Abbie Lawrence runs interactive music and drama sessions for younger children in Norfolk. Here, the mum-of-three explains how writing a little poem called ‘The Loddon Dragon’ is taking on a life of its own
I have a degree in Drama and Education from Cambridge University, but moved from Sussex to Norwich two years ago. My parents-in-law and my brother’s family have moved to Norfolk over the last six years. We fell in love with the area over multiple visits to see family and think that Norfolk has so much to offer and so much potential.
I had the idea for The Loddon Dragon after a tour operator on a Broads’ cruise mentioned an old legend about a dragon in Loddon – where I was volunteering in the library at the time. I looked up the story on the internet but couldn’t find it, so I decided to set about writing something myself. My intention was to use the poem as a resource for an interactive story for children in my groups.
I decided to see if I could purchase an illustration to use with the resource, so emailed a few illustrators that I found online. Kat Solkova at Fox and Brushes responded saying she would like to have a meeting to discuss the project. When we met, she told me how much she loved the poem and gave me an idea about how to extend the writing. She wanted to take the poem on as her main project.
In the last few months, we have been gently letting the dragon out of the bag (as it were). I have had read throughs with library staff and this has led to links with the National Literacy Trust. I have facilitated three interactive story workshops in school and the children responded brilliantly to the tale! I also asked the children to give me some new ideas for the poem and they came up with some wonderful contributions. I also have around four events at the library and in pre-school settings in the pipeline to showcase the poem and see people’s response to it.
Our ultimate hope is to turn this poem into a beautiful book that will be special to the little town of Loddon, and more broadly will add a touch of magic to children visiting the library. Kat and I believe that the library service in the UK is incredibly important and we wanted to celebrate that with this little story.
Follow Kat Sokolova (@fox_and_brushes) on Instagram and Interactive Norwich on Facebook. Also, email interactivenorwich@yahoo.com.
Featured images – supplied
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