Children's Book Festival a Success

Local author Keith Gray spoke at an event at Aberfeldy’s newly opened youth centre The Hub, explaining how he became an author having failed nearly all his exams at school!

The day before, in a schools programme funded by The Watermill, Keith also spoke to groups at Pitlochry High School and Breadalbane Academy. At the same time, more than 50 primary children from five rural schools in Highland Perthshire came to Aberfeldy for a special session where Mairi Hedderwick gave an illustrated talk about how authors make books.

The festival’s grand finale saw stories brought to life as children dressed up as characters from their favourite books and paraded around The Watermill.

All of the sessions at the festival were chaired by local school children who are members of The Watermill Children’s Book Groups, which meet weekly throughout the year.

Kevin Ramage and Jayne Pascoe, organisers of the festival said, ‘This was very much an event where parents sat at the back and were told to keep quiet, whilst the children took centre stage! Our aim was to show children that books and literature can be fun as well as educational, and the enthusiastic feedback we’ve already received suggests we more than achieved that’.

Following the success of this year’s event, the Watermill Children’s Book Festival is set to become an annual fixture in the Perthshire calendar.

'Mairi Hedderwick signs for enthusiastic readers'.