Bath Children’s Literature Festival 2023

Bath is a gorgeous city with so much to see and enjoy and every year since it started (with the obvious exceptions!), I have joined many other book lovers at the Children’s Literature Festival held there every autumn. Always a wonderful occasion, so many wonderful poets, illustrators and authors take part in this joyful event, making it a pleasure to return year after year!

My festival adventure this year started with a drawing session with Nadia Shireen and Sophy Henn, compered by Steven Butler. Full of fun and fabulous drawings, the illustrators were challenged to create pictures inspired by words selected from the audience. There were giraffes in space, secret agents doing karate in the woods with a goose side kick, scientist rabbits and secret agent guinea pigs! Sophy and Nadia rose to every challenge whilst Steven constantly challenged them with extra details!

The audience were also encouraged to draw along and it was amazing to see just how creative and inventive they were too! It was a brilliant way to start the day…

My next event was with Nikita Gill who was sharing her new book, ‘Animal Tales from India: Ten Stories from the Panchatantra’ (review here). These are stories that Nikita grew up with, told to her by her grandmother, and her love of them was very evident! It was a joyful session of storytelling.

Loving myths, legends and traditional tales, I knew that ‘Mythical Adventures of Greeks and Gods’ was also going to be a session I would really enjoy. Joanna Nadin was talking to Tom Holland about his book, ‘The Wolf-Girl, The Greeks and the Gods’ (review here) - and he was absolutely fascinating! He took his young family to Greece with him for 6 months to be able to visit all the locations and immerse himself in the story, using the character of Gorgo to keep his young daughter engaged on their travels.

Rocket is one of my favourite picture book characters so it was a joy to hear Dapo Adeola (again!) as he read the latest story, ‘Speak Up!’ (review here) and taught us all how to draw Luna the cat. The children in the audience were excellent with their answers in the quiz and also asked some great questions. Dapo gave lots of good advice, reminding children that ‘there is a lesson in every drawing’ and encouraging them to persevere and have fun!

After drawing with Dapo, I was fired with enthusiasm for my next event, ‘Heavy Metal Badger’ with Duncan Beedie. Having listened to the story, the rock music generated the perfect atmosphere for creating some heavy metal band names and designing their logos. Some of the adults in the audience got even more carried away than their children at this point!! Duncan then showed everyone how to draw Badger sliding on his knees, loving the heavy metal!

My time at this year’s festival finished on an absolute high. Ana Sampson is responsible for gathering the poems for the most amazing collection, ‘Gods and Monsters: Mythological Poems’ (review here), which has been brilliantly illustrated by Chris Riddell. This has very quickly become a favourite of mine and it was a joy to listen to Ana (and Chris!) whilst Chris drew constantly. There was a battle of the monsters as the audience were asked to vote in a number of rounds to discover which monster they thought would be the winner! It was the perfect way to end the day.

Today is the last day of Bath Children’s Literature Festival 2023- and I’m already looking forward to next year!

Fireblood Launch in Bath

It was a very wet and windy evening as I set off for Waterstones in Bath to celebrate the launch event for ‘Fireblood’, a fantastic new story by Sam Stewart. The warmth of welcome more than made up for the awful weather and soon a large crowd had gathered, all keen to hear from Sam and find out more about her book!

Penny and Karen from Firefly Press made sure the evening flowed smoothly and their enthusiasm for, and belief in, ‘Fireblood’ was infectious. Firefly was founded in 2013 (how can it have been that long?!) and have gone from strength to strength, winning award after award, and publishing a wonderful catalogue of books- such as ‘Fireblood’. Once Penny had made her introduction, Sam and Karen settled down for a brief chat about the book with before Sam gave a reading. And what a reading!

There’s something very special about hearing an author read their own work and Sam is one of those who performs as much as reads, keeping the audience hanging on her every word! No wonder there was such a long signing queue!

‘Fireblood’ is a great read- my review will follow soon- and it was a lovely event with a very warm, friendly, book-ish crowd. Many thanks to Sam and the Firefly Press team for inviting me!

Fireblood Sam Stewart

Firefly Press ISBN: 9781915444196

An evening with Firefly

Yesterday, I headed to Waterstones in Bath for a wonderful evening of book-ish delght with the lovely people from Firefly. Bath was just how I like it best- not too busy and looking beautiful in the winter sunshine before developing an air of mystery in the twilight.

A very warm welcome awaited as the Firefly team greeted everyone with enthusiasm and it was lovely to see so many familiar faces! There is nothing quite like being with other book lovers and indulging in a bit of book-babbling! Once we had settled, Penny introduced the evening before Karen guided us through the incredible selection of books Firefly have in store for 2023. Her enthusiasm was infectious and her genuine passion for the books just made me want to read each and every one of them! We were also treated to short videos from some of the authors, including Roderick O’Grady (Were there really sasquatch in those woods?!), Terrie Chilvers (accompanied by a gorgeous dog!) and Nicola Davies (always an inspiration!).

Three authors from the list- Jo Clarke, Sam Stewart and Cathy Faulkner- then spoke about their up-coming titles. We were given a sneak preview of the cover for Cathy’s book, ‘Digging for Victory’ and she told us how she had come to write this verse novel which is due out in May. Jo Clarke explained how she had come to create the travelling school in her ‘Libby’ stories, emphasising the importance of offering children stories that they want to read simply for pleasure. An incident with matches, the Clifton suspension bridge and a mysterious building were all elements which fulled Sam Stewart’s imagination and led to her writing ‘Fireblood’. Three very different stories from authors united in their desire to present children (and adults!) with the exceptional reads, offering them escape and adventure through a good book!

Sadly, the evening was over all too soon, but we were all delighted when we were presented with a goodie bag containing proof copies of ‘Fireblood’ and ‘Digging for Victory’ and other treats. I am proud to say that my copy of ‘Digging for Victory’ is the FIRST one which Cathy has ever signed! I feel very special!

Many thanks to the lovely team at Firefly for inviting me to come to this evening. It was a brilliant event- and their selection for 2023 is fabulous. So many treats to look forward to!