Every child attending this performance will receive a FREE copy of Cloud Soup to take home and keep!
How did it go?
Eleven primary schools and over 600 children joined us at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, for a joyful and interactive morning of poetry and live illustration with poet Kate Wakeling and illustrator Elīna Brasliņa. The children were encouraged to get involved throughout, from conducting the speed of a poem and creating a rainstorm with their hands and feet, to coming up with ideas for a group poem and joining in with plenty of movement. It was fascinating to watch Elīna illustrate the poems live as Kate performed them, giving the children a wonderful insight into how words can be transformed into images. Every child also went home with a free copy of their book, Cloud Soup, making it a memorable celebration of poetry, creativity and reading.
Check out this reel on instagram to see some fun footage from the performance!
Kate Wakeling Workshop
Poet Kate Wakeling will visit your school and delight your class, encouraging them to play with words, get their imaginations fizzing and work creatively to produce their own poems.
Elina Braslina Workshop
In this fun and hands-on illustration workshop children will have the chance to work with illustrator Elīna Brasliņa in their own classroom.
Did you go to this performance or attend one of the related workshops? Send us your photos and feedback to be featured on this page
- Venue:
- Belgrade Theatre, Belgrade Square, Coventry, CV1 1GS
- Date:
- Monday 5th October
- Time:
- 11:00 am
- Duration:
- Approx. 1 hour
- Age range:
- Years 4, 5 and 6
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Kate Wakeling
Kate Wakeling is a poet who writes for both children and adults. Her debut collection of children’s poetry, Moon Juice (The Emma Press) is illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa, won the 2017 CLiPPA and was nominated for the 2018 CILIP Carnegie Medal. Kate’s second collection for children, Cloud Soup, came out in 2021. Kate's most recent collection of poetry is for Key Stage 1 and is called Dinosaur at The Bus Stop (Otter-Barry Books). It was shortlisted for the CliPPA in 2024. Kate studied music at university and often collaborates with musicians, including as writer-in-residence for Aurora Orchestra. She loves writing scripts for musical performances, and her work has featured at the Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Kings Place and on BBC Radio 3.
Praise for Cloud Soup
Both limpidly welcoming and profoundly meaningful, some of these poems, on subjects from weird cakes to good ideas, bodies, dust and Antarctica, will surely stay with their enthralled readers for ever.
Elīna Brasliņa
Elīna Brasliņa is an illustrator and artist from Latvia. She studied printmaking at the Art Academy of Latvia, and discovered her love of book illustration there. She has worked on close to 30 titles, most of them children’s books by Latvian authors. She made her international debut by illustrating Kate Wakeling's collection of poems, Moon Juice (published by The Emma Press). Elīna enjoys playing around with styles and techniques, and even when she works digitally, she almost always incorporates scanned textures to give her work a more hand-drawn feeling. She lives in Riga with her husband, her daughter and their dog Bonnie.
Praise for Moon Juice
Moon Juice, from the Emma Press, illustrated with spiky charm by Elīna Brasliņa, won the 2017 CLiPPA, ranges from dreamy celestial meditation to comet-streaking speed
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