A Story All About You

“The Spectacular Adventures of Noggin and Izzy” is a great blog created by Barbara Gibson, an American media trainer living in London. You can contact her and she will write a little story all about you, featuring you and her dog Noggin up to all kinds of adventures. This is such fun especially if “you” are a kid.

I came across this blog ‘cos I met Barbara in London a few weeks ago and as bloggers, we bonded immediately and bored everyone else at the party with all our blog talk! Anyway, here is what she told me about how she came to be inspired to create “The Spectacular Adventures of Noggin and Izzy”:

Barbara writes:

I first got the idea when my husband and I and a group of our friends (along with kids and dogs) went away together for a few days of holiday, staying at a big, old house in Wales . During the trip, our friend’s daughter, Isabelle, attached herself to my dog, Noggin, and they became best friends. One of the days we all went to visit an old gold mine, and it got me thinking about writing stories about adventures they could have together. It was around the same time that I had just begun experimenting with a blog, and it occurred to me that a blog could provide a great medium for writing stories, and building a reader base of kids and parents. When I told Isabelle about it, she got excited and began working on ideas for stories, as well. I then realized that it could not only provide stories for reading, but could become interactive, perhaps sparking in older kids an interest in writing. Then it also began expanding to include other kids, first the children of friends I stayed with in my travels, because as they took me out sightseeing, we were having adventures together. So many of the stories are at least loosely based on my own experiences with Noggin, Izzy and the other kids written in. I’ve also encouraged readers to write in, either contributing whole stories, story ideas, or just names of kids, pets, etc., to be included in future stories. The most recent post about baby Ryan came from a reader posting a comment. So far, the kids who have been in the stories have absolutely loved reading about themselves and seeing their pictures on the internet. At some point, I hope to edit and publish Noggin & Izzy books, but for now, the blog is a great way to get ideas, and it provides some built-in discipline for me to write semi-regularly.

I’d love to get contributions from your blog’s readers, so send ‘em on. I’d also like to hear from others who have either story blogs, or blogs aimed at kids and parents – it still seems pretty rare.”

You can visit Noggin and Izzy at http://barbgibson.typepad.com/nogginandizzy/
If you do and Barbara writes a story about you, please let me know and I will post a link to it for all to visit!

Photo: shows Noggin and friends - from Barbara’s blog.