Reading Champion: Boots in the Mud

Penny Dolan is a children's writer and storyteller living in North Yorkshire. She is a popular speaker with both infant and junior children, and has visited many School Book Weeks and literacy events across the UK, with her enjoyable 'Author Talks' and lively story-telling sessions. She has also spoken and performed in libraries, bookshops, museums, art galleries, historic sites and outdoor locations, and has appeared on the children's programme of several literature festivals. She has a wide interest in children's books and has been Chair of the Federation of Children's Book Groups. Penny has a wide experience of schools. She was a primary advisory teacher for English and Drama but has been a freelance language arts worker for several years. She has also taught on residential writing courses for children, tutored both storytelling and writing courses for adults, and spoken at conferences. Penny has a degree in Education, specialising in Language and Literacy and an Advanced Diploma in Educational Drama. As well as working on her writing, Penny enjoys drawing, painting, reading, chatting and daydreaming. Her favourite colour is yellow. Her favourite food is strawberries-and-cream, and she is probably the world's slowest swimmer. She has three untidy desks, two grown-up children and one rather bad cat. Morena Forza was born in 1984. She lives in Milan with her two cats and a hound dog but she secretly dreams about moving to the countryside, in the moor. She really loves colours but all of her pets are in greyscale. She works as an illustrator specialising in the children's market, with her work appearing in trade, picture books and educational books, magazines, greeting cards, apps and digital media. Morena worked as a pixel artist between 2003 and 2008, so she learned to love the tiniest details in her drawings. She left in 2009 to pursue illustrating full time and she hasn't stopped drawing since. Favourite jobs: greeting cards, apps and picture books. Worst nightmare: working as a visualiser.