My working week in Rio

Most of the content of my Rio postings have been a kind of journal. I just want to go into a little more detail what I actually did at the British School

I did a series of readings, talks and workshops spread over five days, all of which took place in the libraries at the various sites as part of the school's Book Week. In the main I found the students at all my sessions eager and bright and well-behaved. And I only say 'in the main' because once you have groups of over twenty children, it would be a miracle if they all sat still and did not fidget or whisper (though whispering is the arch-enemy of the storyteller!). Many of the children are listening and speaking in a second language and this fact made the quality of the comments and questions all the more impressive.

I went to the Urca site on Monday and Thursday and had class 6 and 7 students (in England they would be Year 8 and 9) - students ranging in age from 11-14. I had four sessions of about 50 minutes with groups ranging in size from 15 to 35. Monday was my earliest start with an 8.10 am start to the first session. Mostly, my working day lasted until 2.30.

I was at Barra on Tuesday and Wednesday - three sessions on Tuesday with Class 1 (Year 3 in the UK) 7-8 year-old students, four on Wednesday of Class 2, 3, 4 and 5 (aged 8 to 12). Most groups were around 20 students, but one on Wednesday had 40.

Friday was my only day at Botafogo - the oldest part of the British School. Here I had four sessions, each with large groups of Class 4 and 5 (Year 7 & 8) students aged between 10 and 12.

The sessions were all different. I had asked if there was anything the staff wanted me to highlight in particular when I visited, and so I tended to address particular genres or areas when I was at Barra for instance. We talked about fantasy writing, historical fiction and mystery writing, relating these subjects to specific books I had written. I read extracts and talked about research, planning, character development and so on.

Urca had not specified anything and so I was very happy to follow the lead of the English teacher, Ilma Lima, who wanted the sessions to be more interactive. In those sessions I gave the students a prompt to begin their own story and let them run with it. We created a number of very workable ideas revolving around one idea of a computer in the school library that does something weird (sends you to another world or parallel world, say) when an odd combination of keys is used and another about a portal in the school - the best idea being the trapdoor the the stage that takes the characters into the world of the play they are acting in. I hope we showed how quickly the bare bones of a story can be put together.

At Botafogo, the students had looked at my blog and done their research and wanted to ask questions. Again I was very happy to drop what I had intended to do and spend the time answering questions. In my next posting I am going to go through the questions that came up during these and other sessions, from both staff and students, and give my answers to them.

A few images from the trip. . .

Via Mad

So here I am back in the UK. It is cold and grey, but it's good to be back home and with my wife and son again.

Yesterday, Merche accompanied me on the little funicular railway that takes you up to the Cristo. It was a very sunny day and this was my first taste of real heat. Merche parked near the station at the base and up we went, through dense woodland which broke occasionally to give views over the hillside and out to the sea.

The Cristo sculpture is very impressive, standing in an attitude that reads as both a welcome embrace and a cross. The view is stunning and just in a few minutes in the sunshine I could feel my skin sizzling like I was a sausage on a barbecue.

After that we went for drive to an amazing church with a carved and gilded wooden interior. I forgot to write the name in my notebook and left my Rio guide in Merche's house, so I'll have to do a bit of research and tell you what it was called later.

When we got back I packed and I went for lunch nearby with Merche, her partner Sebastian and her daughter. I have eaten very well in Rio, but this lunch - a fantastic fish dish - really stood out.

When we got back I finished packing, and Sebastian took me to the airport in a raging thunderstorm. The traffic was terrible and he did fantastically well to get me there on time. He even came into the building and helped me buy a Brazil football shirt for my son.

The plane was delayed - of course - and the in flight movie screens were down so a long trip felt even longer. We were an hour late into Madrid's beautifully designed airport and we sat for an hour on the tarmac before taking off on the London flight. We descended through grey clouds to Heathrow and I was a little under dressed for 16C. I got back to Cambridge roughly 24 hours after setting off from Rio, arriving home courtesy of a weird, sarcastic, and possibly psychotic taxi driver who I would have swapped for my Brazilian taxi driver any day of the week.

