Guy Bass and the Elf Agents at work:more photos from the weekend are here

After the snow, all the team were eager to be back at the Ark and raring to go for last week's workshops. We had some fantastic school groups in to StoryLab, and Fiona and I really enjoyed facilitating their story-making. In turn, they were impressed by storyteller Niall de Búrca's energy and were fired up for making their own stories.

At the weekend's events, first up was Marcus Sedgwick who talked about his Raven Mysteries series and got some children from the audience to bring a scene to life! He also read an extract from the upcoming book in the series, due out in 2011: and let's just say that rabbits are involved. Lots of rabbits. He also spoke about why his notebook is often damp, why he doesn't think a pet octopus is a good idea (don't even think about it...), and why you should never, ever invite him for a seafood dinner.

Guy Bass joined us at 4pm to discuss his book Secret Santa: not the kind of Santa you're used to! This Santa is the best that secret agency X.M.A.S. has, but Guy also chose two Elf Agents from the audience to help decode the name of Secret Santa's arch enemy. Fortunately Agents Fun & Games and Turkey & Stuffing managed the task after a little help from the audience.

On Sunday we kicked off in a full Reading Room with John Boyne reading from his new book, Noah Barleywater Runs Away. Generous with answering questions, he was always careful to never give too much away, ensuring that many young readers headed downstairs to pick up the book from Bob at the mobile Gutter Bookshop. There were also many questions about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, both book and film, showing the continued pull this story has on children and adults alike.

Illustrator and author Ian Beck then wrapped up with a presentation on his Tom Trueheart series: Tom is the youngest of a family whose job it is to star in fairytales and legends; however things don't always go to plan, and Tom finds himself in the wrong stories, and having to rescue his older brothers more often than not. Ian also discussed the fun of illustrations and how much they can add to a story; Elton John's favourite nickname; and why you should never listen to people who tell you that making a living through art is impossible: an inspiring end to the weekend!

Join us this weekend in the Reading Room, the last weekend of StorySpark!

Saturday 18 Dec Mad And (A Little Bit) Bad Stories
4pm (6-9 Yrs) OISÍN MCGANN & JOE O’BRIEN

Sunday 19 Dec Furry, Friendly And Fun Stories
2pm (4-7 Yrs) NIAMH SHARKEY
4pm (5-7 Yrs) SARAH WEBB, BRIANÓG BRADY DAWSON & GILLIAN PERDUE

And join us in StoryLab to help us get to 200 stories for the Dublin City Archives! Stories from young and old welcome!

Storyteller Pat Ryan with an eager listener at Temple St. Hospital

Although one of this week's themes was "Once upon a time Adventures" we think that "Operation Arctic Adventure" would have been more appropriate. With this week's snow, and many schools closed or unable to get to StorySpark in the Ark, StorySpark had to go to them!

Storyteller Pat Ryan was a trouper, eager to go wherever there were children wanting stories. He and I ventured out to Scoil Iosagáin on Wednesday where his stories and riddles were a great hit: some of the boys even taught him some new ones. Meanwhile, storyteller Clare Murphy was on the case in St. Audoen's NS and collected more original stories for our audio archive.

On Thursday, Clare was snowed in, so Pat and I made the short walk across town to Temple St. Children's Hospital, where we had a lovely welcome from the children, parents, play therapists and medical staff. It was great to have such enthusiastic listeners for the stories; hopefully the children will be creating their own with the materials we left.

Yesterday we DARTed out to St. Anne's in Shankill where, to our surprise, most of the school population were story-ready. Pat told stories for the whole school in two sessions, while storyteller Fiona Dowling and I did workshops with 6^th and 2^nd Class. We managed a few more stories for our audio archive, including one from the whole 2^nd class together, bringing our audio story total up to 103!

As you know, this weekend's events are cancelled, but Niall de Burca will be in next week, ably assisted by myself, Clare, and Fiona in StoryLab.

- Caoileann Appleby