By Kate Loynes, Joint organiser of the Beanstalk BookFest

Literary festivals are springing up everywhere and more and more children are clamouring to meet their favourite authors and experience their stories ‘live’.

At Beanstalk we believe in spreading the magic of reading as far as possible, so that children can experience the joy of getting lost in a story that feels special to them. Holding our very own Beanstalk BookFest seemed like the perfect way to enable more children to see their favourite books come alive and to meet authors in person.

We’re proud to have several children’s authors as reading helpers, and when we approached them with the idea of putting on a free Beanstalk BookFest they leapt at the idea 

On Saturday 15^th October – at Francis Holland School, SW1 8JF - we are lucky enough to be hosting three incredible authors, Abi Elphinstone, Piers Torday and Polly Faber who will be talking about their books. We will also be running our own Beanstalk workshop with ideas to help engage reluctant readers.

We are very excited to be hosting these three very special authors, and we’re confident that they’ll inspire all the children attending to keep reading and telling stories.

Abi is extraordinarily energetic and effusive storyteller – every child she meets is inspired to go on adventures and become a writer! She is the author of The Dreamsnatcher and The Shadow Keeper, both of which feature a feisty heroine called Moll and her trusty wildcat, Gryff. She has just been nominated for the Books Are My Bag (BAMB) Readers Award 2016.  

Piers Torday is the author of the fantastic Wild trilogy. His book ‘The Dark Wild’ won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Piers’ latest book, There May Be a Castle is published on 6^th October. We are so lucky that his appearance at our Beanstalk BookFest will be one of the first opportunities to hear him read from his new book, which is about the unbeatable power of imagination. 

Polly Faber is the creator of the Mango and Bambang series of books, a charming and beautifully illustrated series about the unlikely friendship between a little girl and a tapir! We are hoping that Polly will be teaching us all how to draw as beautifully as she does and explaining why tapirs became her inspiration for these books. 

None of this would have been possible without the kind generosity of Francis Holland School and Ames Belgravia Property Consultants, both of whom share our passion for helping more children discover the magic of reading.

Book your free tickets for the Beanstalk BookFest by visiting our event page.