Children’s Literature Festival returns to the capital

The 2017 Cardiff Children’s Literature Festival returns next spring from 25 March – 2 April and after celebrating Dahl’s splendiferous City of the Unexpected this year, Cardiff is looking forward to more book-tastic fun.

This will be the fifth festival, which continues to go from strength to strength. Last year’s bilingual festival was the most successful year yet with in excess of 5000 tickets sold and more than 50 events held across two jam-packed weekends.

The 2017 Festival welcomed TV personality Lucy Owen to launch the city’s fifth Cardiff Children’s Literature Festival, with a reading of her newly-launched children’s book,Boo-A-Bog in the Park.

Mum and presenter Lucy was joined by lucky local school children from Ysgol Mynydd Bychan who gave their verdict on her first book, which is a fundraising venture for children’s charity Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital Charity and is illustrated by celebrated illustrator Andy Catling.

Lucy’s husband, TV presenter Rhodri has translated her book, which was launched by Gwasg Gomer last month. Lucy spoke of her excitement at all that the festival has to offer, saying: “The festival is a firm favourite on our family’s calendar and it has been wonderful to watch it grow and grow over the last five years into an event the capital can be really proud of. I can now appreciate the effort that goes into bringing characters to life, but those on the festival line-up are expert at this. It is wonderful to be a part of it.”

The festival will be bigger and better than ever with a host of exciting events in English and Welsh running at venues across the city, across two weekends. The full programme where authors and illustrators will bring words and pictures to life with amazing tales and performances, can be found online, it includes: Roald Dahl Funny Prize winner Andy Stanton, festival favourite David Solomons, Hugless Douglas creator David Melling, picture book author and illustrators Chris Haughton, Rob Biddulph, BBC’s Mike Dilger, Clara Vulliamy, Huw Aaron, Anni Llŷn (Welsh Children's Poet Laureate), Manon Steffan Ros and celebrated local author Jenny Nimmo.

Dr Siwan Rosser, a noted children’s literature expert at Cardiff University’s School of Welsh, a festival partner, said: “It is fantastic to see the festival continue to grow in scale and impact. After such a remarkable turn out and line-up in 2016 the organisers had quite a task in preparing for the 2017 festival, but the diverse programme is impressive and exciting. We are proud to support this event and would urge everyone not to miss out and to get their tickets early!”

Tickets for the festival 25 March – 2 April 2017 are on sale now from www.cardiff-events.com or call 02920 230 130. Follow @CDFKidsLitFest or @GwylLlenPlant and @cardiff_events. And like www.facebook.com/CDFKidsLitFest (English) or www.facebook.com/GwylLLenPlant