Manchester Children's Book Festival

I'm very excited about this! Here's the introduction to the forthcoming Manchester Children's Book Festival by Poet Laureate, Festival Director (and fine fairy tale writer) Carol Ann Duffy:

The 2010 Manchester Children’s Book Festival is the first festival of its kind to run in the North West of England. We’re thrilled to present a four-day programme of events and activities featuring some of today’s favourite children’s writers, illustrators, books and characters.

Aimed at everyone who has ever loved children’s books, our exciting series of events will run at Manchester Metropolitan University’s city centre campus as well as in a variety of schools, libraries and other venues across the region.

No matter if you can’t make it to Manchester – you’ll still be able to take part in our competitions and in our international Festival Readathon. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you can join us.

Carol Ann Duffy

There are far too many wonderful events taking place for me to list here, the full programme is available online. Highlights for me include: Carol Ann Duffy and John Sampsons' performance of The Princess' Blankets (the space will be decorated by Catherine Hyde's beautiful illustrations so that 'you'll feel you're stepping into the book'); the screening of Jeannette Winterson's Ingenious, introduced by the writer; wonderful pop-up book workshops; Michael Rosen leading a Bear Hunt!; a lecture on the World of Edward Gorey; an A-Z of Children's Books exhibition; Adele Geras and Mary Hoffman discussing their imaginative historical fiction; and a chance to meet three of the authors behind the latest series of Doctor Who novels (Daleks and Cybermen will be patrolling the building!). Phew.

Faye Durston and myself will be taking part in the Family Festival Fun Day on the Saturday. We'll have a New Fairy Tales stall and be running Family Fairy Tale workshops which will involve dressing up, drawing and lots of fun!

If you're too far away to make it to the festival there is still the international readathon you can take part in (and I'm planning a special fairy tale read as part of that which I'll blog about soon). If you think you might make the trip, and you're not familiar with Manchester, Creative Tourist is a great online guide to the city.

Hope to see you there!