Riddell Me This

Live Satire

About a month ago, Hanna bought me a ticket to a launch event for Chris Riddell's new poetry collection, Poems to Fall in Love With. Arya saw the ticket on the fridge, and since we've read quite a lot of books either written or illustrated by Riddell, she asked if she could come with me. I said yes, as long as she wasn't too tired on the night, since it was at 7.30 on a school night(1).

On Tuesday then, I picked Arya up from after-school club and we went into town to have dinner. In a moment of inspiration, I suggested that Andrew join us at Pizza Express, so that he wouldn't be stuck all alone for the evening, and so that if she was too tired, he could get her home. It was on the way to the restaurant that we got absolutely soaked when the skies opened on us.

We had our pizza and Arya made her choice; she wanted to come with me. Thus, we headed for the Church of St Peter in Ely, where Mr Chris Riddell was doing satirical cartoons live on an overhead projector, because why not. We found a seat, got settled, then unsettled, and Arya insisted on sitting on my lap and then leaning back so that holding her was almost shredding my spine, because her understanding of balance and tension in her own body, let alone someone else's, is pretty limited(2).

Riddell described her plait, which I'd put in her hair in the
morning, as 'worthy of Greta Thunberg,' so that's going
on my lifetime list of top reviews.

The event itself involved Riddell sharing some anecdotes relating to the poems, then someone else would read a poem out, while Riddell sketched an illustration for it on the OHP. The anecdotes were very sweet, and Riddell himself very charming. I'm not sure how much Arya took in, but she loved the pictures of hedgehogs and the poem about otters that she found while flipping through the book. She was also very struck by the poem that Riddell read out himself, while setting a copy of the book on the OHP(3) in place of a live drawing, although I'm not sure if she took in that it was about the death of his younger brother.

After the readings, it was of course time for the traditional oh-so-long queue to get a copy of the book signed. Arya was very good about the wait, and bounced from pew to pew as we advanced along the line.

Riddell signed a copy of Poems to Fall in Love With for Hanna, and a copy of his other new book, The Guardians of Magic, for Arya. He also added a dedication for Arya to my pre-signed copy of Once Upon a Wild Wood, so I guess that after months of asking, that's actually hers now.

I mentioned that Hanna had asked if he could do a sketch of Arya, but allowed that there probably wasn't time. He looked back along the line of about fifty people and agreed, but after signing the books he got out a piece of paper and his sketching pencil, and produced the sketch above, which is now framed and ready to go on the wall, because damn that's amazing. Seriously, he did not have to do that, and I will treasure that picture and the gesture that produced it(4).

Home

As may be judged by the length of the queue behind us, we actually did quite well and were able to get out after no more than half an hour. We headed down to the station and got a taxi, since trying to get Arya to walk back home from the station, or walk back up the hill into town to get a bus, would have been something of a calculated act of cruelty.

On the way home, Arya sat and read the start of Chapter 3 of The Guardians of Magic, which is proving a very successful bedtime read. No doubt a review will pop up in my book blog in due course (probably at the end of September.)

So, a tough night for the little one, but a good time was had and now we have a one of a kind, supercool portrait sketch of Arya and the memories to go with it.

(1) Arya kept telling me that she would make a decision on the night, quite unwilling to accept that this would be too late since we'd be in Ely with no way to get her home and me back in time for the reading.
(2) Hopefully her acro classes will help with this, as well as building some strength into her frame.
(3) Sharp observers will probably have noticed that it is in fact a visualiser, not an OHP, which would be useless for this purpose unless he was sketching on acetate.
(4) Even if he did worry her by suggesting he might blame her for holding up the line, and then anger her by shifitng the blame to me. She's so protective.