The Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival
What can I say? After five months of planning and a frantic final week, the book festival came and went and was, I think, a resounding success.
The art and writing workshops in the library were fully booked, with children drawing some brilliant monsters and comics. One of the visitors has already posted their creations online here, and if you want to see what a Ninja Pie looks like, click that link now!
Fiona, Katie, Kathryn, Ben, Emily, Lauren and all the staff at the library did a fantastic job of managing it all, so thanks goes out to them. And of course, all the artists and writers who ran the workshops deserve a special thank you. Tom Percival, Salvatore Rubbino, Sarah Horne, Alexander Gordon Smith, Emma Vieceli, Kate Brown, Viv Schwarz, Garen Ewing, David O’Connell, Gary Northfield, Paul Duffield and Sarah McIntyre. We’ve already received a lot of excellent feedback and it would seem that all the people taking part had a thoroughly great time.
Of course, we also had readings throughout the day in the Bookseller Crow, and it was lovely to see the effect that a writer reading aloud can have on a group. Everyone was uniformly excellent, and I learnt such a lot from watching these talented folk. Sue Eves started the day with her terrific puppet Woofy, who had us all laughing. She was followed by Viv Schwarz, Guy Bass and Sarah Horne.
The afternoon started off with me and a Dum Dum Mouse, and continued with the excellent Sam Enthoven, Alexander Gordon Smith and Sarwat Chadda, who closed the proceedings in fine form.
The best part of the day for me was seeing children watch a number of authors who they didn’t know, and ultimately buy their books at the end. I’d always hoped that people might hang around, see something new and like it, and they did. That was the atmosphere I’d always wanted to create, and with the help of Jon and Justine at the bookshop – and of course, James with his double deck of Gramophones – I think we pulled it off.
And last but not least, there was the exhibition in Smash Bang Wallop. Thanks to Andy and Liz for their help. The exhibition initially set me going on this festival adventure and without that I’d never have done a thing. It was a joy seeing such great artwork all together.
With all the support of the publishers – Faber & Faber, Walker Books, Puffin, and of course Stripes, who really got into the spirit of things – it was a truly great day to remember. Roll on next year!
April 27th, 2009 at 9:49 am
It was an excellent day – wish I could have hung around for the afternoon chats with Sam, Gordon and Sarwat, but sadly not this time around. The kids all had a tremendous time there – I watched the parents be as captivated as the kids. You guys did an amazing job – so well done!
April 27th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Hello Liz! Thanks so much for coming, it was great to meet you. I had such a blast, and everyone made such an effort.
What a day!
April 27th, 2009 at 10:24 am
We had a ball! I’ll be up for it all again next year – hope James’ will be back with the doubledecker and who knows what next literary year will bring!
April 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am
it’ll be a big year I think. So much to happen between now and next April! Thanks for coming sue, you were brilliant. Woofy is tremendous
April 27th, 2009 at 10:33 am
thanks alex! the kids i took along had such a nice time as did i – although i had a little career crisis during the cartoon workshops – i wanna be a cartoonist! wah!
April 27th, 2009 at 11:03 am
It was a brilliant day, Alex – thanks so much for all your hard work. And it was great to meet so many talented people – overwhelming
April 27th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Ha! I think we all wanted to be comic people after Saturday! thanks for your lovely write-up though. Any feedback you have can only make it better for next time too!
April 27th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hello Garen! So many great people were present, and that was what astounded me actually. The atmosphere was incredibly warm and welcoming, and that’s so unusual. And if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have had such a great iconic logo. Brilliant
April 27th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Awesome!!! You DID pull it off, with tremendous panache! Thanks ever so much!
Here are more photos if anyone wants a peek:
http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/192253.html
http://vivianeschwarz.blogspot.com/2009/04/books-and-yaks.html
http://tozocomic.livejournal.com/1129.html
http://notesfromtheslushpile.co.uk/2009/04/undercover-at-crystal-palace-childrens.html
April 28th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
A huge thank you to Alex and ‘The Gang’. Days like that, organised so well with enthusiastic, talented writers and artists, are what helps keep books and libraries alive and kicking. It also does much to keep me enjoying my lovely job. Katie and Co were much appreciated by myself and the other library staff.
I have made a display of the skyscrapers from Salvatore Rubbino’s workshop in the Junior Library so if you are local, do pop in to see it. Later in the week the cartoons will go up on another display.
Thanks for the photos. I’ll send mine to anyone who asks for them…
October 3rd, 2009 at 7:46 am
Good to hear the Book festival was a success and your hard work paid off.