The joy of nursery rhymes: Twinkle, twinkle little bat
Posted: November 11, 2020 Filed under: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Nursery Rhymes, Reading | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Nursery Rhymes, Reading, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read 52 Comments
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are”
Do you remember the words of this nursery rhyme? It has always been one of my favourites and the first one I remember hearing as a child. There was something about it that captured my imagination. Today, the words of this nursery rhyme are imprinted on my brain and remind me of the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio, one of my favourite childhood books.
When I was 9 years old, Alice in Wonderland was my favourite book [it still is a favourite and I have a number of different copies of it]. The words of Lewis Carroll’s adaption of Twinkle twinkle little star stayed with me and is still the version I think of first.
I had difficult babies. They were both real ‘howlers’. Gregory cried so much I gave all my baby stuff away when he was three months old and the promised reprieve from the endless crying didn’t happen. It turned out he was a ‘six-monther’. Terence had to work hard to convince me to have another baby and then Michael turned out to be a howler too. His health issues were even more challenging and he was in hospital numerous times during his first two years of life.
But, I digress … back to nursery rhymes. I used to recite nursery rhymes to my kids while I carried them around. They howled and I recited. It kept both of us sane.
Both of my sons have good vocabularies and literacy skills and both are musical. Reading up on the useful benefits of nursery rhymes for children, I think all the reciting I did may have helped enhance these skills.
The five major benefits of nursery rhymes are as follows:
They help develop language and literacy skills:
The help develop phonemic awareness – children hear the words said and learn to pronounce them. A lot of nursery rhymes include unusual and funny words and phrases.
Nursery rhymes help build word memory and articulation. They are full of rhyming words and include words and groups of sounds you don’t encounter in everyday speech.
Nursery rhymes help develop creativity in children by encouraging them to imagine the scene in their heads. Just think of this one:
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
BY EDWARD LEAR
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
II
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)
Finally, nursery rhymes teach children to listen, a very important life skill.
I am finishing off this post with a video of a recital of the poem Television by Roald Dahl. It is hilarious and epitomizes my thoughts about children and the modern trend of television and video/TV games.
About Robb,ie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in Spellbound, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Two short stories in Spirits of the West, A Wordcrafter Western Paranormal Anthology edited by Kaye Lynne Booth;
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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Chapter books versus short stories for children
Posted: October 14, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Stories | Tags: #Childrensfiction, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Short Stories, Writing to be Read 33 Comments
I was having a conversation with my sister recently. Her younger son has recently been diagnosed with dyslexia and he finds reading difficult. He is an incredibly bright young man and I believe he is frustrated by his reading barrier. I experienced this same frustration with my younger son, Michael, who has an auditory processing learning barrier.
Our conversation led to a discussion about books and the fact that her son avoids reading as much as possible. He becomes difficult and even rude in an attempt to escape the hardship of having to try to read.
I recall similar behaviour by my son, so I am deeply sympathetic. It is incredibly difficult to remain patient and kind when your child is going against you at every turn.
I gave my sister some advice based on my own experience with teaching Michael to read. I advised her to try tandem reading, which I wrote about previously here: https://writingtoberead.com/2019/02/13/alternating-reading-with-your-child/, combined with short stories and not chapter books.
Chapter books are wonderful, but they are longer and more complex, they have more characters and often include sub-plots. When a child is struggling to read due to a reading barrier, it makes their reading slower. They also have to expend a lot of energy and focus on understanding and interpreting each word. The result of this is that it is much more difficult for the child to follow the greater story as they are distracted by the word-by-word struggle. If the child can’t appreciate the story, he or she doesn’t learn to love the written word and enjoy the delights of reading. The storyline disappears in the battle to conquer each sentence.
My advice to Hayley was to chose age appropriate books which encompass a short story within each chapter and to read the story in tandem with her son with the goal of finishing one complete story every night.
I discovered that the child doesn’t have to read a huge amount to benefit. I started off with Michael reading a paragraph but even a few sentence was fine if he struggled. When he’d read a bit, I took over and finished that page and the next one. This helped the story to progress and engaged him in the plot.
