Have you ever let go of a helium-filled balloon and let it soar into the sky? Maybe you’ve even tied a message onto the string, with your contact details and hoped that someone would let you know where it landed when it popped. These awesome girls went a big step further than that. They sent a balloon into SPACE, with a couple of Go-Pro cameras attached, in a really cool science experiment.
Things I Would Tell My 11 Year Old Self
We asked 16 year old Poppy what advice she’d give to her 11 year old self, and this is what she told us.
Connection Infection – Poetry by Kids
News scrolling on a bright screen
Eyes scanning down a magazine
Locked up in a daydream
Obsessed by the latest Instagram post I’ve seen
I’m infected with a virus
That I can’t get out of my head
It’s got me going crazy
At least; that’s what the comments said
Hairstyles and creations
‘Urgent’ messages from relations
The latest trends and how to cook
Living life by an electronic book
I’m infected with a bug
That’s connected to my hands
That’s left me solitary
Unware of and blind to the past
We used to talk face to face
Of politics, clothes and space
But then you were replaced
By a cruel-minded interface
My alarm’s a notification
I’m dictated by cold metal parts
My day scheduled on reaching the leader boards
The social media bug has infected my heart
CURIOUS CREATURES 3 – The Naked Mole Rat
The strangest creatures are, to me,
The ones I love the best.
The slimy, ugly and the odd
Are cooler than the rest…
When I began this Curious Creatures series for Jump! Mag, I made a list of animals and insects I wanted to cover. I began with the ones I had some sort of connection with and most were animals close to home that I’d seen or heard, which intrigued and inspired me.
But rather impatiently, I’m now going to go a bit further afield and invite you to join me in the strange and extra-extraordinary world of “Curiouser and Curiouser”*Creature number 3…
Falconry and the Tudors
When you write a book that is set in a particular period of history, it is important to get the details correct. This means that writers of historical fiction have to do a lot of research.
The first scene of Katharine Edgar’s novel, Five Wounds takes place on a hillside in sixteenth century England, where her heroine, Nan, is hoping to see her young merlin falcon make its first kill. Katharine had find out all about falconry and the Tudors – the keeping and training of falcons, and other birds of prey.
When I showed the first scene of Five Wounds to some writing friends, some of them asked a question I wasn’t expecting. ‘How rich is Nan’s family? They live in a big house so why does she need to hunt for food?’
Good question!




