Derby Book Festival

Hey guys! Maymunah here! ?

Today, I’ll talk about the Derby Book Festival. It’s a very new thing, as it is in it’s second year, but I’m pretty sure a lot more are planned. Today’s event is called “Bringing Books to Life.”

I checked out the programme and it seems like a pretty awesome line-up of events. It’s Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday (not today, 13th September!) so today is all about the children in Derby Market Place.

Their official site asks kids to wear something yellow (does the leopard print border on my scarf count? ?) wear something backwards (um no…), use the BFG’s favourite language etc etc. But they also ask children to dress up as their favourite book character! Now, who would I go as? I’m leaning towards Matilda…

Also, Willy Wonka will be making an appearance! I have fond memories of Year 2, where my friends and I would spend hours folding brown pieces of card and sticking yellow pieces of paper to hand out on the playground as “Golden Tickets”. I don’t think we quite got the point of the rarity of the Golden Tickets…but ah well…

Children will also be able to create pavement art using chalks! And then, there’s going to be a mural where kids are going to be able to create scenes from different books. They suggested James and the Giant Peach, and I can just imagine an amazing scene of the peach flying through the air attached to seagulls.

There’s also going to be a few charity events, where you can buy a book from the charity book stalls or sponsor a book for one of the 125 million children around the world who can’t read.

For older kids, a cartoonist called John Byrne will be there to teach them and even adults that anyone can draw cartoons.

So, this event seems as if it’ll have a lot of turn out with all the fun activities going on! Hopefully, I’ll be able to go later and join in the fun!