Bookshop Day Competition - and the winner is....

Thank you to everyone who took part in our Independent Bookshop Day Competition recently. The challenge was to look at this picture of Sally Jones and tell us what they thought she would type on her freshly oiled typewriter.

The postcard shows Sally Jones from 'The Murderer's Ape' by Jakob Wegelius published by Pushkin Press- now one of our all time favourite books here at Ottie and the Bea. However, we were clear to stress that no knowledge was needed of the book and that people were just to look at the picture and be inspired!

We opened up our shop post box yesterday to reveal all the entries- we were lucky enough to be able to ask author/ illustrator Francesca Sanna to help us select a winner. Francesca had popped in to sign copies of her two fabulous picture books 'The Journey' and 'Me and My Fear' published by Flying Eye Books. Having thoroughly enjoyed reading all the entries we did eventually come to a unanimous decision.

And the winner is Mia's aged 8 and here is her entry:

"Dear Aunt Marjorie, Pear Tree Farm, Please send pears ASAP and make sure they're ripe" from Sally

And here's the back story that made us all giggle:

Once there was a monkey called Sally, now Sally was a very odd monkey because she hated bananas. She thought they were right old sloppy, disgusting, yellow pieces of stuff! Sooooo...she decided to eat pears. Although, the only pears she had were brown and old. This was because she lived at sea and couldn't get anything fresh. So, she wrote to her aunt.

Congratulations Mia you had us all laughing. And I'll make sure we pop a fresh pear in your bag of books.

x