Sharing a Shell

Product Information

Make a video to retell the story. Can you include pictures, narration, music and sound effects? Watch this example for inspiration: The above video may be from a third-party source. We accept no responsibility for any videos from third-party sources. Please let us know if the video is no longer working.

Choose one of the animals in the story and find out about it. Can you write a report about where it lives, what it eats, how it might defend itself etc.?

More in Offers

I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. The book explores friendships and relationships, of how the characters can co-operate with each other to make a lovely place to live even though they are not the same species. This can be expanded upon to explore the different communities children live in and how/if they work to make a nice environment to live in. Sharing a Shell also highlights the importance of each character, as without each other they are lonely and the shell will be dirty, at risk and unable to move around. Children can then expand on this to see what jobs there are within the UK and the World over and how they assist the people who live there. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.

Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers. Look at the use of punctuation in the story. When have full stops, commas, questions marks, exclamation marks (etc.) been used and why? I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). Retell the story in the form of a playscript, adding speech and stage directions where appropriate.

More in Books

Sharing a Shell is a delightful rhyming book with vibrant glittery illustrations to capture the attention of little eyes and ears. This story highlights the important role that sharing plays in building lasting friendships. The characters work well in a team, each doing their own job to keep their little worlds running smoothly. This story could be a great springboard to a discussion around using our individual strengths to cooperate with one another in a team. Sharing a Shell is a lovely story about a hermit crab who when he finds a nice new shell decides he doesn't want to share it with his friends but soon discovers it is a lot easier when you're friends are there to help you. Look on a map and find the location of your nearest beach. How would you get there? How long would the journey take? My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.