He then had another turn. At the end of the story, we had achieved something great together. We had read and enjoyed a whole story. There is a great sense of accomplishment in that and Michael could remember the details of the story because I kept it moving along. He developed a love of reading.
He still likes to be read to, but at 15 years old, I am not always a fan of the books he’s interested in, so I buy him audio books. As a result, Michael enjoys and appreciates reading and books and has a good vocabulary.
Some examples of books with a story per chapter are as follows:
The Humphrey the Hamster book series by Betty G. Birney: https://www.amazon.com/Betty-G-Birney/e/B001ILME1S
The Milly-Molly-Mandy books by Joyce Lankester Brisley: https://www.amazon.com/Milly-Molly-Mandy-Storybook-Joyce-Lankester-Brisley/dp/0753474719
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers: https://www.amazon.com/P-L-Travers/e/B000APNNWW
![Mary Poppins: The Original Story (Mary Poppins series Book 1) by [P. L. Travers]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51fn80jRDYL.jpg)
About Robb,ie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in Spellbound, a forthcoming collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Two short stories in the forthcoming Spirits of the West, A Wordcrafter Western Paranormal Anthology edited by Kaye Lynne Booth;
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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The great Roald Dahl
Posted: September 9, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Reading | Tags: #Reading, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George's Marvelous Medicine, Growing Bookworms, James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl, Writing to be Read 42 Comments
September 13 is the birthday of Roald Dahl, children’s writer extraordinaire. Of course, Roald Dahl also wrote for adults and I have read and enjoyed a number of his adult stories, including my favourite, Lamb to the Slaughter.
I believe he is best known, however, for his children’s books which are filled with his unusual imagery, imagination and his wacky sense of humour. Roald Dahl is guaranteed to appeal to the most reluctant child reader and his books are a terrific way to get them engaged in a good story which will entertain you as the parent too.
My favourite Roald Dahl book is The Witches, but today, I am going to focus on Michael’s and Gregory’s favourite Roald Dahl books.
Michael’s favourite – James and the Giant Peach
James and the Giant Peach is all about a young English lad who is orphaned at an early age due to an escaped rhinoceros from the zoo eating both his parents. James is sent to live with his Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge, who are the most horrible pair imaginable and treat him very badly.
One afternoon when James has been banished from the house by his selfish and mean aunts, he meets an old man in the garden who gives him a packet of magic green wriggly things which he says will change James’ life. Unfortunately, James drops the bag and all the wriggly magical things escape into the ground under an old peach tree.
The next morning, when James wakes up, there is a peach growing on the tree. It grows and it grows and James soon becomes embroiled in an amazing adventure.
I enjoyed this book because it features a number of human sized insects: Miss Spider, Miss Ladybird, the Old-Green-Grasshopper, the Earthworm, the Glowworm, and my personal favourite, the Centipede. This book teaches youngsters all about these amazing creatures and goes a long way towards demystifying them and making them seem really interesting and appealing. This is a refreshing change from the usual disdain that insects are treated with and they use their special talents, like the ability to spin thread, to save the day.
You can purchase James and the Giant Peach here: https://www.amazon.com/James-Giant-Peach-Colour-Roald-ebook/dp/B01LOHTSAU
Gregory’s favourite – George’s Marvellous Medicine
I say this is Gregory’s favourite Roald Dahl book, but it is more accurate to say its my mother’s favourite. My mother loves this story and has listened to it many times with both Gregory and Michael.
George’s Grandma lives with his family and a more tyrannical and awful old lady you will never find in the whole of England. Grandma is set in her ways, takes nasty medication and spends her time complaining, grousing, grouching, grumbling and griping.
One day, George’s parents go out leaving him in charge of looking after Grandma, including administering her medication. George decides to make her his own medicine as the old one isn’t doing the trick. Anything he makes could only be an improvement. All sorts of amazing things go into George’s medicine and when he gives it to the old woman, it has the most marvelous and amazing impact on her.
