MFB goes to Bath Kids Lit 2011

Mark and I are so excited about visiting Bath Kids Festival for the first time this year. We were heading that way as fans and readers, but got a fantastic surprise when we were approached by the organisors asking us if we would like to attend in our capacity as bloggers. We would be able to meet various authors and get the occasional one to one interview...

Wow! We could not say no. We considered which days to go down and booked our accommodation and we carefully, painstakingly and with various coloured markers, went over the schedule and chose which talks to attend.

And now we are set. I may not sleep until then.

In the meantime, the Festival organisors have come up with a fantastic way for us to keep busy. A group of bloggers, illustrators and authors are all taking part in creating an on-going story.

This is the press release:


The Bath Festival of Children’s Literature is launching a unique collaborative storytelling event on Thursday 8 September featuring well known authors and bloggers. There are 20 collaborators in the project including authors Marcus Sedgewick, John Boyne and Annabel Pitcher who will be appearing in the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature Festival, 23 September- 2 October. The story will be written in real-time with readers following the trail as it moves from blog to blog, with an addition to the story being posted at each stop.

The story will run from 8 September – 16 October with the first installment being posted on the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature blog http://bathkidslitfest.wordpress.com/ where readers can click through to the next installment. Every other day a new piece of the story will be posted and as it is being written in real-time it has the potential to touch on any genre imaginable.

Artistic Director John McLay said “We are hoping to highlight the creativity and dedication of both book blogs and author blogs, through which potential readers are enthused and entertained. There is an amazing amount of support for the book industry via blogging and this is a great way for Bath to capture that and do something fun and unique”.

Big Blog Story Schedule

8 September Bath Festival of Children’s Literature
10 September Robin Etherington
12 September Annabel Pitcher
14 September Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
16 September Hannah Shaw
18 September Writing From the Tub
20 September Lauren Kate
22 September Marcus Sedgewick
24 September Alan Gibbons
26 September John Boyne
28 September Catherine Bruton
30 September Achuka
2 October Samantha Mackintosh
4 October An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
6 October Kate Maryon
8 October Barry Hutchinson
10 October My Favourite Books
12 October Joanna Nadin
14 October LA Weatherly
16 October Bath Festival of Children’s Literature

The Bath Festival of Children’s Literature runs for 10 days between 23 September- 2 October and will be packed full of events for all the family – highlights include the amazing Cressida Cowell, this year’s brochure cover illustrator David McKee, funny-man Andy Stanton and Pirates of the Caribbean actor Mackenzie Crook to name but a few.

Tickets can be booked by telephone 01225 463362, online at www.bathkidslitfest.org.uk or in person at Bath Box Office, 2 Church Street, Abbey Green, Bath BA1 1NL.

***

We will be blogging and tweeting from the event, so do make sure to follow us on Twitter - @LizUK and @Gergaroth. We will be there the first weekend of 24th and 25th September.

Events / talks we will definitely be attending:

Simon Scarrow talking about Gladiator

Cressida Cowell

Eoin Colfer

Ally Carter

Philip Reeve & Moira Young

Celia Rees and Mary Hooper

Tony DiTerlizzi

Airman by Eoin Colfer

I’ve not had a chance in the past to read any of Eoin (pronounced Owen) Colfer’s books but I know he is tremendously popular and a good writer. I approached Airman with bated breath, not sure what the expect and found myself swept off my feet in this Jules Verne / Alexander Dumas / William Golding type novel of hardship, self-realisation, revenge and obsession.

The main character, Conor Broekhart is born at the World Fair (1878) in a hot air balloon sailing over Paris. This introduction to Conor tells you immediately that our young hero is not going to be your run of the mill type of lad. His parents return with him to the small Saltee Islands, just off the Irish coast, where his parents are friends with and the subjects of King Nicholas Trudeau, sovereign of the Saltee Islands. King Nicholas is however a forward thinking monarch, ensuring that the islands are dragged out of their medieval ways into modern times, making them adapt to industrialization. This is not something certain of his subjects agree with! The money for the changes comes from the diamond mine on Little Saltee Island.

Conor spends most of his time with his best friend, Princess Isabella and his tutor Victor Vigny who is as obsessed as Conor is with flying – it is what their experiments are all about. Victor is a good friend of King Nicholas and they have an easy cameraderie. Marshall Bonvilain (good name, eh?) is the villain of the piece, the man who is keen to overthrow King Nicholas and take the throne for himself. Needless to say, he succeeds in his attempts, catches young Conor sneaking about trying to help his King and in an amazing about face, young Conor is trussed up as a traitorous soldier, renamed as Conor Finn and tossed in jail – and the story is set out that the real Conor died a hero, trying to save his King.

The story is wonderfully told with great skill and tremendous characterisation. Conor is highly intelligent, adapting to his new surrounding and his new persona. Old Conor was honourable and had a dream. New Conor is less scrupulous and with the help of a cellmate Linus Wynter he learns the ropes of prison life. A lot happens to Conor whilst he is in jail. He grows up and he becomes wise. He goes through an emotional time, thinking of his family, of the Princess Isabella, soon to be Queen Isabella, and what his future might have been. He instead focusses on who and what he is now, putting his past behind him. It makes for fascinating reading and I was dreading that it was going to be a dull period in the book, but the author uses his skill as narrator to bring the wider picture into play, so you don't JUST focus on Conor's dilemma.

I am not going to tell the whole plot, as it wouldn’t be fair. There are surprises and twists aplenty and it is truly a boys own adventure. Let me say this though: if you are keen for a historical romp, some brilliant storytelling about a young man seeking his revenge, and how your dreams keep you alive, Airman is that and more. As I mentioned earlier it has an old-world storytelling echo to it. It is The Count of Monte Cristo for younger readers. It is the romp of Princess Bride and it is the imagination of Jules Verne and HG Wells all rolled up in one. I will give this one of my newly created tags: – and encourage you to read it, just for the heck of it, because it is good clean escapist fun and it made me realise I need to definitely catch up with Mr. Colfer’s other works! I’d also hasten to add that I think this one will have cross-over appeal to adults as the world-building and storytelling is just excellent.

Airman’s just been published by Puffin in the UK so it is readily available to buy / borrow from a library. Find Eoin Colfer’s site here and the Puffin website here .