THE drawing wizard behind the covers of the Harry Potter books paid a visit to District Primary School as pupils celebrated all things dinosaurs.

Author and illustrator Jonny Duddle, who created the newest book jackets of JK Rowling's mega-hit series, dropped by at the Newton-le-Willows school.

The visit took place while the Church of England primary celebrated 'Dinosaur Week' and Jonny brought his latest book 'Gigantosaurus' with him.

Jonny had his first picture book ‘The Pirate Cruncher’ published in 2009 and also helped design the characters for 2012 stop-motion animated movie ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!’.

Jonny has also written ‘The Pirates Next Door’ which won the 2012 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and then moved to sci-fi with ‘The King of Space’ picture book.

Parents and carers were also invited into the school to view the school's own dinosaur-themed museum with the opportunity to buy a signed copy of Jonny's books.

"This has been the first of our 'Reading is STEMsational' weeks planned for this year," said District middle leader for oracy, Heather Wright.

"We are a school that loves reading so want to use that platform to promote other subjects. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and maths. Each class has adopted a dinosaur for the week to research, from our two-year-olds learning about T-Rexes to our 11-year-olds discovering Iguanodons.

Heather added: "Thursday was a 'roarsome' day as Jonny Duddle joined us. He read his wonderful dinosaur book 'Gigantosaurus' to pupils and drew some amazing dino illustrations for each class he visited too.

"He also told pupils about creating the book covers for the Harry Potter series.

"Jonny will be patron of reading for this whole school year and will return to the school for World Book Day, when we will be enjoying another 'STEMsational week', this time pirate themed, based on another of Jonny's picture books."