This is a story filled with vivid imagination and fun.
You can purchase George’s Marvellous Medicine here:
https://www.amazon.com/Georges-Marvellous-Medicine-Roald-Dahl-ebook/dp/B002VISNF8
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of Roald Dahl’s most famous books for children and has been made into a movie twice. My personal favourite of the two movies is the older musical with Gene Wilder.
Here is my favourite song from this movie:
The oompa loompa violet beauregarde song
If you would like to find out more about Roald Dahl, you can do so on the official Roald Dahl website here: https://www.roalddahl.com/home/teachers
And on his fan site here: https://www.roalddahlfans.com/
Official quotes from Roald Dahl Books
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in Spellbound, a forthcoming collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Two short stories in the forthcoming Spirits of the West, A Wordcrafter Western Paranormal Anthology edited by Kaye Lynne Booth;
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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Introducing non-fiction to children
Posted: July 8, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Nonfiction | Tags: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Nonfiction, Writing to be Read 64 CommentsIn our modern world, sources of information assail us from every direction. An internet search turns up dozens, and sometimes even hundreds, of links to information on every conceivable topic. Television provides documentaries on historical events, scientific topics and numerous programmes that cover every aspect of nature. A visit to a grocery store exposes children to newspapers and magazines which share articles on a wide variety of political, social and other topics, not to mention the headlines of newspapers that glare at us from street light and other poles as we travel from home to school and other places during our day.
High school learners are provided with numerous texts and sources of additional information on each and every topic they cover in nearly all of their subjects.
The quantities of information available are huge and not all of it is factually accurate. There is a lot of inaccurate and even total fake information out there.
It is, therefore, vital for children to learn to filter text and identify the important facts and information, in other words, to summarise it. It is also important for children to know they should check information to more than one source in order to ensure it is factually accurate.
Providing children with non-fiction books is an excellent way of ensuring they get accurate and reliable information and, if you select good non-fiction books, they are also appealing and exciting for children.
Here are four tips for choosing non-fiction books:
- Books with large clear photographs are attractive to children and help them contextualize the content of the book;
- Look for books that present the facts succinctly and without becoming bogged down in to much unnecessary detail. After reading the content to or with your child, summarise the main message/s about that topic or on a particular page;
- For very young children, ensure that the content is simple and fairly repetitive with only a few new vocabulary items so as not to overwhelm them; and
- Look for books that provide additional information for adults at the back. This is helpful for expanding on a given topic with your child and answering any questions.
A few great ways of encouraging an interest in non-fiction reading by children are as follows:
- When you are doing something that provokes questions like why is the sky blue or why do bees sting, take the time to look up the answer to this question with your child and show them how to use internet sources and books to find the answers to their questions;
- Integrate non-fiction with play. I did this with my children by showing them how to read recipes when we were baking, using ideas from books when building and constructing with lego or blocks and even with marshmallows and reading to them about mountains, hills, lakes and rivers when we were playing in a sandpit or on the beach. We used sand for lots of fun activities like building forts and a pirate island. I used these opportunities to follow up with a non-fiction story about pirates and soldiers. I did the same thing when we visited any places that lent themselves to learning more about a specific topic like mining or farming; and
- Make your own non-fiction materials and demonstrate various learning points. I build a mountain out of paper mache and showed my children how water carries seeds down into the valleys, Michael and I made a sword and a roman helmet out of paper mache and learned about the Roman Empire and we made a sheep out of cardboard and cotton wool and learned how animals help to distribute seeds.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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Growing Bookworms: Teaching your child to read
Posted: June 10, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Reading | Tags: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Reading, teaching reading, Writing to be Read 58 Comments
Growing Bookworms
When my son, Gregory, was a small lad, he was eager to learn how to read as quickly as possible. He became positively frustrated because he was not able to read. Our local protocol is that children only start learning the alphabet in grade 0 (reception) and learning to read in grade 1 (the year they turn 7). Greg was only 5 when his inability to read became a problem for him.
