Exciting Bookaboo giveaway!

To celebrate the Bookaboo Shifty McGifty & Slippery Sam episode airing on 27th December on ITV1 and CITV how about a little competition!

The cheeky robber dogs will have trouble sleeping TWO NIGHTS now as firstly they are overly excited about Christmas Day - they are hoping to get some lovely presents from their friends and neighbours (Sam is keeping his paws crossed for the new Mary Berry autobiography) and then they are MOST excited about their story being read by Coronation Streets very own Steve McDonald (played by Simon Gregson) at 6.50am on the morning of the 27th!  Here is Simon reading the book to Bookaboo - CUTE!

To celebrate this we are giving away an exclusive tote bag, a signed, dedicated hardback and a one-off sketch of Shifty & Sam with Bookaboo himself!

To enter the competition all you have to do is email steve@2dscrumptious.com with your funniest Christmas joke - the funniest one will win all three prizes, with one runner-up winning a tote bag - good luck - we look forward to hearing your hilarious festive gags!

We will be choosing the lucky winner on Christmas Eve and the winner will be announced shortly after the show is aired on the 27th.

The programme will be available to watch on ITV player after the show and is also repeated on the 29th December at 7.25am.

For more news on Bookaboo make sure you follow him on Twitter @bookaboolucy !

How to make Shifty & Sam Christmas Decorations!

Fancy making cheekily charming Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam Christmas Decorations to hang on your Christmas Tree?  Why not!  Here is what the finished Shifty looks like;

And here is little Sam;

Here are both of them just you know, hanging around!

And here are the A4 printouts to set you on your way-hey!

Print onto a thin card if you can for the best result :)

I'd love to see some photos of your festive Shifty's on our Twitter feed @2dscrumptious

Shifty & Sam at the Oxfordshire Bake Off!

The cheeky robber dogs and I have had a wonderful few weeks meeting lots of children, parents, teachers and students at various events - we are just going through all our snaps now and are about to blog some of the events, starting with...

The Oxfordshire Bake Off!  Here the boys and I read our story to lots of children, drew lots of Slippery Sam's, made some spiders (just like the one hidden on every page of the book!) and signed lots of books - all for two wonderful charities.

Here are the parts of the spiders all waiting to be stuck together to make a spoooooky spider!

The children drew some terrific Slippery Sams and Spiders.  Spiders are super easy to draw and act as a great 'warm up drawing' to loosen up their drawing skills and imaginations!

Shifty and Sam on Tour!

We have been on a little whirlwind tour of schools and events over the past few months meeting children from near and far, telling them our tale of the two robber dogs!

Here is a little run down of some of the places we have been...

We recently visited Hornsey Library in Crouch End where we helped to launch this years Summer Reading Challenge which is a great initiative that encourages children to keep reading over the summer holidays whilst collecting smelly stickers, keyrings and gold medals!  

We are so proud that our book has been chosen as one of the books for this years challenge - the overall theme this year is 'Creeeeeeeepy Hoooooooouse', so Shifty and Sam's creeping and sneaking around fits in well!

For more information check out the official site HERE.

Our travels have also taken us to Coventry where we took part in the Coventry Literature Festival and did some great spider designing!  We met some lovely teachers and thats Steven the illustrator folding his arms next to illustration whizz Alex T Smith who was our chaperone for the day.

We had a wonderful day visiting lots of schools in the Chelmsford area and completed our tour with an evening at the beautiful 'Just Imagine' bookshop where Steven did a talk about his illustration and animation career for the Just Imagine Illustration Group.  Here they are with the lovely Nikki Gamble who created both the shop and all its events.

Shifty and Sam even came along on holiday to Florida! Here they are with Steven and his dad in front of  Cinderella's Castle.  It was a bit hot for them but they LOVED all the rides - especially It's A Small World - they couldn't stop humming the tune!

Shifty & Sam are The Times Newspapers Children's Book of the Week!

Well, Shifty and Sam were just about to tuck into their breakfast bones on Saturday morning when they spotted a very exciting indeed review in The Times - here is what they saw;

We all whooped with joy and spilled tea EVERYWHERE after we read the review - then celebrated with lots of cream cakes, pop and the Eurovision song contest - so glad we didn't get a 'nil points' from the Times judge!

There have been a number of lovely reviews since the publication of the book, here are some others;

Many thanks to the Bookbag who said 'It is difficult balancing act for an author to create a book that has both a well metered rhyme and a truly engaging story. Tracey Corderoy has managed both very well written book that is as educational as it is entertaining. The excellent illustrations are, if you will pardon another pun, the icing on the cake.'  

Click HERE for the full review!

The wonderful Book Sniffer said 'Now I think a good rhyming text is hard to come by but this chucklesome read scans perfectly, and on top of that, Tracey's fabulous text is brought charmingly to life by talented new illustrator Steven Lenton who presents us with the perfect, comical, canine duo. 

Click HERE for the full review!

And thanks to to Sarah Talbot who reviewed Shifty and Sam on her Sezzy Penguin book blog; 'I really adore this book! It's such a happy and fun tale and the illustrations are superb! The characters are so expressive (look, there's even an angry penguin!), the colours are bright and the cakes look delicious!

Click HERE for the full review!

And also thank you to Parents in Touch who said about Shifty '“A new book from Tracey Corderoy is always a treat! … The flowing rhyming text is beautifully complemented by Steven Lenton’s gorgeous illustrations (spot the spider on every page!), with a lovely range of friendly dogs. A very funny story with a moral, which is a delight to read aloud.”

Click HERE for the full review!

There have been some lovely reviews on both Waterstones and Amazon too - we are all thrilled that our cheeky tale of robber dogs turning from crime to cream cakes is being enjoyed by so many!

Shifty & Sam Activity Sheet 4!

Let your imagination go wild with today's activity sheet shenanigans!

Shifty & Sam Activity Sheet 3!

What better way to start the week than with some cake colouring!