Manchester Children’s Book Festival Family Day at Manchester Metropolitan University
Gemma Gibb, Associate Editor
This exciting day of literary larks celebrating the annual Manchester Children’s Book Festival is sure to inspire confidence and creativity in voracious and more reluctant readers alike.
Authors, poets and spoken word maestros galore join with Manchester’s cultural organisations for a busting-at-the-seams event for pre-readers to teens and those interested in children’s storytelling in general.
Highlights include the opportunity to meet revered wordsmith Testament and find out how to rap and tell your story through poetry, grime and hip hop with this beatboxing Guinness World Record Holder (novices most definitely welcome).
Book ahead for interactive sessions with Nick Butterworth (of Q Pootle 5 fame) who will be regaling the audience with space stories and live illustration, or author and illustrator team Claire Barker and Ross Collins on their creation Knitbone Pepper and how they have taken inspiration from their own pets.
With drop in free storytelling, performance, music, illustration and science activities all day, plus street-food from GRUB, it’s definitely a full day out. We can live in hope that the perfect pre-summer holiday timing will inspire activity fuelled by storytelling and creative expression to live on in the downtime of the school hols.
