I wrote some weeks ago about my eldest daughter having her lost purse returned to her because of the brilliant people at PDSA Pet Protectors who gave the station staff our contact details.  Well, she is going to be featured in their June magazine (although based on the photo it does like it should be a ‘woe is me’ newspaper feature!)

 

I exchanged emails with the lovely lady at PDSA who sorted the purse out – and showed her my blog post – and she asked if I would be happy to blog about their children’s writing competition – and how could I refuse?!

Firstly some background on PDSA:

“At PDSA we believe that every pet deserves a happy and healthy life. We strive to improve pet welfare through preventive care, emergency treatment and education work. We provide charitable vet care across the UK through our 51 Pet Hospitals and 380 Pet Practices, and we help around 470,000 pets every single year. For more information visit www.pdsa.org.uk“

And now their competition:

“To celebrate World Book Day’s 20^th anniversary on 2 March we have teamed up with award-winning children’s writer Hilary Robinson to launch our annual writing competition.

The competition is open to budding young writers, aged 16 or under, and this year’s theme is Animal Heroes. To help this year’s entrants, Hilary has started the story of Buddy: a pet who comes to live with twins Jess and James when their grandma moves into a care home. It’s now up to the young writers to complete the story – more details can be found at www.petprotectors.org.uk/writing.  

The winner – judged by Hilary – will receive an Amazon Kindle, a signed set of Hilary’s books, and a VIP tour with Hilary at a PDSA Pet Hospital. Three runners-up will each win a signed copy of Hilary’s latest book Flo of the Somme and a special PDSA Pet Protectors goodie bag.

Entries should be around 1,000 words and can be emailed to petprotectors@pdsa.org.uk or posted to: Young Writers Competition, PDSA Head Office, Whitechapel Way, Priorslee, Telford, Shropshire, TF2 9PQ. The closing date is 26 May 2017 and entrants should give their full name, date of birth, email address, plus their membership number if they are already a Pet Protector (our kids club).”

And for those of you not familiar with Hilary – or World Book Day (bane of the life of parents everywhere who have to send their children into school as characters from their favourite book!!) :

“Hilary, who is an author, radio producer, broadcaster and feature writer, has written over 50 books for children and is perhaps best known for Mixed Up Fairytales as well as her WWI picture book series, created with War Horse illustrator Martin Impey.  For more information on Hilary Robinson, visit www.hilaryrobinson.co.uk.

World Book Day is designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of and is observed in over 100 countries. It is the biggest celebration of its kind and helps to encourage millions of children to explore the pleasure of books and reading. For more information visit www.worldbookday“

I thought it might be a nice thing for kids to do over the Easter holidays – particularly if the weather is pants – and the deadline isn’t until near the end of May, so still plenty of time to get writing!

Now to persuade my 4 under 16s that they want to enter…….

Good luck kids!