I decided to start trying to teach Greg to read myself, after all how hard could it be … I’d been reading since I was 5 years old and I have two degrees and a great deal of determination. Well, it turned out to be a little more difficult and complex than I anticipated. We did get there in the end, but I am sure the path to success would have been easier if I have followed a few simple steps up front.
The four main steps in teaching a child to read are as follows:
- Making them aware of the written word all around them;
- Teaching your child about the different sounds – phonemic awareness;
- Teaching your child, the letters of the alphabet and the sounds related to each letter phonics;
- Demonstrating to your child how the different sounds fit together to form words.
Awareness of the written word
Pointing out word usage in your immediate environment helps your children understand the purpose of words and reading, and their usefulness in society. When I drove my children around, I always pointed out road and other signs to my boys. I also pointed out newspaper sellers who sold newspapers that people read and always took them into bookstores so they could see the books. We also had lots of books at home which I read to my sons every day, sometimes for up to two hours. I can remember taking two-year-old Greg with me to the obstetrician and my sitting and read to him for between 2 and ½ and 3 hours. Last time I visited, the receptionist still remembered my son as “the boy who sat and listened to stories for three hours.”
As a result of my efforts, my boys came to appreciate the purpose of reading and writing as an important communication tool. This led to both demonstrating a keen interest in learning how to read.
Awareness of sounds
There are lots of different ways to help your children become aware of sounds. The methods my boys and I enjoyed the most were singing nursery rhymes and songs and playing “Eye spy” in the car.
There are other fun games you can play with your child including the following:
- Making up songs and poems using different rhyming words;
- Listening games where children close their eyes and identify a sound such as crumpling paper;
- Playing with words to see if you child can identify the error, for example saying let’s stay instead of let’s play;
- Play dancing, clapping and stamping games;
- Reading rhymes and sentences that use alliteration and assonance.
Phonics
This is a method of teaching children to read by linking sounds (phonemes) and the symbols that represent them (letter groups).
You can find some great step-by-step information on teaching children phonics here: https://www.theschoolrun.com/phonics-teaching-step-by-step
There are lots of fun YouTube videos to help you teach children Phonics.
Blending sounds
Children need to be familiar with the blending of sounds to form words before they can read. One of the best ways of demonstrating the blending of sounds is by reading repetitive books and rhyming books.
My boys loved the Poppy and Sam Farmyard Tales books and the Dr Seuss books. I read these to them repeatedly until they could point out the words and say them because they had memorised the books.
You can purchase the Poppy and Sam Farmyard Tales books here: Amazon US
You can purchase the Dr Seuss books here: Amazon US
Other methods I used to familiarise my children with words and sounds were letting them listen to audio books, they loved the Roald Dahl books and listened to these repeatedly. I think I still know most of them off by heart.
Michael was a sickly boy and was off school for over 40 days per year during his first years of schooling. During these long periods of convalescence at home, he listened to a huge array of audio books including many of E Nesbit’s books including The Railway Children and Five Children and It. He also listened to all the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton and even some non-fiction books about Romans, Vikings and mythology.
My oldest son is an enthusiastic and copious reader and recently read 1984 by George Orwell. He has Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton next on his list.
Michael isn’t as fast or advanced a reader as Greg, but he still reads every day and enjoys reading. I think my efforts to instil a love of reading in them have played a bit role in their attitudes towards reading.
Did you teach your children to read? What methods did you use?
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have two short stories in the horror/supernatural genre included in Dark Visions, a collection of 34 short stories by 27 different authors and edited by award winning author, Dan Alatorre. I also have three short stories in Death Among Us, a collection of short murder mystery stories by 10 different authors and edited by Stephen Bentley. These short stories are all published under Robbie Cheadle.
I have recently published a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
***Just a note here, since Robbie is so modest. She has five stories of dark fiction coming out in anthologies during October in 2019. “The Siren Witch”, “A Death Without Honour”, and “The Path to Atonement” will appear in Dan Alatorre’s Nightmareland horror anthology, and “Missed Signs” and “The Last of the Lavender” will be featured in the WordCrafter paranormal anthology, Whispers in the Dark.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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Are there benefits to singing and rhyming verse for children?
