Mokee Joe author visits St Bart's for talk, book signing and creative writing workshop

West Berkshire schoolchildren were treated to an entertaining talk by a local children’s author last week with some lucky students taking part in a writing workshop as well.

Peter J Murray, author of the popular Mokee Joe series, shared stories from his upbringing in South Yorkshire and from his travels in the talk, as well as discussing the ideas behind his writing.

Held at St Bartholomew’s School last Thursday (March 31) year 7 students from the school were joined by year 6 students from St Nicolas and John Rankin Junior Schools for the author’s inspiring talk.

Vedha, a year 7 St Bart’s pupil, said: “I really enjoyed when Peter told us about his travels and how that had given him inspiration. The underground hospitals of America, the voodoo and zombies of New Orleans and the Burj Khalifa for an epic final battle against Mokee Joe.”

The next day after the talk, schoolchildren lined up in the library to have their books signed by Mr Murray, whose granddaughter is a student at St Bart’s.

A number of female pupils had chosen to don a certain hair style as a nod to Molly, a popular character from Mr Murray’s Mokee Joe books.

In a post on his blog, Mr Murray said: “The other thing that really impressed us was the number of Year 7 girls who had adopted the Molly-character ‘Space Buns’ hairstyle. They all looked amazing and I felt so proud that so many girls had gone to the trouble! MASSIVE THANKS!”

After the book signing, Mr Murray ran a creative writing workshop for around 20 year 7 students, where they worked on writing effective and interesting characters.

Mr Murray added: “I was so taken up with the welcome we received and by the subsequent warm and enthusiastic reaction to both our presentation and the book signing.

“Without exception, all of the pupils we encountered were polite, friendly and more than keen to talk to us and discuss our books. All in all, a memorable couple of days at St Bart’s.”