Origins of the Festival
The Northern Children's Book Festival (NCBF) has been held every year since 1984. It began when a group of children's librarians and English teachers came together to discuss ways in which we could bring children's authors to schools in the North East by sharing costs. We approached publishers to pay authors' train fares and put up the authors in our spare rooms. With the help of a gift of £500 (a very generous sum when you consider the equivalent costs we face today) from Catherine Cookson we paid each author a fee of £40 per day. Most authors did 3 or 4 days in various schools and libraries. We drove them from school to library, lunched them, fought for cups of coffee in the staff rooms and sold books to the children who came to the sessions. At the end of our first short week of 4 days we held a Gala Day with 5 or 6 authors in Newcastle's Eldon Square Leisure Centre, talking to visitors and signing books that we sold at the venue.
Recent Years
From 6 Local Authorities we grew to 12 covering the whole North East area. We now pay authors a fee of £250 per day plus VAT where chargeable. Publishers still pay train fares and also hotel bills, although some authors still prefer to stay B+B with "friends of the Festival". Local Authorities pay towards the costs of authors visiting schools in their areas. Some schools pay direct and some get funding from their education budget.
We are now a registered charity (No. 1013065) and our Gala Day is funded in a different way. It is a free event and is open to the general public. It is very much a family event who bring their children to meet authors and stay for the whole day, buying books, taking part in book related activities and the various other activities going on around them during the day. In the past Gala Day has been funded by varying forms of sponsorship. The Library Book Supplies subsidised us for several years, supplying the books we sold at the Gala Day. We had funding for 3 years from the Northern Rock Foundation. More recently we have had funding from smaller trusts and also from the Arts Council.
Plans for 2008
This year's Gala Day theme reflects the Year of Reading Theme for the month of November - Screen Reads. Each Local Authority will design an activity around a filmed book. So far we have Gateshead with Kipling's "Jungle Book", Newcastle - Dr Who, South Tyneside - Peter Pan, North Tyneside - Paddington Bear and Sunderland - Charlotte's Web.
The venue is Newcastle Civic Centre, an ideal central location and we hope to attract over 5000 visitors.
Benefits of the Festival
We find that children and parents enjoy the author sessions they attend and are encouraged to read more, discuss what they have read and do creative writing themselves. Teachers in schools find that they can use the ideas generated at sessions and build upon the author's visit. The Librarians who drive the authors to venues enjoy meeting them and become more familiar with their books. The authors themselves enjoy meeting their public and get creative stimulus and ideas from the children. We are convinced that the benefit of author sessions is enormous. Parents at Gala Day are aware of what a rich culture of children's books exists and our bookshop does very well. Children go home with a signed copy by an author they have met - a book to treasure.