performances and to see how each adapts it differently. One of the performances is of Oma Kwijt (I lost my granny!)
theres even a Mama Kwijt song…(!!!)
I did some press events too, on thursday 19th I opened the amsterdam stock market!!!!!! i had drawn ‘99%’ on my t-shirt in black marker and unzipped my hoodie right before i gonged (!) 🙂
At the moment Mama Kwijt is the best selling BOOK in the Netherlands #1 in the book chart (!!!) and also no.12 as there are 2 versions. The bookshops also got involved and there are amazing shop window displays as well as little hand-puppets and bags. 60,000 finger puppets were made by CPNB to be given away free with the books, we really tried to have the finger puppets made fair trade (thank you CPNB) but the cost and timescale sadly could not work out. Then 7 bookshops emailed me and clubbed together to make an order of the fair trade owls too..! Thank you to all the bookshops who supported this!! You can see some of them on sale below…
This last few days in holland has been INCREDIBLE! im in total shock. To have my book at the centre of such wonderful events promoting literacy and reading for fun in public access libraries is all i could have ever wished for, i cant tell you how honoured i am. I was amazed by the thought, care and humour that went into these events and the quality of the other beautiful children’s books and events that I saw. The time and resources that go towards childrens events seem incredible to me, the Dutch certainly seem to be really focused on all the the good things. I have met amazing people in the last few days. Thanks to so much to everyone involved in this amazing project, in all the libraries, Gottmer and CPNB. Hartelijk bedankt!!
Owl bag
this awesome owl bag and owl seat(!) were made by hilde de rooij in the netherlands who makes items based on childrens drawing.
They were drawn by the very talented Merel Goud age 8 and were exhibited in the local library.
Glass Owls and Blue Manatees
I just got sent these images from Blue Manatee Childrens bookstore in Ohio. They have made these amazing owls based on Little Owl Lost in Brazee St Studios see more images on their facebook page here
They read the book and then made their own owl from fired glass. Apparently other glass studios are also doing the same project including one in Texas(!) …amazing!! So inspiring to see these amazing art projects. Thank you so much to everyone at Blue Manatee.
A Bit Lost: Languages / Awards
The blog post about how i came up with the idea is here
Here are the first few pages…
You can order it in the countries/languages below
the original language edition is korean
엄마를 잠깐 잃어버렸어요 in KOREA >>> here
A Bit Lost in UK/IRE >>> here or from local bookshop
Little Owl Lost in the USA /CAN >>> here
Little Owl Lost in Australia >>> here
Little Owl Lost in NZ >>> here
Ihan Hukassa in Finland >>> here
Mama Kwijt in the Netherlands >>> here
Un Peu Perdu in France >>> here
Kleine Eule Ganz Allein in Germany >>> here
Un Poco Perdido in Spain >>> here
Um Tanto Perdida in Brazil >>> here
Ar Strae Beagán in Ireland (Gaeilge) >>>here
Mamma Borta sweden >>>here
Una Mica Perdut catalan >>>here
OH-OH Italian >>>here
ちょっとだけまいご Japanese >>>here
小小迷路 Chinese >>> here
Hvor er mammaen min? Norwegian (Bokmål) >>> here
Kvar er mamma mi? Norwegian (Nynorsk) >>>here
Hebrew /Danish >>>coming soon
AWARDS………………………………………….
UK
IRE
US
Netherlands
Canada
France
SWITZERLAND
Winner of Prix P’tits Mômes Geneva
Winner of Prix P’tits Mômes Geneva
JAPAN
INTERNATIONAL
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