Review of Book Festival
The third Linton Children’s Book Festival took place between the 1st and 9th of May 2010. Lintonians who use the High Street will not have failed to notice the “My Favourite Book” posters adorning the lampposts in the weeks leading up to the Festival.
The Festival began with a Children’s History Walk on Saturday, 1st May. Andrew Clark and Simon Holden led the walk between Symonds House and the old railway station. They retraced the steps of a Victorian workhouse outing that took place in 1872. The children found out about the workhouse and the daily life of the people who lived there. At the station, they were able to imagine the busy scene as the steam train drew in to take the workhouse children to the seaside. Many thanks are due to Garth Collard for his extensive research on which the walk was based.
After the bank holiday, all the Linton schools were treated to visits from prominent authors and illustrators during the school week.
Pete Johnson, author of “How to Train Your Parents”, visited the Linton Heights Junior School on Wednesday, 5th May, and entertained the entire school by reading extracts from his books. James Mayhew, author and illustrator of the “Katie” series, visited Linton Infants School on Friday, 7th May. His enthralling stories were told as he sketched and painted upside down on his knee – a feat which really impressed the children and their teachers. Sophie McKenzie was due to speak at Linton Village College on the same day but had to withdraw due to illness. Luckily a replacement was found in Darren Shan, who proved a real hit with the students.
The Festival’s renowned garden storytimes made a welcome return after school on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Thanks to the generosity of our hosts, the younger children enjoyed the chance to explore some wonderful Linton gardens and enjoy a story in the open air.
The Linton Amateur Dramatic group got involved by putting on a thoroughly entertaining performance of Roald Dahl’s “Revolting Rhymes” on Wednesday and Thursday evenings for the Rainbows & Brownies and Beavers & Cubs respectively.
On Thursday, 6 May Marion Leeper from the Cambridge Storytellers took her story mat into to Granta Playgroup, Chestnut Playgroup and The Granta Special School where she fascinated children with Darwin’s story of the Voyage of the Beagle.
Also on Thursday the Sir Peter Blake Art Bus arrived outside the Granta School. This specially adapted double-decker bus contained an art gallery on the top floor and a sixties-themed bar area at the bottom of the stairs. The gallery showed an exhibition of Sir Peter Blake’s work stretching back to the famous Sgt Pepper album cover. Children in all the schools had been learning about Sir Peter Blake’s work and throughout Thursday and Friday, were able to visit the bus as it toured the village. It finally drew up outside the Darryl Nantais Gallery, who had arranged its presence in the village, and winners of the Art competition were given their prizes at the Gallery’s Private View. The Bus remained open to the general public until Saturday afternoon and had a constant stream of visitors.
As the week went on interest and excitement built for the weekend of Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th May. The Festival theme was around “The World in a Weekend” which reflected the international flavour of many of the free events on offer.
Saturday kicked off at Linton library where Maggie Bateson and Louise Comfort gave a special talk about how they created their astonishingly detailed pop-up books. They were followed by Holly Clifton Brown who read from her book Annie Hoot and Knitting Extravaganza. Annie is an owl who sets off on an adventure in a hot air balloon, and the audience were treated to a special appearance by a real owl from Linton Zoo.
Defying the inclement weather, hundreds of local families turned up the Infant School from midday. In the main hall, Kumiko Mendl began proceedings with a mesmerising performance retelling an old Japanese folk tale with an assortment of interesting props. She spent the rest of the afternoon running an origami workshop which was crowded with enthusiastic children.
Kumiko was followed by Barbara Mitchelhill, who writes detective stories for children featuring her supremely confident hero Damian Drooth. Damian had been spotted around the village in the run-up to the Festival following the trail of the Linton book thief so Barbara’s audience were well prepared to help her uncover the culprit.
As the speakers performed in the packed main hall, lots of other activities were carrying on in the classrooms. Kate Slater, a new author, ran a delightful collage workshop re-creating a magpie’s nest. Maggie Bateson and Louise Comfort returned to show the children how to create pop-up fairies, and children and authors were encouraged to record their opinions on the day in the new video booth.
In the church pavilion, Adham Smart, the Foyles Young Poet of the Year, talked to young people about the process of writing poetry and gave some inspirational readings of his own work.
Emma Mason and the Linton Buskers provided musical accompaniment undaunted by the damp weather. Delicious cakes and sandwiches were provided by the Infant’s PSA. And last but not least, the young at heart were delighted to meet Elmer the Elephant as he wandered round the school.
