McBusted’s Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter gave their Reading fans an early Christmas present as they visited the town to sign copies of their popular Dinosaur That Pooped series of books.
Hundreds of people queued up to meet the duo when they visited Waterstones Broad Street branch on Thursday, December 18 for the festive book signing. The musicians were accompanied by a life-size dinosaur who roamed the store to promote the latest title in the series.
Fans started to arrive at noon and the queue extended out of the Broad Street shop’s doors, waiting patiently in the cold as the famous pair’s signing was held up when they were stuck in roadworks.
Following the success of The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas and The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet, The Dinosaur That Pooped The Past is the latest historical adventure of Danny and his pet Dinosaur, written by McBusted band members Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter and illustrated by Garry Parsons.
The books came about thanks to the McBusted boys’ interests. Dougie loves reptiles, Tom is fascinated by time-travel, and they have a shared obsession with poop. After writing songs together for 11 years in the band McFly and more recently, McBusted, they write their books in the same way that they write their song lyrics.
Tom recently became a father to Buzz and by sharing stories hopes to pass on his love of reading to him.
Tom and Dougie said: “The most important thing we have found with writing these books is we have to be having fun. Nothing good ever comes from being bored or when you start looking at projects as work.
“The Dino books for us are proof that you really can do anything as long as you have fun with it, you enjoy it and passionately love what you do! The best part of the job is seeing a genuine laugh from a child and their grinning parent.”
The books are illustrated by Garry Parsons; his work has also appeared in Vanity Fair, The Guardian and The Times. He illustrated Billy’s Bucket published by Random House and written by Kes Gray which won the 2004 Children’s Book Award.
The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas was the bestselling children’s debut of 2012 and won the Publishing Innovation Award for Best Ebook in the Children’s category at the Digital Book World Conference 2012.
The Dinosaur has his own twitter account @PoopingDinosaur with over 28,500 followers and a dedicated facebook page www.facebook.com/TheDinosaurThatPoopedChristmas.
The Dinosaur That Pooped The Past by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter is published by Red Fox and costs £6.99. ISBN: 9781782951780
