The Gosforth Community Book Festival got off to a flying start on Friday 16th with Year 5 and 6 travelling to Gosforth Junior High Academy to hear Dan Freedman talk about his life in writing and his wonderful Jamie Johnson books. Meeting an author who has interviewed Beckham, Messi and Ronaldo was amazing inspiration. In the afternoon, boys from Nursery to Year 4 met Simon Bartram and heard about his wonderful Bob Man on the Moon series. Some silly aliens kept interrupting and great fun was had by all. Meanwhile Dave Cousins was speaking to boys in Year 8 who had been joined by children form the three local middle schools for a very funny and engaging talk about his books. The moon walk will be remembered for a very long time!
On Saturday 17th the festival opened its doors to the local community and NSB families. We were delighted to keep the services of Dave Cousins and Simon Bartram and were also joined by Tom Palmer, Jason Beresford, Hannah Russell and Dan Smith. Visitors enjoyed a range of fantastic talks from these authors and were entertained throughout the day. There was also some arts and crafts going on where children enjoyed making wooden spoon puppets and helping Mr Wells with his larger than life dinosaur picture. Sales of books at the Seven Stories Bookshop were brisk and there was always the café available for those who needed a pick me up before meeting more authors. We also saw many authors in the making who had a chance to write with Flowing Tales in the I.T suite. Following their story in a day caused great excitement.
This was a wonderful day for the local community with over 350 visitors coming along on the day to share their passion and love for books, reading and writing. The next festival is already being discussed so please watch out for further details.
To view all photos from the day, click here.