Next up in the main hall was Simon Chapman, a real-life jungle explorer and author. Simon’s perilous adventures in the Amazon jungle were brought vividly to life – especially when he encouraged the audience to imitate the distinctive cries of the howler monkeys! Adults and children alike were fascinated by this larger-than-life character, who afterwards showed us how to tie up a hammock in the playground.
To round up proceedings, John Foster, an old Festival favourite, treated us all to a hilarious rendition of his poems, including “Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar” and “Whiz Bang Orang-utan”. Then he and Adham presented prizes to the winners of the poetry competition – the perfect end to our Saturday.
Sunday dawned more brightly and the action moved to Linton Village College where the front lawn was soon adorned with a variety of tents and marquees.
Fresh from his popular appearance at the junior school, Pete Johnson started proceedings in the main hall entertaining a large crowd with jokes, quizzes and dramatic restaging of episodes in his books. At the end of his talk, he presented prizes for the short story competition which attracted well over 100 entries.
After Pete, our favourite palaeontologist Liz Hide gave a wonderful talk enticingly entitled “The Oldest Poo in the World”! With many valuable artefacts and fossils from the Segewick Museum, she drew a compelling picture of life in prehistoric times which no doubt inspired many young people in the audience to find out more about this fascinating subject.
As on the Saturday, the talks in the main hall were accompanied by many different workshops and displays to entertain the large crowd, including Peter and the Wolf puppet making and Pigs in Paper Plane making!
One of the most popular workshops was Manga Cartoon drawing led by Sonia Leong. Sonia also brought along some fellow artists who sketched manga portraits all day in the reception area.
Gita Mistri ran two Indian dancing workshops in the new dance studio where participants tried out their Bollywood moves. These tied in with a talk by Narinder Dhami the author of “Bend it like Beckham” and many other very successful books which celebrate the British Asian community.
Following Narinder in the red zone, author Paul Cooper entertained us with his zany humour and unrelenting enthusiasm. Paul writes the “Pigs in Planes” series for Puffin books and we hear the boys in the playground on Monday morning were re-telling all of his corny jokes to each other!
Back in the main block, the Linton Heritage Project and Oxford Archaeology East put on a fascinating display of finds from the recent archaeological digs at the college. The centrepiece was a full skeleton with its skull removed – a chilling reminder that life was not always so cheerful by the banks of the Granta.
Outside in their special canvas tent, the Fairyland Trust held a series of fairy workshops, making special books for the children so that they could recognise woodland trees and flowers. In another marquee, Angela Patchett and Marion Leeper took turns to tell stories to the very young ones.
At the end of the afternoon, a large crowd assembled in the main hall once again where they were treated to a performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf by the Linton Festival Orchestra. This very special event was made possible by the musicians who gave up their time voluntarily to rehearse and perform this children’s favourite. An encore of the theme from Star Wars provided the rousing finale to the Festival.
Many thanks are due to Linton Parish Council, the Cambridgeshire Community Foundation and Young Lives (Cambridgeshire County Council Youth Services) who provided the bulk of the funding for the Festival. We are also indebted to our local business sponsors Ridgeons, Kumon Maths and English, the Genzyme Corporation and Linton Tandoori Restaurant for their contributions; and the more than 40 helpers who were involved at the weekend. Finally, we must thank the Festival administrator Josephine Paterson and her hard working committee for their tireless enthusiasm and organisational skills.
Please click on the flickr link on the right hand side of this page to see fantastic photographs of the weekend.
Thanks to Bridget Savill and Alex Bright in particular for the amazing photographs of Sunday’s activities.
Our joint winners in the Art Competition received their prizes today on board the Sir Peter Blake Art Bus.
Some 30 or more Book Crossing b0oks will be left hidden around Linton tomorrow; Wednesday 5th May as part of the Linton Children’s Book Festival.
Summer is here, the weather forecast is promising – so it must be time for Garden Storytimes!
Thank you to Andrew, Simon and Garth for a really interesting History Walk today. By just looking around us carefully we were able to see what remains of Victorian Linton and imagine what it must have been like growing up in the 1870s when Linton had a workhouse, seventeen pubs and a railway station! 
The 2010 Festival kicks off at midday tomorrow with our Children’s History Walk.
Linton Village College are starting a Film Club and their first screening will be on Sunday 9th May of “Bend it Like Beckham” at 11.00am in The Business Suite, Linton Village College!
