The Art of Living: Bath Festival of Children's Literature

 

A wonderful festival of literature is coming to one of our favourite cities at the end of September.
Bath is host to an impressive line-up of authors, illustrators and storytellers.  This is the 5th Children's Literature Festival with plenty of events for under 3's to teens.

My son is at the age where he's ready to be absorbed by a storytelling event and I'm so excited to be taking him to a few of our favourites including Elmer:


David McKee
Saturday 24 Sep, 10am - 10.45am
Join master storyteller, stunning artist and creator of this year’s festival front cover David McKee for an incredible live drawing celebration, including our favourite elephant Elmer. A special event for all of you who love King Rollo, Mr Benn and Not Now Bernard too!

Other highlights:

Make your own Picture Book
Sunday 25 Sep, 3.30pm - 4.30pm
Scissors and glue at the ready! Join Petr Horáček, author of The Fly and the Suzy Goose books, find out how to write and illustrate your very own picture book to take home to read. How great is that!

Roddy Doyle
Friday 23 Sep, 7pm - 8pm
Roddy Doyle is talking about his brilliant new book A Greyhound of a Girl, a wittily told tale of four generations taking a midnight road trip back to the past with a very special mission…
Unfortunately I haven't got a 10+ to take to this event, but maybe they will just let me in without a child.  I'd just love to hear Roddy Doyle's voice!

It's wonderful to witness your children discovering books and becoming readers.  I was quite a 'bookworm' when I was younger and didn't mind being teased about it.  I'm still always surrounded by books and I can always gauge how balanced my life is by how much reading I've been able to do. I just hope my son feels the same joy of books as he grows up.

Visit the website here bathkidslitfest.org.uk
Or download the brochure here

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This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk

The Art of Living: Taschen's London, Paris, New York

These Taschen books have been on my wishlist for some time and today I had the opportunity to peek at them in the Taschen Bookstore on the Duke of York Square, just off the Kings Road (right next to the Saatchi Gallery).  It was a very brief look inside, as I was with my sticky-lolly-hands-son and the two don't really mix!

They have wonderful illustrations. I love how London is depicted with a baby-faced Jamie Oliver:

 

Paris of course conjours up the glamour of the cafes and brasserie life:

And New York...well, say no more, such an amazing city. I've only been there in the freezing cold for a January birthday many moons ago with Carla (who herself has been many times).  There's so much to see and do...and the shopping!  The Taschen book includes a map guide:

Each book is a guide to the charming, modern and cool places to sleep, eat, drink and shop in the capital cities. All amazingly photographed:

These books are large at 23.8 x 30.2 cm, so they are not meant to be pocket city guides. They are to have on your bookshelf at home to peruse, plan and dream.

They are edited by Angelika Taschen who sounds like she has quite an amazing career:  She studied art history and German literature in Heidelberg, gaining her doctorate in 1986. Working for TASCHEN from 1987 to 2010, she has published numerous titles on art, architecture, photography, design, travel, and lifestyle.

The books are available from Taschen here

For more visual inspiration for interiors in different cities the Edition Paumes series of books are full of beautiful images - have a browse here

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This is part of our Art of Living posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas and beyond.

If there's anything that you've discovered that inspires you - events, places, people, books etc - we welcome any guest blogs - please contact us via our contact page here

First reads of the New Year

As a Christmas gift I was completely chuffed to receive a book of poetry from my husband.  Poetry isn't everyones cup of tea, but I can get utterly lost in it.  I have always read it aloud to my son as the rhythm can be quite soothing, but now he's 3 he says 'that's boring mummy'!

My husband chose Carol Ann Duffy New Selected Poems for me as he remembered the poem I asked to be read at our wedding was River (from the Love Poems collection Rapture).  What was also so lovely and made me feel that my family do actually know me well, was that Sis chose the same book as a Christmas gift for me too. Was really touched.  One for my bedside and one for the 'slowly peruse shelf' at Granny's house.

The dust jacket has a lovely design by the Printmaker Angie Lewin:

The other book that was a pleasure to give to my niece Sophia was The Red Shoes by Sun Young Yoo / Gloria Fowler from Ammo Books, an adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale.

The illustrations in this book are beautiful and the sentiment of  the story is very inspiring:

...this contemporary version of The Red Shoes, offers a positive message to young girls that is much more in tune with our time. This adaptation focuses on the transcendent love between a mother and daughter, and the key notion that perseverance, ingenuity and hard work can allow one to overcome some of the greatest obstacles in life in order to pursue one’s artistic and creative dreams.

Many more stories and poems to lose myself in and many more books out there to discover. I'll let you know what we find over the year ahead.

Now, the only thing missing is a window seat - one of those snug little window seats with cushions to sit with a book and a cup of tea...and a cat maybe!

Can anyone lend me one?