Henley Literary Festival

The line-up was fantastic and the children all enjoyed hearing from a variety of inspiring authors and illustrators.

Year 4 were the first to visit the festival on Monday where they had a great morning. Joesph Coelho did not disappoint. His love of writing started when he was just 8 (the same age as our current Year 4 pupils) and now has 45 books to his name. He initially started writing poems and his new book ‘Relic Hamilton Genie Hunter’ is his first middle grade prose. His top tip was to carry a notebook with you wherever you go as 'we all have good ideas but don’t always remember to write them down'. He also impressed the importance of editing work to improve it. This is something that all good writers do. What a pleasure and inspiration it was to meet him! 

 

Reception spent a wonderful Wednesday morning listening to Petr Horacek tell them about what inspired him to write each of his books. He also read several of his books aloud including The Greedy Goat, A Best Friend for Bear and Blue Monster. He demonstrated how he draws each of his characters. Petr livened up his session by telling funny stories about his Granny who rode a zebra and kept a tiger as a pet. The children particularly enjoyed listening to him read Elephant, laughing at the way that the elephant trampled on the flowerbeds, played football and ate all the cakes. The children were very lucky to each receive a personally signed copy of Blue Monster. 

 

Years 1 and 2 had a fantastic visit to Jaqueline Wilson. The children enjoyed listening to Jaqueline talk about her life as a writer and how she aspired to be an author since the age of 6! She wrote her first book at 17 years old and has written over 100 books in total, her favourite being the Tracy Beaker series, as the main character Tracy is a bit mischievous! During our session, Jaqueline Wilson read parts of her book, 'The Magic Faraway Tree: Christmas Adventure', talking about the characters and what happens in the story. The children each got a signed copy to take home. What a wonderful afternoon! 

 

Year 5 went to see best selling author Hannah Gold, and received a copy of her new book Turtle Moon. Hannah spoke about her inspiration for writing (her love of animals) and the children learned about how she became an author. The overriding message of her session was ‘Follow your dreams!’. The children heard Hannah read an extract from the book before being shown a visual display of how large a leatherback turtle is using volunteers from the audience!  

 

Year 6 were very excited to see Maz Evans on Friday, but unfortunately, due to illness, she was unable to make it! However, the fabulous staff at Henley Literary Festival found a quick replacement: Anita Mangan, illustrator of many books! 

Anita talked through her journey of becoming an illustrator and showed some snippets of the various books she has illustrated with her brother, Stephen Mangan. The children were then treated to a draw along, where they were encouraged to recreate one of Anita’s characters step by step!  

The children loved the session and were so pleased to be able to attend. Their books will be sent to school next week.