The Lion and the Unicorn

Another fun thing that I got to do in the London area is visit a terrific children's book shop in Richmond called The Lion and the Unicorn. Here are two photos of myself (I'm the one in the schleppy brown hoodie) and my new pal Tony, the manager of the bookshop. In the first photo, we're posing in front of an amazing wall of pictures taken from the dozens of author and illustrator visits to the store over the years (Don't let the bald heads blind you!).

I spent over two hours there, marveling at the amazing difference in inventory between an english independent children's book shop and an american one. Sure, there was J.K. Rowling, Roald Dahl, and Philip Pullman, but there was lots more in between that was new to me, both in middle-grade fiction and picture books. One thing that I loved there is that picture books come out so much more quickly in paperback -- there was Chester and the Scaredy Squirrel books by Melanie Watt, and a few new Emma Chichester Clark titles that I hadn't seen here yet.

Among some of the novels I came home with thanks to Tony's recommendations are The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber (I'm reading this one right now and am loving it) and Poison by Chris Wooding.

I was especially happy to see that old favorites such as Helen Oxenbury, John Burningham, Shirley Hughes and the Ahlbergs are still going strong in the U.K., as well as my current favorite, Polly Dunbar!