Children's author makes special visit to Chorley school to mark 10 years of her first book

The Chorley school has a special affinity with Gill as it’s her third visit to Holy Cross to talk to pupils and encourage their love of reading and writing.

It’s the 10th anniversary of her first book ‘Sky Hawk’ and Gill, an animal enthusiast and former vet, was also talking about her other animal-themed books including ‘A Street Dog named Pup.’

“I love coming here, it’s a fantastic school,” said Gill. “I am always so impressed with the knowledge the pupils here have of my books, they are all so eager to ask questions.

“What particularly impresses me about Holy Cross is their library. It’s so important to have a library in school for literacy and you can see it’s well used for people to come and read a book.

“Having such a library encourages a good ethos of books and reading and that will set the pupils up for life.”

The day for Year 7s was based around Sky Hawk, a book they all read in the summer, and they had to design their own Sky Hawk cover which Gill judged and presented prizes while at school, with the winner Mollie Coupe.

Mollie said: “I really enjoyed reading Sky Hawk, I liked the story.”

Gill held a question and answer session in the hall where pupils were eager to find out such facts as how long it takes Gill to write a book, her favourite author and what inspired her to write her books.

Gill then led a series of workshops in some classrooms.

“These are just to get pupils thinking about ideas, it’s not about grammar or spelling, but about being creative,” she said.

There were also ‘Sky Hawk’ themed Food Technology lessons where pupils were making bird nest cakes and pupils got to colour a bird shape in art.

Lead teacher in English Lauren Phillips said: “It’s amazing to have Gill here. It’s so exciting, the pupils are so engaged and hopefully it will inspire some of them to write a book.”