Book Festival round up

Well, the Prestwich Book Festival is over for another year, and though it was small it was perfectly formed.

Check out lovely pictures from the marquee - a day of childrens' events on May 18 at Prestwich Clough Day, via Emma Farrer's Flickr photostream.

Meanwhile there's a great write up of our readers' day on June 1 by blogger Molly of A Place In Prestwich. There were many highlights to the day, but I only just noticed, from the picture in this blog, how fabulous Emma Jane Unsworth's shoes were.

Finally, the lovely Park View Primary School ran a short story writing competition among its 600 or so pupils: and local author Sherry Ashworth went along to award prizes to the very best of them.

This year's authors: Sherry Ashworth, EM Powell, Dominic Berry, Tony Walsh, Emma Jane Unsworth, Vanessa Lees, Honor Giles and Paul Neads.

A princess for my daughter

My daughter met three princesses this year. Their names are Tough, Ordinary and Paper Bag.

The Tough Princess has great swinging fists that slay monsters and beat up fairies, sometimes good ones, accidentally. My daughter discovered a copy of The Tough Princess - in a rather battered condition - after a swimming lesson, towards the bottom of the book box in the spectators' area. This princess has parents who are stuck in the past and who are pretty useless really; she has to take her fate into her own hands. She helps my daughter (and me) remember that girls can be strong and fit and are perfectly capable of taking control of their own destiny.

Another day we were in our local teashop, which has an entire wall of china teapots. 

Poets/tree

Tonight feels like autumn, tomorrow is National Poetry Day and this week is Children's Book Week. So here's a poem to connect all three. It's about a man who acts like a child and thinks he's a tree (geddit?).

The Fall by Russell Edson

There was a man who found two leaves and came indoors holding them out saying to his parents that he was a tree.


To which they said then go into the yard and do not grow in the living-room as your roots may ruin the carpet.


He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he dropped his leaves.


But his parents said look it is fall.

Huge numbers of poetry-related events are happening all over the UK tomorrow, including an outing by the bard of Prestwich, Tony Walsh, aka performance poet Longfella. He was poet-in-residence at the Glastonbury festival this year, is a scorching performer and is appearing at Nantwich Library in Cheshire at 7pm.

Up at Bury Library at 5pm, feisty poet and college student Charlotte Henson is leading a poetry workshop "by young people, for young people". More details here.

If you're staying in, try the following. Pick up a book of poetry. (OK, this may necessitate a visit to your local library). Open it at random. Read whatever poem you land on. Ta da. 

If you're feeling really inspired, pick the most interesting sounding line, and use it to start a poem of your own.

The beautiful picture above is from Sung Under the Silver Umbrella © Dorothy Lathrop 1954.