Posted: May 13, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fairy Tales, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Parenting, Reading | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Literacy, Reading, Rhyming, Robbie Cheadle, Singing, Writing to be Read 47 CommentsGrowing Bookworms
I love nursery rhymes and children’s poetry. When my boys were younger we used to listen to children’s songs and nursery rhymes in the car wherever we went. We used to sing along and I even bought them bells and shakers so that they could join in the music making.
One of Gregory’s favourite nursery rhymes was Aiken Drum, a popular Scottish folk song and nursery rhyme. It is believed to have its origins in a Jacobite song about the Battle of Sherifmuir (1715). You can listen to a version of it here:
I find nursery rhymes very fascinating, particularly when I probe the origins of some of them. Ring a ring o’ Roses, for example, is alleged to have originated from the black plague. A rosy rash was a symptom of the plague and posies of herbs were carried by people as protection and to cover up the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a symptom once the disease had progressed and then the sick person usually died and so literally “fell down” dead.
I have often wondered, however, whether there are any specific and acknowledged benefits to be derived by small children from listening to nursery rhymes and being read to in rhyming verse. If I think of Dr Seuss books, they are all in rhyming verse and they are always punted as being a really good choice of early readers.
I decided a little bit of investigation was in order, especially, as my own books, co-authored with Michael, are written in rhyming verse. The experts listed the following benefits to singing nursery rhymes to your children and reading to them in rhyming verse:
- Children love the sound of their parents voices, so singing by a caregiver calms and sooths a small child;
- Children enjoy the changes and variation in tone that result from singing and reading in rhyming verse. This helps inspire a love of language in children, thereby naturally increasing their desire to read and write;
- Rhymes help children learn to identify the different sounds that make up a word, how to play with words, change them and pair them together which greatly aids learning how to read;
- When reading in rhyming verse, most readers tend to speak clearly and slowly. This is beneficial to children as they are able to hear the way the words are formed properly;
- Songs and rhymes have a positive impact on children’s language and literacy development;
- Children that participate in singing and telling of nursery rhymes often learn to speak more quickly;
- Rhyming teaches children about word families;
- Rhyming teaches children the patterns and structures in spoken and written language;
- Rhyming helps children learn how to spell as they realise the words that sound similar often share common letter sequences;
- The repetition of rhymes helps build memory capabilities;
- Nursery rhymes or other rhyming stories and tales help preserve your culture and create a bond between generations; children, parents and grandparents; and
- Nursery rhymes and rhyming verse help children to hear a steady beat which researchers believe results in better reading skills.
I thought this was rather an impressive list of benefits and nursery rhymes and stories told in rhyming verse are such fun. So dust off your old nursery rhyme books and grab your Dr Seuss and other rhyming verse books and get going.
Happy reading and singing!
Just as an aside, Puff the magic Dragon is one of the nicest rhyming verse story books I’ve ever read.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it interesting or entertaining, please share.
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#SirChocolatestory – Sir Chocolate and the Valentine Toffee Cupid
Posted: April 8, 2020 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fairy Tales, Fiction | Tags: Children's Stories, Growing Bookworms, Robbie Cheadle, Sir Chocolate, Writing to be Read 33 CommentsGrowing Bookworms
My sons and I have been working hard to bring some of our free Sir Chocolate stories and “How to Make” videos to children who are at home due to COVID-19. Greg and I are recording audio versions of our free stories and posting them to our new YouTube channel with a link to the free PDF download of the illustrated story. We are also creating free animated videos of our recipes and step-by-step instructions on how to make some Easter creations. The PDF instructions are also available for free as a download on my children’s books and poetry, blog https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/.
This endeavor is part of Gregory and Michael’s outreach and community service project which has been put on hold while the schools are closed. We thought this was a nice way of keeping it going. It gives them an interest as they are helping me to make the videos and maintain the YouTube channel.
