This half term, we were invited to a fun-filled morning at Emirates book launch of the Monkey on a Plane! with award winning children’s author and illustrator duo, Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre at Emirates Aviation Experience. This event was to introduce us to the Emirates programme which encourages families to get together and create stories around their own travel adventures!
This Monkey on a Plane! book will be given to children on some of the Emirates flights. If you wish to read about this exciting book, then pop over to Emirates Flight Time Stories and download the PDF file.
At the event, Philip Reeve read us the book which was inspired by Maddison Penney who submitted her story for the Emirates Flight Time Stories programme.
Philip and Sarah took inspiration from a story written by Maddison Penney, aged four from Dorset, who last year won the opportunity for her idea to be created into a book. Monkey on a Plane! tells the story of intrepid explorer Enrico the monkey who is bored of living in the forest with his cheeky brothers and sisters, so packs a suitcase to board a plane and embark on a great adventure.
Commenting on the book, Maddison Penney’s mother said: “Maddison is absolutely besotted to see her ideas with such amazing illustrations and for the book to be written and designed by such talented people! Maddison loves reading stories and has such an amazing imagination, so to see those ideas being turned into such a magical story is a dream come true. Since Maddison won the competition it has inspired her to continue writing, and I really hope the book inspires other children to do the same.”
Then, Sarah McIntyre showed us the step-by-step on how to draw Enrico, the main character of the book. All the children enjoyed learning how to draw Enrico and even some of the adults joined in too. This is my husband drawing his own version of Enrico.
If you want to learn how to draw him, then watch this video to learn for yourself! Maybe you could even inspire your children to draw him too!
Of course, the fun doesn’t end here. Sarah and Philip prompted the children with ideas to draw a location and characters for their storyboard. Slowly, they pieced them together to create a storyboard.
Later, we got our books signed and both children had their caricatures drawn by Sarah! Don’t the drawings look amazing!
Then, we were off for a private complimentary ride on the Emirates Air Line. It rained so we didn’t really get a great view of a gloomy London but nevertheless, do check out of these photos that I took last time we came!
The Emirates Air Line is open every day but please check the times before you go. The single fares for child is £2.30 and adult £4.50. If you have an Oyster card (pay as you go, Travelcard, Freedom Pass etc) a single child fare is £1.70 and adult fare is £3.40. It is very affordable and a great experience. You might experience queues during peak hours. But there are 34 cabins that carry up to 10 people each and it moves between 2.2m and 4 m per second!
The ride was smooth and comfortable and it takes you from Emirates Greenwich Peninsula across to Emirates Royal Docks. We didn’t managed to get any nice photos but it’s such an excellent way to get a 360 degree view on a bright clear day! I am not very good at identifying the buildings, but luckily, there was an in-flight guide to help us locate and identify them. You can read more about our Air Line and Aviation experience here.
Disclosure: We were invited to the event and experience for the purposes of writing this review, however all thoughts and opinions remain our own. Received goody bags.