Lari’s Writing blog

heron cover

How to make an author happy?  I don’t think there’s ANYTHING quite like seeing a new book (a new book which I’ve written!) for the very first time.  No book ever seems entirely real until I’m holding it, in its proper cover, with the pictures all shiny and bright.  

And I now have my own copy of How to Make a Heron Happy.  And it’s making me very happy!  It’s the shortest book I’ve written, with the simplest story (no minotaurs, no sea monsters, no slightly untrustworthy tall boys) but I LOVE the pictures of the heron (by illustrator Nicola O’Byrne), and I hope that anyone else who loves herons, or their local park, or cares about making animals and birds happy, will enjoy it too. 

Here’s the book (at the top of the post, I hope, I’m still struggling to get photos on the blog, so I hope you can see it!)  I took the photo just after the book arrived in the post, but not before I’d given it a cuddle.  Yes.  I do cuddle my books.  So, there you are: how to make an author happy?  Give them the very first copy of their new book!

(How to Make a Heron Happy comes out next week, and if you want to see me read from the book and tell a few connected stories, then check out my diary page.  And if you want to read some very silly heron jokes on my publisher’s website – here they are (thanks to Chani!) (There are big Bottom Hunt jokes there somewhere too!)