Today, I am sharing a fully illustrated free Sir Chocolate story called Sir Chocolate and the Valentine Toffee Cupid.
You can find the audio reading of this book on our YouTube channel: Robbie Cheadle here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA?view_as=subscriber
Greg did the filming this time and not the reading.
You can download the free PDF illustrated book here: https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/free-story-sir-chocolate-the-the-valentine-toffee-cupid/
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it interesting or entertaining, please share.
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My experience of obtaining a balance with parental approval
Posted: March 11, 2020 Filed under: Children's Books, Growing Bookworms, Parenting, Reading | Tags: Growing Bookworms, Parenting, Reading, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read 59 CommentsGrowing Bookworms
I have two sons, both of which are quite different in their abilities and attitudes to life in general.
My oldest, Gregory, is a scholar. At the age of five he could read music and played the piano with some aptitude. At six, I taught him to read as he was frustrated by this inability and the schools in South Africa only teach reading during the year children turn seven. By the end of his second year of schooling, Greg had read all the series of books for young children I could think of, including Horrid Henry, Astrosaurs, the Little Men and Little Miss books, Secret Seven and many more.
I moved him on to other books, the Classic Starts series for children and during his third year of school, he started delving into some of the original classics. He also read all of the Shakespeare Junior Classics. The school enrolled him in a mathematics extension programme and he finished the entire additional workbook in two afternoons.
From a learning perspective, my oldest son is a dream. He works hard, perseveres and is determined to succeed. He is a lot like me. He shares my failings too. He only applies himself to things he enjoys, gets bored quickly and needs to be continuously challenged and stimulated. These character traits do not always provide for a peaceful co-existence with peers and colleagues, many of whom do not share our obsessive approach to work and areas of interest. My colleagues often ask me how I know so much about a certain topic and I will say: “It’s an interest of mine.” Greg and I are peas in a pod, we have many interests which we are very passionate about. Greg is not interested particularly in sport or socializing and does these things only when it is necessary.
My younger son, Michael, is different. Michael also likes to achieve, but his aims are tempered by a general enjoyment of life and friends and he likes to relax. He also likes to socialize and spend time with friends. School assignments are not a cause for concern until the day before they are due and, even then, they are approached in a slow and steady manner and not with panic. Michael doesn’t aim for distinctions and is very happy to achieve Bs and Cs on his progress report.
Michael is not particularly sporty, but he loves to join in with the whole “rah rah – all mates together” theme of an all-boys school and loves the war cries. He will break into a vibrant rendition of a war cry at the drop of a hat and I will be in stitches of laughter as he belts out the phrases at the top of his loud and currently breaking voice.
In summary, I am trying to bring up a complete overachiever and a happy go lucky Joe and get both through school, college and relationships.
The interesting thing for me is that both my boys have the same number of achievement certificates from their schools. Granted, Michael was at a remedial school until this year, and they do give awards for a greater variety of achievements, but Michael’s were generally in academic categories such as mathematics and Afrikaans.
With two boys as different as mine, it is not always easy to find the correct balance for encouraging and rewarding them, especially verbally. This past week, Gregory came home with 98% for his English examination and 93% for his mathematics examination. Michael came home with 60% for his Afrikaans examination and 75% for his English examination. I gave them both equal congratulations and made an equal fuss of their achievements. Other members of my social circle and family don’t always understand this approach. For me, I judge my boys’ achievements on their individual histories, attitudes and effort.
Gregory works very hard all the time. He has the intellectual ability to achieve very high marks and this, coupled with his work ethic, enable him in achieving excellent academic success. My worry for my older son is that he spends to much time working, gets to obsessed with achievement of his goals and struggles to balance other aspects of his life with work. In that way he is just like me.
Michael has a learning barrier and struggled to learn to read competently. He qualifies for a time concession for examinations and time will tell whether he need this or not. A child that struggles to read and write in his mother tongue, finds a second language extremely difficult. A remedial school focuses on the core subject of English and mathematics and the second language isn’t as much of a focal point. When we knew in 2018 that Michael would mainstream for high school, I got an Afrikaans tutor for him as I knew his abilities in that language were lacking. He has worked hard to get on top of his deficiencies.
