Rainbowsaurus

To celebrate 20 years as an author and illustrator Steve Antony decided to do a tour of public and school libraries going to places that spell out the name of his new book. RAINBOWSAURUS.

I applied for my primary school and luckily we were chosen.

I think it had a lot to do with the letter I appeared in both in RAINBOWSAURUS and Ipswich where we live.

The children were so excited and we decided that we needed to become Steve Antony experts before he visited us. So we read as many books as we could get our hands on. We were especially interested in how he used only a few colours in his books, and this would be something we would ask him later about.

As it got closer to the visit as the children got more excited I became more nervous. We had a record amount of book sales that I picked up from my local independent bookstore.

The day finally came, I got my junior librarians in at lunchtime to give the library a massive tidy up so it was looking its best.

When Steve arrived at 1pm he was so nice that all my nerves disappeared. We were using the main hall for the event and we couldn’t work out how to put the main hall computer on, it took 5 people to work this out, The IT technician is never around when you need him!

The children quickly settled down and Steve showed them all his books that he’d either written and illustrated or just illustrated.

Then it was time to meet the RAINBOWSAURUS.

One of his friends had made him dinosaur exactly like The RAINBOWSAURUS.

RAINBOWSAURUS

Written and illustrated by Steve Antony.

We’re following a rainbow to find the RAINBOWSAURUS.

We’re following a rainbow. Would you like to join us?

Join two dads and their three children as they set off on an adventure to find the RAINBOWSAURUS.. On their way, they meet animals that are all the colours of the rainbow who all want to find the RAINBOWSAURUS. Too.

This is a truly beautiful book, young children will especially like how there are areas for them to join in.

This book is full of colour and movement as we meet a selection of creatures and the sounds they make and, of course, the colours of the rainbow.The storyline begins with an invitation to find the RAINBOWSAURUS and so the human characters climb onto a rainbow that forms the path for their quest.  Page by page they are joined by the various creatures listed above.  The cow is the first to join the parade, and, of course, much mooing ensues, along with the text “Rainbowsaurus, where are you?”  Other animals follow, and join the list of sounds that the small reader is making and memorising, while learning the colours of a rainbow.  Turns out the RAINBOWSAURUS  is right behind them and towards the end of the search he roars a rainbow-coloured roar. .

This book is designed to be sung, so Steve taught the children how to do it. The first time we tried it we were all out of sync, but luckily our music teacher was on hand to get us all singing together. The book is a fantastic read and children are going to love the idea of singing the book. 

After the event we took some children back to the library for their books to be signed. He was extremely interested in each child and made the children feel so special.

Before he left he recorded walking around the library and we had our picture taken together, so if you can only get one author in your school please go for Steve, he’s such a great person and your children will love it.