Follow the Yellow

June highlights

CS_yayJune has been such a brilliant month! So much has happened in the last few weeks that I felt the need to celebrate by summing up some of the highlights from The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow’s publication month.

IMG_4201Clockwork Sparrow appeared in Waterstones up and down the land as Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month – with incredible bookshop displays from Doncaster to Piccadilly.

Hats a-go-go with Melissa, Katie and Louise at the Clockwork Sparrow launch

Hats a-go-go with Melissa, Katie and Louise at the Clockwork Sparrow launch

We celebrated Clockwork Sparrow with a launch party at Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street. What a brilliant evening – there were books, there were cakes, there were hats aplenty!

I did my first author book signings at shops including Waterstones Piccadilly, Waterstones High Street Kensington and Hatchards.

Signed lots of books yesterday! Waterstones Piccadilly and Hatchards both have signed copies of #ClockworkSparrow! Photo courtesy of @llmonts

A photo posted by Katherine Woodfine (@followtheyellow) on

I also took on the challenge of doing my first ever school events – including visiting my own old primary school – with fantastic Lancashire indies Storytellers Inc and Ebb & Flo.

Super happy to be back at Abbey Village School!

Super happy to be back at Abbey Village School!

I was lucky enough to have the chance to be part of Storytellers Inc’s first festival, A Midsummer Mystery, with four other fabulous Mystery Girls!

The Mystery Girls!

The Mystery Girls!

Bloggers got involved with the Clockwork Sparrow video blog tour – and I was interviewed about the book by blogger LaChouett. Clockwork Sparrow also got lots of lovely reviews both online and in print – even popping up in the Sunday Times’s recommended holiday reads for children! Look at this spectacular full page advert for Clockwork Sparrow in The Telegraph!

Today’s Telegraph! A photo posted by Katherine Woodfine (@followtheyellow) on

The excellent We Love This Book picked Clockwork Sparrow as one of their June favourites:


Elsewhere, I wrote about how Nancy Drew influenced Clockwork Sparrow for the Guardian and about how I Capture the Castle (and bluebell scent) helped to inspire Sinclair’s Department Store for Waterstones.com

As well as all the Clockwork Sparrow excitement, a new Children’s Laureate was announced – the brilliant Chris Riddell!

Big congratulations to @chris_riddell our amazing new #ChildrensLaureate! Many adventures lie ahead…

A photo posted by Katherine Woodfine (@followtheyellow) on

chrisriddelldoodler-amended Here’s Chris’s amazing picture of The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow’s Sophie!

BEST THING EVER #Repost from @chris_riddell — Miss. Sophie Taylor from The Clockwork Sparrow. A photo posted by Katherine Woodfine (@followtheyellow) on

I had a great time celebrating lots of other brilliant new summer books – including a super fun festival-style bash on the Southbank to celebrate Non Pratt’s brilliant Remix, and a secret Black Cat and Whisky Ball for Moira Fowley-Doyle’s The Accident Season, complete with masks and angel wings. I also headed along to the YA Speakeasy to hear the likes of James Smythe and Laura Dockrill read from their fab new YA books.

my_collage_by_Fuzel(1)

And I was over the moon to be chosen as one of The Bookseller’s Rising Stars 2015, alongside my fantastic agent Louise Lamont, and lots of other brilliant book industry folk.

Finally, we finished it all up with a cracking celebration of children’s book illustration on this month’s Down the Rabbit Hole show.

June, you were superb!

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