World Book Day!

Phew! Back in the office after a wild day of World Book Day fun, we publicists are still feeling slightly dizzy! But we’ve stopped her heads spinning long enough to bring you our account of the BIGGEST BOOK SHOW ON EARTH!

Ever-so-slightly earlier than I’m used to, I head down to the Southbank Centre to meet to lovely Emma Chichester Clark before her event in the Nursery stage of the book show. Heading in to  Queen Elizabeth Hall we were greeted by an array of Southbank staff on the cloakroom, ready to receive hoards of children and authors, before we ventured into the hall itself. There were lots of cameras ready to catch the action and broadcast it live on the internet to over 700,000 children who had registered all over the world to watch!

Five illustrators featured in the nursery event, including Emma, David Melling, Korky Paul, Lydia Monks and Axel Scheffler. Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson introduced each with a song and they then had 5 minutes to do some live drawing as they talked to their audience. Emma drew a lovely portrait of Lulu hitching a lift on Alfie’s scooter as you can see below! Lulu features in Emma’s latest book Wagtail Town: Lulu and the Best Cake Ever.

Once the nursery event finished it was back to the green room to unite with the primary authors who had all arrived and were nervously planning their five minutes on stage! Out in the Queen Elizabeth Hall the children started to arrive, with over 800 of them in person to add to the online viewers.

L-R: Eoin Colfer, Emma Chichester Clark, Steve Cole, Korky Paul, Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks

Whilst the primary authors performed, the nursery illustrators watched from the audience. With only five minutes each the pressure was on, but each authors entertained their audiences brilliantly! Derek Landy had his audience in fits of giggles with his pet stories!

Then it was time for a very special guest to take the stage – the Duchess of Cornwall herself Camilla Parker Bowles took to the stage to praise all the authors and encourage children to keep reading.

You can register and watch the event again now here.

After this event our authors weren’t done yet! Derek was whisked off to Waterstones High Street Kensington for an event with a school group, and Emma and I sped up to Daunt in Holland Park to meet a group from the Southbank School in Kensington.

What a busy day but so much fun! Thanks to all the organisers and we hope you had a brilliant World Book Day wherever you are!

Tags: Daunt, Derek Landy, Emma Chichester Clark, Waterstones, World Book Day