Author tour ended happily ever after

A FORMER Children’s Laureate has praised youngsters across Dumfries and Galloway whom he met on a school tour.

Author Joseph Coelho, above, led secondary school visits in the region as part of the third annual Big Dog Schools Tour, organised by Wigtown Festival Company (WFC).

And this week he said: “Having the opportunity to meet with students and teachers across Dumfries and Galloway for the Big Dog tour has been a complete honour, the students were a delight, coming up with brilliantly inventive ideas for poems from rhymes about favourite cartoon characters to creating worlds composed of food, water and even glass.”

Students loved it too, with lots of feedback from Dumfries Academy. The pupils there described his visit as ‘impeccable’, ‘once in a lifetime’ and an ‘amazing experience’.

The tour visited 50 schools from Canonbie to Portpatrick, with six

authors, poets and storytellers bringing tales of magic, adventure and fun to more than 2200 pupils aged 3-16.

Taking part alongside Joseph Coelho were Michaela Morgan, Alan Windram, David C Flanagan, Maureen Philips and Wigtown’s very own storyteller and writer Renita Boyle.

Anne Barclay, from WFC, said: “The Big Dog Schools Tour is all about giving children a love of reading.

“The authors, poets and storytellers on the tour are just brilliant – they see this as an essential investment in the future of our young people.

“The tour is growing every year – and the feedback is great. Teachers tell us the children are so much more engaged with reading after they meet authors and storytellers, and the children love going home and reading the stories they have heard with their families.”