Photographic pages: Graham Fellows / Lucy Shepherd | Will Emery

We were all extremely excited before Ally’s visit and, believe me, we were not disappointed. Everything went to plan and the flow of questions did not cease! Half way through there was more fun; a lot of cakes had been baked! They all came in different shapes and sizes but also had the theme of Beast and were most delicious!

There was musical entertainment as well: Will Emery and Alex Maydew supplied a brilliant song about The Beast which showed what wonderful voices they have! Olly Darvill, Kian Zeinali, Emily Mitchell and Rory More O’Ferrall provided a more ‘urban’ style with two beat-boxers! There was also a competition to guess the name of Ally's third novel, which Ellie Whittle won.

All-in-all, this was a highly successful event, especially as Ally had said that because of her newly-born baby, she wouldn’t go to any Carnegie events. Everyone enjoyed the event, and Ally was pleased to announce that she thought our website was truly brilliant! We found out a lot about Ally and not only had a good time but she also talked about her life and new book, Beserk.

Rory More O'Ferrall
 

Ellie Whittle looked forward:

We are all incredibly excited, as we have invited Ally Kennen, author of Beast, to come in and visit us in one of our lessons! It is a great privilege, as she had previously told Carnegie that she wouldn’t be doing any visits as she had just had her second baby. We are preparing an extra special array of things in honour of her visit, including composing and writing lyrics for a song about her and Beast; we feel this is especially appropriate as she used to be in the music industry.

There is also a interview being created with interesting questions that we plan ask her on the day; they cover lots of topics and range from the obvious to the more original.

The six copies of Beast are flying from reader to reader like hot potatoes, as everybody is desperate for the fantastic book in the run-up to the visit. Those of us who are lucky enough to have read it already have given it high praise and excellent reviews.

Of course, after the visit we will update this page to include all the juicy gossip about what is feels like to be in the shortlist; Beast, the book that shot Ally to fame; and the equally-gripping Berserk, the awaited sequel to Beast.

We can hardly wait!