Bea Green and aptronyms

When I was on my school visit the other day we talked about aptronyms – names people have that reflect their jobs or personalities in a funny or ironic way.

The children all knew Usain Bolt who runs as fast as a bolt of lightning and we had fun thinking of others. I asked them why they thought I’d called my main character Bea Green and eventually they saw that it could mean to be environmentally-friendly which is in her character. Her nemesis in the story, Miss Bacon, resembles a pig in several ways and there are plenty of fictional characters who have names reflecting their personalities.

Roald Dahl used aptronyms all the time, for example Miss Trunchbull, Verucca Salt, Mike Teevee and Shakespeare and Dickens have also used them to describe their characters, for example Hotspur in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Luke Honeythunder in Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood. J K Rowling also uses them in her Harry Potter stories, for example Remus Lupin, the werewolf.

Can you think what jobs these people might do?

Flora Gardner, Sue Yoo, Dr Brain, Margaret Court, Jim Kick…..

Now try and think of some yourself!

Bea Green and the Bee Queen school visit

Yesterday I had a great afternoon doing two Bea Green workshops in my local primary school. The children were lots of fun and asked some great questions about bees and writing in general. One of the classes had read part of my book and were very enthusiastic about it, all trying to guess what happens next. I read chapter ten to the other class, leaving them wanting to find out what happened next and I was delighted to sell a number of copies at the end of the day. I’d like to thank the headmaster, teachers and students for having me.