It may have been stormy, wet and dull outside but for 20 junior Bledisloe School pupils in Taradale Monday was a most colourful, bright and enlightening day as they got to meet a very special guest.
Heather Hunt, the author and illustrator of books like it's my egg (and you can't have it), The Cuckoo and the Warbler and Kiwi: the real story called to say hello and deliver a Backyard Kiwi workshop.
She read one of her books then got the children to pick up their crayons and do a spot of Kiwi illustrating of their own.
The visit was organised by junior teacher Alice Munro with Bledisloe one of several Hawke's Bay schools being visited this week as part of the 2018 Storylines National Festival Story Tour which features 24 authors and illustrators heading off to meet children at schools, childhood education centres, community centres and libraries across seven regions.
Munro is interested in writing herself and after an email arrived last year about the upcoming Storylines tour, and proposed visits to Hawke's Bay schools, she applied for Bledisloe to be part of the programme.