The First King of England in a Dress by Amy Robinson
1,000 years ago, before England had been invented... could a Viking king rule the Saxons who hated him?
Ethelred misses his mum. She was stolen from him by something worse than Vikings. So when a stranger asks his dad for a bed for the night, he is naturally nervous.
But when the stranger and Ethelred start sharing stories of giants, frogs and magic, it isn't long before they discover surprising secrets about each other...
Will Ethelred get his mum back? How will their adventure affect the future of the country of England? And just why is King Knut dressed like that?!
Find out by reading and joining in the story of The First King of England... in a Dress!
Written by storytellers Amy Robinson and Chip Colquhoun, the stars of the Oxford Reading Tree's Traditional Tales videos watched and loved by children aged 4-11 across the world.
Amy has been telling stories ever since she could speak - in fact, she didn't speak at all until she was ready to speak a complete sentence! She studied English at the University of Cambridge, where she met Chip - and they had fun writing, directing, and acting in musical plays together. She then trained to be a teacher, but soon decided she wanted to be a storyteller instead. She called Chip and asked him for help creating Snail Tales. That was in 2007, and both Amy and Chip have been telling stories professionally ever since. In 2011, Amy became one of the faces of the Oxford Reading Tree, telling stories like The Little Red Hen and Rumpelstiltskin. You can watch these videos for free by visiting www.oxfordowl.co.uk/storyteller-videos In addition to her work founding Snail Tales, Amy is the children's worker for her local group of churches (known as a benefice). She has written 3 books on puppetry and storytelling produced by Kevin Mayhew Publishers, and regularly provides scripts and materials for GenR8 - a Cambridgeshire charity running free Christian assemblies and events in schools. Amy spends her spare time writing poetry and attempting novels. She lives in a rectory in Suffolk with the rector, two children, two guinea pigs, and too many puppets to count. Chip wrote his first story before anyone had taught him to write! It was just a series of squiggles, so no-one knows what it was about - not even Chip. But it already had punctuation, like full stops and paragraphs - so Chip definitely knew what writing was all about. He wrote several plays whilst at school, and a few more when he went to the University of Cambridge - which is where he met Amy, and started working on shows with her. Chip's first experience of storytelling was when Amy invited him to join Betty Stubbens Musical Entertainment Group, which visited care homes around Cambridgeshire to share songs and stories with the folks who lived there. So Chip was very happy to help Amy create Snail Tales. In 2011 he also became one of the faces of the Oxford Reading Tree, telling stories like The Big Carrot and The Magic Paintbrush. You can watch these videos for free too by visiting www.oxfordowl.co.uk/storyteller-videos Since then, Chip has told stories in 7 countries, written the EU guide to storytelling in schools, and directed several theatre shows - including The First King of England... in a Dress! He's also written two collections of folk tales both published by The History Press; and also A Little Sport in Littleport, published by Babylon Arts. He lives with his partner Emma and kitten Tito. Dave Hingley has always loved drawing and comic books. Since studying animation at the University of South Wales, Dave has worked in and around animation for the last eighteen years. More recently, he began designing posters for theatre shows, one of which earned him an award from the National Operatic and Dramatic Association in 2015.
