Marlborough LitFest 2023 has expanded its children’s programme with free storytelling slots, craft activities and free author talks to local schoolchildren as well as a bumper crop of children’s authors on offer. Starting on Saturday September 16, ‘Once upon a trail’ (free)takes participants around 21 shops in Marlborough High Street to work out various book clues. Use the map inside the Children’s LitFest leaflet found in the library, the White Horse Bookshop and other shops to visit each shop and search for clues. Then head to Marlborough Library with your completed trail for a free stamp.
Jo Williams, Marlborough LitFest Children’s Committee member and member of Aldbourne Children’s Book Group, together with her colleagues, has devised the trail which uses art work made by local children. She told Marlborough.news, “We’ve tried to link the title of the books to the shops. The clues will be displayed in the shops – there will be something there that will make you think of the book. The shops have been really supportive and we are excited about this new venture which really does have a good community feel. The trail is suitable for young and old!”
Other free events will run throughout the festival weekend – September 29-October 1. There will be free pop-up storytelling events for younger children, including three slots at The Parade Cinema, as well as craft activities with Aldbourne Children’s Book Group and storytelling performances at The White Horse Bookshop, Marlborough Library and St Peter’s Church.
Visiting children’s authors are as follows:
Sunday 1 October, 1pm, Marlborough Town Hall
Award-winning author, screenwriter and master storyteller Frank Cottrell-Boyce – the man who scripted the London Olympics Opening Ceremony – waves his literary wand once more in his latest children’s adventure,The Wonder Brothers. Children and adults alike should prepare to be bewitched.
Age 8+
Tickets £5
Saturday 30 September, 2.30pm, St Mary’s Church Hall
Award-winning author and illustrator Mini Grey sets out to tell “the whole 4.6 billion years roller-coaster ride story of life in one book” in The Greatest Show on Earth, a history of the world full of pictures and make-and-do pages.
For ages 5-8
Tickets £5
Saturday 30 September, 10am, The White Horse Bookshop
Come along for an interactive session with soothing music, rhymes and riddles on bugs, bubbles and bears from author and poet James Carter in his new poetry collection for younger readers, A Ticket to Kalamazoo!
Tickets £5, free for under-sixes
Lviv – Monday – the beautiful and majestic Potocki Palace – and trying the food packets that we have been creating
