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KLF

All ages delighted at the Kids Lit Fest

09 / 2011

For the fifth year running The Mission has played host to a feast of events as part of the Bath Festival of Children's Literature. The hugely successful 10-day Festival runs in venues throughout Bath and at The Mission we welcomed back old friends from classic children's stories as well as meeting new characters and authors.

Saturday 24 September kicked off with two sessions of Lego-building, where children worked in small groups to create tiles of Lego which, when all brought together, formed a huge mosaic of Ninjago - Lego's new games world. The Mayor of Bath Cllr Bryan Chalker visited The Mission to join in with the second Lego event and then took a well-deserved break over a cup of tea and a cake in the Bistro Upstairs! Young readers were captivated by all the classic stories from the Ladybird Books and had a chance to join in with telling tales such as The Gingerbread Man and Three Little Pigs. After lunch, the theatre was invaded by the Moshi Monsters - huge but very friendly! The last event of the day was a scrum-tastic talk and quiz from Tom Palmer, author of sports stories and books. In this session he talked about his new book Scrum! and invited members of the audience to take part in a rugby penalty competition - complete with goalposts and inflatable balls!

On Sunday 25 September Peter Rabbit returned for the third year with his enchanting puppet show, and Spot the Dog was found in the foyer to the theatre. Youngsters are always delighted by the chance to get up-close to their favourite characters and the loveable rabbit and puppy are firm favourites. Tom Palmer also made a return visit on Sunday, this time with all things football-related including a goal-shooting competition on the stage. The last event saw Axel Scheffler introduce Pip and Posy to 3-4 year olds. After the storytelling session, Axel illustrated the audience's books with an individual Pip or Posy - a drawing to treasure for many years.

The following weekend, in the midst of an unseasonably hot spell, we started off on Saturday 1 October with the Piplings from Waybuloo in the Main Theatre and Kate Costello talking about her teen series "The Breakfast Club" upstairs in our Green Room Bistro - and every ticket holder was treated to a drink and a fresh muffin as part of the event. The afternoon had a double bill of puppetry and monster mask-making with Monster Mates, and the day concluded with L.A. Weatherley talking about her new and exciting series "Angel".

The final day of the Festival was as busy as ever, with The Very Hungry Caterpillar event on Sunday morning selling out with children being introduced to a range of songs and games as well as the classic story. We then celebrated Barefoot Bear's Birthday with a very special children's party. The end of the day had a host of craft activities as both Little Miss Princess and Holly Webb's delightful range of animal stories encouraged youngsters to design their own tiaras and animal masks.

We were thrilled to see so many young people gaining obvious enjoyment from reading and hope that The Children's Literature Festival continues to go from strength to strength.