When he started high school this year, Michael was one of the only boys, out of 150, that didn’t know anyone. He was the only boy who transitioned to his high school from his primary school. The first week was hard and he felt very tired. One the second day of school, the boys wrote an Afrikaans test to see what their level of proficiency in the language was and Michael failed. As a result, he is now attending extra lessons in this language at the school as well as at home. When he came home with a 60% result, I was ecstatic. This mark is an indication of his perseverance and resilience, and I will be delighted if he can maintain this mark for the next five years.
Obtaining his Afrikaans result on the same day as Gregory’s mathematics result made me reflect on the differences in my two sons and how I perceive their achievements. I my eyes, their achievements are equal as the input was equal.
This reflection on how we need to consider out children separately and not measure them against their siblings and peers inspired this post. Each of our children is special in their own way and each deserves to be measured against his own input and ability levels and not those of others.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it interesting or entertaining, please share.
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Growing Bookworms: Making learning the alphabet fun
Posted: January 7, 2020 Filed under: Growing Bookworms, Reading | Tags: educational games, Growing Bookworms, Reading, Robbie Cheadle, teaching reading, Writing to be Read, young readers 36 Comments
In the Southern hemisphere, January is the time of year when our children start a new school year. This year, my youngest son is starting secondary (high) school which means, new environment, new friends, new teachers – just about new everything. He is anxious about it and I keep reminding him that the groundwork for this transition to high school has been laid over many years of nursery, pre-prep and prep school and he is well equipped to deal with the changes.
Sitting with him over the past few weeks of his holiday (and mine) and ensuring he reads [and understands] his first high school English set work book and his first Afrikaans (second language) reader, I was reminded of when I taught both my boys to read when they were six years old. In South Africa, children only start reading when they are seven, but my boys were keen to read and I saw no reason why I, with two degrees and the equivalent of a masters, couldn’t teach them something so common place. Ha! It proved to be significantly harder than I expected and I take my hat off to pre-prep teachers who teach children to read so effortlessly. For me it was a slog. Of course, it didn’t help that I forgot to start by teaching Gregory the alphabet. I am not sure how I thought he would read words before he could recognise his letters, but somehow, it slipped with me. Despite my only teaching Greg the alphabet after I taught him his first two hundred sight words, he still learned to read quickly and is now an accomplished reader. I can no longer say he is a prolific reader as, at seventeen years old, he is not that keen on reading at the moment. Hopefully it will change down the line when the allure of being the same as everyone else wears off.
Anyhow, these memories led me to thinking how important knowing the alphabet and learning the sounds is for children as they travel the path towards literacy.
My boys and I had a lot of fun learning the alphabet. Michael, aged three, got to sit in on Greg’s (aged six) lessons, and Greg (aged nine) got to help Michael (aged six), when he started his reading journey. One of our favourite past times, when Greg was learning, was singing the alphabet song:
Greg, Michael and I also used our time in the car to learn the alphabet. We played a game called “I spy” and we would each chose an item that started with a certain letter and the others would have to guess what it was. This game was a lot of fun and we played it for a number of years. The boys used to ask for it when we traveled. Now they ask for audio books and we listened to an awful lot of Eva Ibbotson books when we toured Scotland in August 2019.
The third fun activity we played to learn the alphabet was to bake an item that started with a certain letter. It had to be an exact sound match so, we couldn’t for example, make gingerbread for the letter “g”. This game and tasting session was very popular and sometimes we invited friends over to join in the fun. I specifically remember making jelly cakes [have you ever heard of those – if not you will find the recipe in Sir Chocolate and the Condensed Milk River story and cookbook.
Multicoloured jelly cupcakes
The nice thing about baking with children is that it is also a wonderful opportunity to teach them maths concepts like grams and kilograms and millilitres and litres. They also learn to weigh and measure and realise the importance of being exact. I even taught mine about ounces and pints as some of my cook books use English measures.
