Children’s BookFest Chichester expands into Bognor

As BookFest founder and trustee Penny Tomlinson explains, the book festival is dedicated to finding ways to provide opportunities for children to own books of their own. Last year 33 authors visited 22 schools, covering 61 events and wowed almost 4,000 captivated children with their energetic and enthusiastic presentations. Now they are expanding with Children’s BookFest Bognor on February 7 and 8 with authors going into schools including Rose Green, Edward Bryant, Downview, Nyewood and South Bersted. Children’s BookFest Chichester then returns on October 3, 4 and 5 when authors will be visiting 26 schools in the Chichester area.

“We did a trial run for Bognor last year and it went extremely well so this year we have got the two festivals, the one in February and then in October. A couple of head teachers in Bognor got in touch because they had heard about what we were doing and they wanted to see if they could participate. There is a huge need in Bognor where we have been doing a food bank. We provide 150 children’s books to the food bank every month. Bognor was very keen to come on board and the trial last year had been massively successful. I'm sure our Bognor festival will get bigger and bigger.

“We have been going for four years. This will be our fifth. And the reason it is has been successful is that it meets such a demand. It could roll out across the country. One in five West Sussex children does not own a single book of their own, and those are the children we want to reach. Lots of book festivals do ticketed events and that's great but we aim to reach every single child and give them a book and we do that by going into the schools. Last year we bought, just for the book festival, 3,597 books at a cost of about £5 a book and then there were also the books on top of that that went to the food bank. And we've also got one paid worker as a freelance. This year we need to raise around £40,000 which a huge but we're well on the way.” What makes it work, Penny feels, is the enthusiasm of all involved, plus the aim of reaching every single child: “Schools and the children love it. They queue up and meet the author and they get their books signed. It's like children in big cities going to farms and seeing that cows produce milk! These children just can't believe that the person in front of them actually wrote the book that they're holding. It seems unreal to them. They really can't imagine it and with some of the older children the author will talk to them about the issues that they had in their own lives and how they used to disappear into the world of make-believe and imagination, into the world of books. And you can see the children’s joy in the book straight away. The children don't just take away a book with them. They take away the possibility of something really exciting.”