Philip Ardagh, creator of the Eddie Dickens trilogy for children, will launch the Birmingham Young Readers festival at 2pm on Saturday 22 May with an hour of fun at Central Library’s Library Theatre.
Described as a cross between Dickens and Monty Python, Philip ‘Beardy’ Ardagh will entertain family groups and children of all ages with family tickets costs just £10.
Throughout the festival, which is mainly free, youngsters can enjoy over 150 fantastic activities with their favourite storytellers, authors and poets including Nat from CBeebies’ Boogie Babies, bestselling author of the Alex Rider series, Anthony Horowitz, Steve (Astrosaurs) Cole and Potty Poet Chris White. Dub poet Lennox Carty and Jan (Mr Wolf) Fearnely make their Young Readers debut appearances and the festival is brought to an exciting close on Saturday 5 June with a special one-hour storytelling performance of Roald Dahl’s Matilda from the Royal Shakespeare Company at a credit crunch busting price of £1 each.
This year’s festival also sees the free two-day Book Bash return to the newly-restored Aston Hall for the bank holiday weekend. From 11am until 4.30pm six marquees will be filled with performances, storytelling and dancing for families with primary school aged children. There are also writing workshops in Aston Hall with local writer Leila Rasheed, Young Poet Laureate India Miller and Birmingham’s Poet Laureate Adrian Johnson.
Cllr Martin Mullaney, Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport & Culture said: “Birmingham’s libraries do a wonderful job of promoting reading and literacy to the city’s children and young people. Our annual Young Readers festival provides lots of free and low cost exciting ways to get everyone involved.”
These are just a selection of the hundreds of events taking part at libraries across the city during the Young Readers festival, which takes place from 22 May to 5 June. For more information pick up a copy of the Young Readers programme from any Birmingham library, or visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/youngreaders.
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Media contact: Debbie Harrison on 0121 303 4476 debbie.harrison@birmingham.gov.uk
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