So I say tschau and obrigado to everyone I met in Rio. Thanks to Adriana for the support - especially when I first arrived! Thanks to Frini for the newspaper article and for taking the time to come to the launch. Thanks to Estevoa for coming along too, and for the books. Good luck Priscilla with your trip to Sao Paolo. Thanks to Mimi, Jaqueline, Celia, Viviane, Raquel and Frederico at the British School libraries and to all the staff at the school, and a special thank you to all the children for being such good listeners, for making me feel so welcome - and for asking such good questions!

And last but in no means least - a huge thank you to Merche Clark and her family for taking me in and looking after me like one of their own. So get down to the Jamer Bookshop and buy up all my books. Not because it matters to me you understand - but so that Merche gets some kind of compensation for having to listen to me droning on for a week.

Mantenha contato!

Lost

So my time in Rio is over. I am sitting writing this in Merche's house on a sunny Saturday morning. It is 8 am here, but my laptop still shows the UK time of 12. I fly back this evening at 7 pm and will arrive in the UK early tomorrow afternoon.

The sessions went really well at Botafogo, I thought. Raquel had done a huge amount of preparation and the children had all been looking at my blog and preparing a huge list of questions to ask. Some time soon I will try and put a lot of the questions on the blog with my replies, to share all that as a kind of Q&A.

Going into schools, as I have said in a previous blog, is always a little bit of a gamble. Sometimes, for instance, the teachers view an author visit as a chance to do something else. Not only does this leave the author to police the children (something that we are not really in a position to do) but it does not really get the most out of the author. A teacher can prompt the children and ask questions themselves. The sessions I did at the British School where the teachers took an active part were definitely the most successful, and that was the case here in Botafogo.

I had another excellent school dinner here and bumped into Priscilla Howe who was about to go for lunch with her South American agent who is whisking her off to Sao Paolo for three weeks. I told her I had arranged to meet Mimi later at Urca and we were going up to Sugar Loaf. She said she would come along too.

So that's what we did. The climb is by cable car in two stages. I am not fantastic with heights but I coped pretty well. It is worth it for the incredible views from the top. It had clouded over by the time we got there, but what an amazing place to have a cold beer (ice cold, as always in Brazil). Black vultures swooped about effortlessly and there were tiny marmosets looking for food under benches.

Priscilla and I said farewell to Mimi at the base of Sugar Loaf. I owe Mimi a lot as she has put a lot of time into sorting out my trip and has been very supportive while I have been here. Book Week is obviously a hectic time for all of the librarians and they have all taken a lot of time to make me feel very welcome and I'm sure Priscilla feels the same. It has been hard work, but it has rarely felt like it because of the friendliness of Mimi, all the librarians and staff and, of course, the children.

I shared a cab with Priscilla, dropping her off in Copacabana before heading off to meet Merche in a bar on Ipanema Beach. But there was a confusion over which bar it was and I lacked the confidence to get out at a bar with a different name and so ended up getting the cab to Merche's house (via another bar in Barra).

This caused an international incident as my mobile would not let me call Merche and Merche did not have my mobile number with her and so called Judith Weik in the UK to find it and Judith called my wife and told her that I was lost on Sugar Loaf! She had half an hour of wondering what that meant. Merche eventually called as I was approaching the condominium. All was well. The cab driver came in for much abuse for this by the Clark family, but he was OK. He was genuinely trying to sort out a confusion.

Or that's what I choose to believe anyway.

Botafogo

Today I am in the Botafogo site of the British School in Rio, the orginal and oldest part of the school. I am being looked after by Raquel and Frederico who are dressed as Cleopatra and Dracula respectively, because they are having a costume day today when the children and staff have dressed up as characters from books or from history. I met Fred on Monday when we all went for a drink, but I have not met Raquel before today. She, like all the librarians here, is very friendly and supportive and she is so passionate about books and her library. It`s great.

