Children’s festival especially for bookworms

Young bookworms enjoyed a special event just for them recently.

Wokingham staged their annual Children’s Book Festival over two days with some big names in attendance.

Illustrator Nick Sharratt, who has collaborated with popular authors including Jacqueline Wilson, Julia Donaldson, Kes Gray and Michael Rosen, dropped into Wokingham library for a masterclass in drawing.

Nick has created illustrations for over 250 books including over 60 of his own titles, including much-loved favourites Ketchup on Your Cornflakes and Shark in the Park.

He told My Wokingham: “It is always lovely to meet your readers and this event is even more special as I haven’t been doing this since Covid.”

When asked what a youngster should do if they wanted to follow in his footsteps as an illustrator, he said: “I wanted to do this ever since I was small. I always drew at school and joined their art club. I entered a lot of art competitions and then went on to art college.”

And he said he loves collaborating on a new project. “Often the author is present for a new story and we bounce ideas off each other. I do produce rough drawings and now quite often the author will trust me with creating the right characters.”

Nick gave an amusing presentation and then held a masterclass in drawing with his images projected onto the wall as the children drew along.

Local author Holly Webb is one of Britain’s best-loved children’s writers. She has written more than 150 books and her work has been translated into over 30 languages. Holly didn’t have far to come for the book festival as she lives in Tilehurst, just outside of Reading.

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure. Her latest book, Vita and the Gladiator is the story of a young girl’s fight for justice in the high-stakes world of London’s gladiatorial arena.

James Carter, award-winning children’s poet, non-fiction writer and musician, provided a buzzy and highly interactive session full of poetic and musical madness.

Children joined Georgia Byng to see why they are writers too. She gave a fun talk about ideas and characters, about stories and words and different worlds - from magic monsters to hypnotic children to glowing animals with lots in between.

Zanna Davidson talked about child-inventors and encouraged the children to come up with their own amazing inventions.

Children joined author/performer Gareth P Jones in creating a brand new who-done-it where they created the story, played the suspects, discovered the clues and solved the mystery!

Storm Horse author Jane Elson introduced the children to the Secret Horse Society and the audience was