NORTHERN HIGHLIGHTS Jenny Bloomfield    Where do you live, and how would you sum up the place in three words?   Leeds - Urban, Dales, Evolving   What is special to you about creating children's books, and what is your favourite part of the process?  Children's books are mini-works of art and a favourite book will be looked at hundreds and hundreds of times - not many books get this much attention from their audience! I am always drawing (I've drawn every day since 1st September 2014 - you can see every single day on my instagram @Jennybloomfield ) so I love being able to transfer my sketchbook observations and ideas to a living breathing story. For instance,  The Worry Jar , has some scenes at a swimming pool and I was able to go back to all the drawing I did sitting on the side of the pool while my kids were having lessons.   Jenny's sketches by the pool The Worry Jar, Oxford University Press, 2022.       Tell us about your upcomin...

 Celebrating two years of CBN - Summer Social, Leeds On Thursday 30th June, Children's Books North finally managed only our second ever in-person social event (due to Covid) since our launch in February 2020.  Since that first launch our membership has grown from 60 to over 350, with more than 50,000 blog views and nearly 6,000 followers across our social media. It was a genuine joy to be able to celebrate more than two years of supporting and promoting our members' work, and championing regional diversity in children's publishing with everyone. In those two years we have been joined by the CBN Committee - Tom Ashton-Booth, Maria Rifiuti and Shaniah Shields - who contribute a huge amount to the day-to-day running of the network and were able to meet many of our members for the first time. Maria, Emma, Tilda, Tom, Shaniah We are now into our second year of the CBN mentor scheme for aspiring publishing professionals which aims to support mentees from the North of England an...