I have to say we have never met a Samurai before… not even a Young Samurai!!!
Last Friday we headed for the city and “the dreary library that had no kids section” when I was a child has totally changed!!! There is now a seriously amazing children’s library right in our city centre, right around the corner from the father person’s work and Charly’s Bakery!!! Anyway the reason for our adventure was to meet Chris Bradford… the author of the Young Samurai Series. He read to us from his books… All the while brandishing his bokken, which is a wooden samurai sword…
His youthful audience was either totally unconcerned or out of breath!! Then he went on to the real sword… And this was not your typical visit to a library… there was a lot of leaping about and demonstrating the ins and outs of samurai moves…
There were kids there that didn’t even blink!!!
How to react to an attacker, or two or three…
Or many…
Then he went on to explain the details of a Samurai sword, a work of art with incredible powers… the reason for the grooves and the flick of the wrist in a fight…
He used members of the audience to demonstrate his prowess… I have to say I was quite relieved that my kids didn’t make it onto the floor for that…
And then he brought out his new book BodyGaurd, The Hostage:
My older three kids loved this book, we reviewed it last week:
A new series, with a heroic young bodyguard that has been set the task of protecting the President’s daughter… He called for “the President’s daughter from the crowd… Oh dear…
He whipped out a water pistol and she fell to the floor screaming…
What a good actress he claimed – there was no acting involved, and se7en siblings were hysterically laughing at their dramatic sister!!! The BodyGuard did not pause for breathe… he read on…
He went on to do some Samurai training…
And he answered dozens of questions…
He signed a heap of books…
Even ours!!!
He posed for dozens of photographs…
And even turned my unruly gang into potential samurai – just for a moment!!!
A very fun outing, if you ever get a chance to see Chris Bradford in action… then grab it. Your Young Samurai will thank you!!!
Thank you to Penguin Books South Africa for bringing Chris Bradford to Cape Town on tour, and The Book Lounge and Central Library for hosting the event.
Hi!
Very glad you and your family enjoyed Chris Bradford’s visit to Central Library 🙂
Your blog is a wonderful rendition of the programme! We’ve shared it on our Facebook page. Look for Central Library, Cape Town on FaceBook.
Thank you Central Library, Thank you so much for stopping by!!! What a great event… And what a great library, well worth traveling into the city for it!!! We will definitely be visiting you more often… no more waiting for their dad to finish at the office – he is going to be waiting for us to be finished at the library instead!!! Hope you have a great weekend!!!