Steve Keeping – Children’s Author and Illustrator.
Each book in the series is written to capture the young reader’s attention and stimulate his/her imagination.
From the front to the back cover they just won’t be able to put it down. Every book grips their reader, as the twisting and turning kids adventure story unfolds.
Chubbly the aviator takes his homemade bi–plane ‘The Flyer’ to foreign lands, each time further and further away from his London home. Visiting countries steeped and overflowing with local history and culture, as well as dangerous hidden mysteries which must be solved.
From the monsters of Loch Ness, to the night creatures buried deep down in the dark, dank labyrinths below the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Chubbly is never too far away from the action, and just around the next corner lies another breathtakingly exciting new world adventure!
Now you too can join Chubbly on his new website jam packed full of loads of interesting information, including lots of free downloads and competitions. You can meet the characters and join in with the very interesting active blog,that is second to none (well in Chubbly’s opinion of course). See you soon... www.chubblytheaviator.co.uk
The Flyer is Born
Chubbly and his granddad Curly design, plan and construct the Flyer inside Chubbly’s dad’s garden shed, using all sorts of old bits and bobs to build the individual little bi–plane, powered by an old salvaged Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine and driven by an old wooden propeller wall clock, which before had taken pride above grandad Curly’s fireplace!
Chubbly will go on to pilot the Flyer to many different places around the World, new adventures, discovering new countries and cultures, whilst uncovering all kinds of exciting hidden secrets.
His very first adventure takes Chubbly to Oban in the Highlands of Scotland where he meets two new friends Mac and Aggie McDougal, after spending the night with them in their log cabin close to the airport they guide Chubbly in the direction of Loch Ness to uncover an old buried map, drawn and then hidden by Mac and his friends over 50 years ago, showing Chubbly the exact spot needed to catch a glimpse of the legendary Loch Ness monster.
A Hunch in Paris
Chubbly launches the Flyer into the clear pastel blue London skies turning due east, to begin his new adventure in the most dark and mysterious Gothic parts of the city of Paris France. There he makes friends with two young French children Clauden and Esmerela, both distant relatives of people who today still play a most important part in French history.
Clauden is related to Claude Frollo the Archdeacon of the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, who unfortunately met his demise falling to the ground when pushed from the great heights of the cathedral by Quasimodo the hunchback. He was a hideously deformed creature and the cathedrals deaf bell ringer, who is said to have existed back in the year 1482, left abandoned as a baby and adopted by Frollo.
Esmerela is distantly related to Esmeralda the beautiful young barefooted Gypsy dancer and magical entertainer. Once loved by all of the people, and became hated when they started to think that she was in fact a witch. Both Clauden and Esmerela believe that the Hunchback still exists. Chubbly joins them on a magical adventure somewhere dangerously deep, dark, cold, and smelly in a huge maze of dungeons hidden deep down below the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
These books are available from Amazon, Waterstones and better still, directly from Chubbly’s dedicated website where they can be personally signed by the author before being posted.
A bit about the Author
I, like many people had always had a burning ambition to write a book, and have had my head overflowing with loads of different ideas over the years. It now seemed like a brilliant time to finally put pen to paper, (or in this day and age, fingers to keyboard!) bringing one of these head bulging stories to life.
I had already gained lots of experience; as well as making up stories to tell my children throughout the early part of their lives, I had also been reading a huge amount of kid’s books to them over the years. Slowly getting a feel for what I thought the children’s book market was actually missing.
Finally in the summer of 2007 I sat down and wrote ‘The Flyer is born’, my first children’s novel, and the first book in the series of ‘The great world adventures of Chubbly the aviator’. And of course who better to illustrate it than myself! I am currently writing and illustrating more books in the series, and have an active interest in turning ‘Chubbly the Aviator’ into a children’s TV programme.
I am very pleased to have had my first book published by Sad Woody Books, of Valencia Spain.
Steve is also the chief illustrator at Illustrator’s Place based in Valencia Spain; a home for the professional book illustrator, working closely with their clients, giving your book an individually crafted and unique look. The fusion of their illustration and your writing will create a very marketable product. They provide a choice of ideas and an almost unlimited array of working materials to choose from including gouache, acrylics, watercolour, charcoal, oils, pastels, airbrush, coloured pencil and inks. For the client there will be no need to look any further, just contact them at Illustrator’s Place and they will do the rest. www.illustratorsplace.co.uk
Artwork By Steve Keeping