Do you know any fun games to teach children the alphabet? Let me know in the comments.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
- Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre;
- Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley;
- Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre; and
- Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you found it interesting or entertaining, please share.
The future of education
Posted: August 12, 2020 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: AI Technology, Commentary, Education, Growing Bookworms, Opinion, Parenting | Tags: Education, Growing Bookworms, Parenting, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read | 63 CommentsIn March 2020 the world went mad. A new virus called Covid-19 started spreading rapidly among humans and by the end of that month most countries were engaged in a horrible new way of life called lock down. As with many other countries, lock-down in South Africa started with the closure of our schools.
The schools were given a minimum period of four business days to prepare for lock down and, in the case of my sons’ school, a home school programme. Fortunately, their school had seen the way the wind was blowing and had started preparing for a potential closure period earlier in the month. Even so, the teaching staff were not afforded much time to get themselves ready to go completely on-line with teaching.
On Thursday, the 18th of March my sons started on-line learning. It wasn’t badly implemented, despite the short timeline, and they had had Google classroom meetings hosted by their teachers, on-line assignments, YouTube video sessions and a lot of other help with all of their subjects.
At the end of March their school closed for the holiday and the teachers worked diligently to make improvements to the on-line programme. School reopened on the 6th of May and my boys continued with their on-line learning until the closure of the second term on Friday, 31 July. They even wrote examinations for two weeks under lock down conditions.
A few weeks ago, a good blogging friend of mine, Jim Borden, a university lecturer wrote this post https://jborden.com/2020/07/19/can-what-you-do-be-replicated-by-technology/. One of the questions he asks in this post is the replacement of teachers by Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and on-line learning likely. A most interesting question, especially in light of the current scenario where millions of children have all been testing out this theory. So what do I think after my 11 week baptism of hell with home schooling? Does it make sense to replace teachers with AI?
My answer is a resounding NO! There are some advantages to an on-line learning programme. It would be much cheaper. There would be no need of large buildings to accommodate students and all the related furniture. There would be no need for cleaners, caterers and caretakers.
It would also be easier, I wouldn’t need to sit in traffic every day taking them to and from school.
It would also be far less time consuming as there would be no distractions in the form of socialising, team sports, individual sports, debating, chess, clubs and the numerous other things that fill up a child’s school day. It has also been proven statistically that children retain more information that they learn through on-line learning than in a classroom [personally, I’m not completely convinced about the correctness of this particular statistic].
So why then don’t I believe teaching works as well on-line as in the classroom?
I believe that all children, from the youngest to the oldest in our school system, need the human interaction with a teacher and their peers in order to stay emotionally balanced and motivated. People are social animals and they find isolation very difficult. My younger son has told me repeatedly that he misses his friends and the routine of the school day.
Even my older son, who is highly motivated and diligent has found it difficult to stay focused and disciplined during the lockdown period. The lack of routines and contact with other learners and teachers makes it feel a bit purposeless, even if it isn’t.
I also believe the children learn a lot from socialising. Working and life isn’t all about output and sitting at a computer on your own all day. It is about learning to work in teams and motivate others to deliver to deadlines. It is also about brain storming and working together to problem solve. These are all life skills that you cannot learn alone in front of your computer.
I am not going to go into the benefits of sport and extra curricular activities here, but they are numerous and the lack of these past times over the past five months has been has been very trying for children, and adults too.
Of course, there are also the other more basic issues that make on-line learning difficult. Many children lack access to the technology required for on-line learning, including a reliable internet and a computer. No everyone has these, but even if they did, it would not change my view on the relevance of teachers and teaching in a physical situation.
What do you think? Do you think teachers could be replaced by AI and on-line learning programmes? Has your view on this changed over the past few months? Let me know in the comments.
I made a Covid-19 memories cake recently which caricatured the nursery rhyme, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I created a young mother with a washing basket full of clothing outside her shoe home. Her many children are all sitting, socially distanced, home schooling. They all have laptops and headsets.
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with seven published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have participated in a number of anthologies:
I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads:
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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