Alison McLennan is a Brisbane-based children’s author, voiceover artist, performer and proud mother of two teenagers and two fur babies.
Her picture books include Hotel For Bees, published by the State Library of Queensland in 2020 as part of their Stories For Little Queenslanders series, Growing Pains published by EK Books in 2021, and Great and Small, published by Storytorch Press in 2022. Her fourth picture book, Birdie Lights Up The World, will come out in 2023.
talks and workshops
Alison enjoys giving author talks about her journey to becoming a published author, telling kids the secrets to a good story, where she gets her ideas from, and chatting about the themes in her books, including kindness, curiosity, empathy, courage, persistence, inclusivity, diversity and celebrating everyone’s unique abilities.
She also loves to get kids up singing and dancing, and uses costumes, puppets and fun interactive moments to keep children engaged. Alison is happy to tailor her author talks and workshops to fit in with the part of the curriculum teachers are currently focused on. She can run writing workshops, or themed story time workshops around care of the environment, curiosity and science, or kindness/empathy inclusion, and more.
Literary Festival and School Visit Author Talks
30 min, 45 min and 1 hour talks
In these engaging, informative and interactive author talks, Alison will share where her love of reading came from, how she became a published author, and interesting behind-the-scenes details of bringing picture books to life with publishers and illustrators. She will get kids thinking about the themes in her books and entertain with stories, singing, puppets and costumes.
Climb the Story Mountain – Writing Workshop
1 hour to half-day workshops. Suitable for Grade 2 and above.
Learn the secret formula to the perfect story, from an attention-grabbing beginning to a satisfying ending and everything in between. This secret story magic can be applied to picture books, novels, short stories and play scripts.
All About Picture Books – Combination of Writing Workshop and Author Talk
1 hour to half-day workshops. Suitable for Grade 2 and above.
Learn all about the art form that is a picture book – story structure, art and words working together, leaving room for the illustrator, the power of 3, word length, character, strong starts, where ideas come from, the different types of picture books, language choices, editing and more.
Sing-along Story Time with Ally the Story Bee
30 mins to 1-hour sessions. Suitable for smaller groups in libraries, bookstores and kindies, and for kids aged 3-7.
Join Ally the Story Bee for picture book stories, singing, dancing, puppets, colouring and craft.
Curiosity Detectives Workshop
1 hour workshops. Suitable for single classes: prep, 1 and 2.
Go behind the scenes of the making of Growing Pains and Hotel For Bees – discover how the illustrator created the amazing upcycled collage illustrations in Growing Pains with recycled materials; see a real bee hotel and learn about why they’re built; learn about Queensland’s native bees and why bees are so important; learn about the differences between hive bees and solitary bees; recycled craft and bee hotel extension; book readings; chat about how curiosity can lead to experimentation; also covers science; and empathy and kindness.
Great and Small Unicorn Workshop
1 hour workshops. Suitable for single classes: prep, 1 and 2.
Where did the idea for Great and Small come from and how did it turn into a story about sport, inclusion and diversity? What is different and the same between the Olympic Games and the Paralympics? Activities include: ‘What is your dream?’ colouring activity; ‘Big and Small’ sorting activity; book reading; interactive mini Great and Small Games event; chat about inclusion and diversity and what that means in the playground, as well as celebrating our unique abilities.