Last night I went to Merche's bookshop - the Jamer Bookshop - and signed the stock of Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. Then we went to see Kiss Me Kate, the school production at Urca. I have to say I was not overly enthusiastic about going to a school production, but it was incredibly well done. The singing in particular was fantastic. I was really impressed.

I came in with Merche today. She has been fantastic, driving me all over Rio and looking after me. We got back late though, so it was a bit of a shock to the sytem to wake up this morning after not quite enough sleep. But it was worth it just to see sunshine. There had been a rosy sunset last night and I was glad to see that the old 'red sky at night, shepherd's delight' thing applied in the suthern hemisphere. It is a lovely morning.

It is my last day here in Rio, so I plan to meet Mimi at Urca later and go up Sugar Loaf as I missed it yesterday.

Rain again

Today I am back at the Urca site of the British School in Rio, sitting at the base of the Sugar Loaf. I am sitting in the library looking across the bay towards the Cristo, which was there a moment ago, but which is has now disappeared beneath a layer of cloud. It is pouring with rain!

The last time I was here the weather was glorious but I did not have a camera. Today I have the camera but it somehow does not look quite so spectacular. Something tells me my trip up Sugar Loaf this afternoon is not going to happen.

I was sorry to leave Barra yesterday. I thought it was a really lovely school with a fantastic atmosphere. And Viviane Silva is such a great librarian. She really cares about that library and about the children who go there. She was so enthusiastic.

Having said that, this is a great library too. It is very modern and seems very well used. I am being looked after by Celia Breder and Jaqueline Silva (no relation to Viviane or President Silva - it is just the most common name here, apparently) as before. I'm not sure whether I'll see Mimi today. Celia and Jacqueline are great. They have made me feel so welcome here. They are so friendly, and have a good sense of humour.

Yesterday I was doing specific talks about specific writing issues. Today I am giving more general writing talks centred around Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. I have another three groups to see today, one of which, again, is very large. Tomorrow at the Botofolgo site where I have four groups of 40+!

I may get to Merche's bookshop - the Jamer bookshop - today and sign some of the stock of Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror and I think Merche has asked for Livraria de Travessa's stock of Contos de Terror do Tio Montague to sign as well.

And speaking of which - Frini's newspaper article is pinned on the notice board. That was very exciting. Thanks again Frini.

Back at Barra

It was very frustrating to have such a short time in the Botanical Gardens yesterday. The beaches here are incredible, but it is the nature here that I find really fascinating. There are plants growing wild in the streets that would be in a a hot house in England. I would love to have a chance to walk up into the rain forest that comes into Rio. Maybe I will yet. If not, I'll have to behave myself and hope I am invited back.

Today I am back at the Barra site. I am seeing another four groups (one of which seems to have 40 children in it - so that ought to be interesting!). I am talking about historical fiction, mystery writing and horror writing, using The White Rider, Redwulf's Curse and Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror respectively). It is a lovely sunny morning, though Viviane tells me it may rain later.

Tomorrow I am back at the Urca site at the base of Sugar Loaf, and Mimi Liang is going to take me up to the top. You get there in two stages, by cable car. I have a fear of heights, so it is going to be an interesting trip in more than one way, as I may disgrace myself by collapsing into a foetal position and gibbering.

I forgot to mention that they are doing a really great activity here for book week. It is called DEAR - standing for Drop Everything And Read. At break time, Viviane wanders round the school with a whistle and when she blows it, the children have to drop what they are doing, pick up a book and read. It is such a brilliant idea and not one I have ever knowingly come across before.

I also forgot to mention that the other person who turned up at the Livraria de Travesso launch of Contos de Terror do Tio Montague, was Frini Georgakopoulos, the journalist who sent me the Q&A I mentioned several posts back. It was great to meet her and she was so enthusiastic.