Children's Book Festival Review

Children’s Book Festival a Great Success

Over 400 people attended the highly successful inaugural Watermill Children’s Book Festival in Aberfeldy on 12th and 13th May, the first festival in Scotland to be dedicated exclusively to children’s books

Mairi Hedderwick, author of the popular ‘Katie Morag’ series, launched the festival in style by bringing her ‘Island Stories’ to town, with the sell-out audience delighted by a special guest appearance by Katie Morag herself (Katie Cox).

Katie Morag’s visit to Aberfeldy was just one event in a packed festival programme which also included sessions from Catherine MacPhail, Nicola Morgan, Jamie Jauncey, plus local Aberfeldy storytellers Linda Cracknell and Claire Hewitt.

Local author Keith Gray spoke at an event at Aberfeldy’s newly opened youth centre The Hub, explaining how he became an author having failed nearly all his exams at school!

The day before, in a schools programme funded by The Watermill, Keith also spoke to groups at Pitlochry High School and Breadalbane Academy. At the same time, more than 50 primary children from five rural schools in Highland Perthshire came to Aberfeldy for a special session where Mairi Hedderwick gave an illustrated talk about how authors make books.

The festival’s grand finale saw stories brought to life as children dressed up as characters from their favourite books and paraded around The Watermill.

All of the sessions at the festival were chaired by local school children who are members of The Watermill Children’s Book Groups, which meet weekly throughout the year.

Kevin Ramage and Jayne Pascoe, organisers of the festival said, ‘This was very much an event where parents sat at the back and were told to keep quiet, whilst the children took centre stage! Our aim was to show children that books and literature can be fun as well as educational, and the enthusiastic feedback we’ve already received suggests we more than achieved that’.

Following the success of this year’s event, the Watermill Children’s Book Festival is set to become an annual fixture in the Perthshire calendar.