Internationally renowned author and illustrator Jill Newton treated 60 children at Minehead Middle School to her writing and illustration workshops last Tuesday.

The school, which places high priority on the acquisition of reading skills, holds a ‘Yearly Scrapbook’ book review challenge for every class.

Children write book reviews and letters to authors in their class scrapbooks and add illustrations, plus other things. This year, two classes topped all the other entries.

Jill’s latest book, ‘Around the World in Eighty Horses’, a factual record of horses through time and across the world, captivated the children.

And they were fascinated when she explained where her inspirations for ‘Bored Claude’ and ‘Crash Bang Donkey’, as well as her other book characters, came from.

Jill then helped the children in progressing their own story ideas, as well as demonstrating to them how to develop a story through illustration.