Cospicua Book Festival for children

The Cospicua Book Festival for Children, a new collaborative project by the National Book Council and the Cospicua Local Council, is a one-day festival that will take place on 29 April at the Bormla waterfront and will be dedicated to children and children’s literature. A total of 5 publishers will be exhibiting their books and a cultural programme has been prepared with reading activities, encounters with authors and fun activities.

The Festival will open at 9:45am in the presence of Cospicua mayor, Ms Alison Zerafa, and the executive chairman of the National Book Council, Mr Mark Camilleri. Among the activities prepared for the day, there will be reading sessions with award-winning authors Clare Azzopardi and John A. Bonello. Other reading and literary activities have been prepared in collaboration with the National Literacy Agency. The full programme can be found hereunder.

The publishers participating in the festival are: FARAXA, MERLIN PUBLISHERS, WISE OWL, MILLER and MIDSEA BOOKS.

The National Book Council thanks Cospicua Local Council for their collaboration, the National Literacy Agency for setting up the ‘Aqra Miegħi’ reading activities and the publishers that agreed to participate in the event. Last but not least, the NBC thanks Henry Abela for his help with the digital editing of the artwork.

9:45 Official opening

10:30 Story telling: John A. Bonello

John A. Bonello will be reading excerpts of his work to children and engaging them in the process by asking them to guess details of the plot. (ages 7-12)

11:00 Reading activity – Aqra Miegħi

A reading activity for children set up in collaboration with the National Literacy Agency (ages 5-6)

11:30 Story telling: Clare Azzopardi

Clare Azzopardi will be reading excerpts from her book Il-Qtates ta’ max-Xatt (ages 4-5)

12:00 Reading Activity – Aqra Miegħi

A reading activity for children set up in collaboration with the National Literacy Agency (ages 5-6)

14:00 Meet the author – Kirsten Spiteri

Kirsten Spiteri, the author of The Wave and Far From Home, will be talking about his experience as an emergent author and will also be reading excerpts from his two novels. The event is set up by Faraxa.

19:00 End of Festival