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Turning over a new leaf for Children’s Book Festival

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Libraries in Clare are gearing up for this year’s Children’s Book Festival 2012 with events planned across all branches over the month of October.

 

Up to 100 events are planned to spark the imagination of young readers from toddlers to teens.
In association with Childrens Books Ireland, events will include everything from readings by popular authors, to writing and illustration workshops, plus storytelling and competitions.

Headlining this year’s festival in Clare are authors Marita Conlon McKenna (The Children of the Famine trilogy), and Derek Landy, who will be celebrating the publication of the latest title in his Skulduggery Pleasant series, Kingdom of the Wicked.

Both authors will make a one-off visit to Glór Theatre in Ennis to celebrate and school bookings for these events must be made by contacting 065 6846266 or by emailing patricia.fitzgerald@clarelibrary.ie before September 21.

Other visiting authors to individual library branches include Alan Early who has been hailed as the Irish Percy Jackson, his first book, Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent has enjoyed much critical acclaim. Alan Nolan will also be in Clare showcasing his graphic whodunits for 10 to 14 year olds, which include The Big Break Detectives Casebook, Death by Chocolate and Six Million Ways to Die.

Nicola Pierce will give four readings based on her novel Spirit of the Titanic, now in its fifth reprint since publication last year. While Michel Moylan’s Irish History Live will present an interactive show to his audiences on the making of Titanic, how it was powered, the class system on board, how the ship sank and more.

Other visiting authors include Gerry Boland, Laoise Ní Chomhraí and Tomi Reichental. Tomi Reichental’s visit to De Valera Library, Ennis on Tuesday, October 2, is exclusively for Leaving Cert students.

His book I Was a Boy In Belsen, which coincidentally was ghost written by another Children’s Book Festival visiting author, Nicola Pierce, tells the story of his life from the age of nine years old when he was rounded up along with members of his family in a shop in Bratislava and taken to a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen.

In Tomi’s words, “the Holocaust didn’t start with ‘gas chambers and crematoria’ but with whispers, taunts, daubing and then abuse and murder. One of the lessons we must learn is to respect difference and reject all forms of racism and discrimination.”

Altogether 35 members of his family died in the Holocaust. Now living in Dublin and one of only three Holocaust survivors in Ireland, he travels the country giving talks on his unimaginable wartime boyhood experiences to Leaving Cert students.

Storytellers Niall de Burca and Pat Ryan are regular performers at Clare’s Children’s Book Festival and never fail to entertain audiences of all ages with their folktales, myths and legends, riddles, rhymes and proverbs from all around the world. Both return this October to seven of the county’s library branches.

Hands-on workshops facilitated by experienced artists are always a feature of the festival and this year participants can choose from a range of classes from percussion workshops to journal writing by Isabelle Gaborit to story creation workshops with Donough O’Malley. Visual artist and co-founder of Dog and String Theatre. Sarah Fuller will also be on hand to guide children in making their own animated film show based on characters they will create on paper.

For a full programme of events and details of competitions being run for Children’s Books Festival, visit www.childrensbooksireland.ie and keep an eye to events at local libraries by logging onto www.clarelibrary.ie.

Events are planned specifically for school audiences and teachers are advised to book classes in early to avoid disappointment.

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