This week we went to Birdworld in Surrey to promote Tess Burrows' new book Soft Courage with the help of some young helpers, both human and feathered.

The book is a collection of stories about Tess' peace activist adventures told through the eyes of a soft toy penguin called Yannick – but at Birdworld there was a real-life penguin on hand to superintend the proceedings.

We hoped the little chap might help Tess sign copies, but he made her do it all herself. Perhaps it's just as well – he'd just been in the pond so he would only have got the pages soggy.