Performances
The Children’s Bookshow brings some of the best children’s authors from the UK and abroad to local theatre venues and gives teachers and school children the opportunity to hear world-class artists talk about their work.
Autumn performances 2023
We are busy finalising our autumn programme. Booking will open on 19 April! More performances will be announced very soon - watch this space!
- Ele Fountain performance, London, Friday 29th September
- Yasmeen Ismail performance, Exeter, Tuesday 3rd October
- Michael Rosen performance, Peterborough, Wednesday 4th October
- Benji Davies performance, Wolverhampton, Thursday 5th October
- Owen Sheers and Helen Stephens performance, Coventry, Thursday 12th October
- Alexis Deacon performance, Hull, Monday 16th October
- Jan Blake performance, Bristol, Tuesday 31st October
- Kate Wakeling and Elīna Brasliņa performance, Ipswich, Thursday 2nd November
- Satoshi Kitamura performance, Sheffield, Monday 6th November
- Frank Cottrell-Boyce performance, Blackpool, Tuesday 7th November
- Marta Altés performance, Milton Keynes, Monday 13th November
- Anna Woltz performance, London, Thursday 16th November
- John Agard and Grace Nichols performance, Newcastle, Friday 17th November
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More about our performances
We give children the chance to experience an inspiring ‘live’ encounter with an artist. Our authors and illustrators talk about their working lives, show children the paint brushes and notebooks that they use, the tools and tricks of their trade, and in doing this, they offer children a real insight into what it means to work creatively. Feedback from children show their strong appetite for new and challenging experiences, their feeling of personal connection to the writers whom they have met, and their sense of being inspired by contact with creative artists. We want children to feel that great literature and art is for them; that they can engage with it, enjoy it and practise it.
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Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development… Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure-house of wonder and joy for curious minds.
Want to help more children attend events like these in the future?