Jamie Oliver Reacts to Kids' Book Reviews | Billy and the Giant Adventure

hi everyone I hope you’re all really really well so I’m back here in water for Woods to celebrate the release of the paperback of Billy and The Giant Adventure thank you for supporting the hardback last year and now we’re into paperback so it’s even better value to get hold of my team have given me a handful of quotes from kids that enjoyed the book this one is from Reuben 10 years old in Northampton my favorite part of the story was reading about the food that Billy was eating I just wanted to normalize how much kids

love food also the adventure of food the things you try the things you not sort of you know had before when you read the book in the background all the time is just this love of food dinner sort of like Gathering things and I really wanted to get that across so Reuben I’m really glad that you liked it so this one’s from Holly B 6 years old from West Sussex I couldn’t put the book down I got into the book and it was really good my imagination was running wild I could really see the story

in my head I’m really glad about that what I wanted to try and do when I was writing it I didn’t write actually by typing

or writing I did it on a Dictaphone and that’s partly because I struggle to write but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell a story so when I was telling and writing the story I was seeing it in my head and I wanted to sort of get that across so you know when we going into different Landscapes when people were flying around I wanted you to really feel it Billy and The

Giant Adventure is a magical fairy tale and it deals with environmental issues on how vital nature is and The Importance of Being compassionate towards children with learning difficulties the illustrations were very detailed and they brought the story to life that’s from Chloe 11 years old from citon um I’m really glad that you kind of picked up on that we didn’t want to make the stories worthy it is an adventure and it is a magical world and the real world of course but there are stories about the environment and how the things that we do affect

the environment and in the book is a thing called The Rhythm which is like the Beating Heart of the woods and everyone everything thing has to do its bit and I just think there’s some really beautiful opportunities in the book to kind of tell stories and kind of make people feel like the things that they do can make a difference even in the real real world so I’m glad you saw that that’s brilliant thank you I love reading Billy and The Giant Adventure it’s really good and exciting I couldn’t put the book down I love

the different chapters especially the recipes at the end of the book as well so yes at the end of the book there’s a whole bunch of recipes that were kind of talked about in the book so you can read the book enjoy the book and then cook the book and that was all part of the fun I’m glad you liked it Paul this book is very interesting because it showed different perspectives of different worlds when Billy the protagonist nice word uh and his friends went to and explored in the woods at the beginning of the

story they met the Sprites which were like fairy likee creatures I liked how they spoke differently and expressed the way they spoke using a sort of dialect Willow be I love that Nia said welcome to walk forwards Jamie has really thought about making this book as helpful as possible for dyslexic readers he’s chosen a font that is really easy to read plus he’s started each chapter on the right hand side to make the book easy to navigate and that is actually true and um I’ve kind of worked with my dyslexia for many many years now

when I was a young kid at school it got me into not to trouble it probably did but um I really struggled with it I have got better at managing it you know words moving around and racing around sometimes I can be good sometimes I can be bad um but still I have a funny relationship with words and letters and writing um but for me using a font that was super clear was important so we did that and starting chapters always on the right is a tiny little detail but it just kind of makes me

feel like there’s a bit of order to things and it’s just not chaotic and you know we did lots of things with pictures and illustrations to really help you feel like with there and also I work really really hard on the audio book cuz I like the idea of kids putting the audio book on and reading the book especially if they struggle with reading like I did when I was a kid and you know um I want you to feel like you’re there and not get bored thank you so much for these comments it means

the world to me and look out in May for the second book yes Billy and the Epic Escape enjoy