The Brighton Children's Book Festival

It was my birthday last Saturday and to celebrate I took a group of little girls to the Brighton Children's Book Festival. I was on a panel (about promoting yourself online) the following day.

Snowy Globe, their school's cuddly toy mascot, came along. Our task was to bring back photographs Snowy Globe enjoying Brighton and the festival. Here is Snowy Globe and my festival companions getting ready to board the train to Brighton:

Snowy Globe was suitably impressed by the sights at Brighton:


Brighton was relentlessly cool.



At Brighton University we slavered over the book display.



The theme of this year's festival is 'Leaping from the Page' - books finding other incarnations in comics, film, stage, you get the idea.

The kids went straight into a musical performance workshop using material from Feather Boy by Nicky Singer. The workshop was run by Nicholas Beeby and Kate Bray. While they were in the workshop, I attended a comics workshop run by Marcia Williams:



The kids then performed a scene from Feather Boy - incredibly well given that they only had two hours to learn the songs and workshop the scene! It was mind-boggling. I won't be surprised if Grace (the girl in the foreground) who sang the lead ends up on the West End someday!







After the performance, Laura Atkins who organised the festival, very charmingly interviewed Dakota Blue Richards, the young star of the film of The Golden Compass and a Brighton local. My girls were gripped by this personable (not to mention exceedingly beautiful) and well-spoken young person.





Of course, Snowy Globe paid close attention to all that was said.



And Dakota Blue kindly had her picture taken with girls and dog.



As did David Almond when it came time for him to speak about the turning of his books into films.



David A gave an inspirational talk about writing and adapting work for other media. Then the BBC adaptation of Clay was screened (the girls were a bit scared).



We then rushed off to Zizzi in the Lanes for a birthday supper and then to the beach and the Brighton Pier to milk the most out of the rest of the evening before we left. Unfortunately the funfair was already closed. But that did not stop my intrepid gang.



Sadly, because I was speaking the next day (and because the events were geared for an older audience), I didn't take the kids with me. As a result, I took no pictures. Sorry.

Choice Lookybook : Dory Story by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki

I really liked this one - my boys would have loved it when they were still toddlers. In fact, they probably will still love it now.

Do click through to see the larger version on Lookbook

Polly Toynbee on Girlification

Polly Toynbee recently gnashed her teeth over Girlification's triumph over Feminism. The Toynbee rant ranged from glass ceiling stuff to "the pink disease is far worse than it was 20 years ago".

Mention of the "pink disease" pricked up my ever-vigilant ears as I'd only recently contributed to a discussion about pink book covers (it was about the highly pink cover of my friend Fiona Dunbar's book Pink Chameleon) at The Bookwitch blog where Ann Giles (who is no witch)wrote:

I’d like to know if they sell more books with pink or lilac covers (glitter optional) because they are pink or lilac, or if the pink and lilac puts more prospective buyers off? Not all girls love pink and lilac. Lots of parents are allergic to pink and lilac, after years of nothing but. (from Think Pink)

I commented that a clever book like Pink Chameleon - which re-imagines a high tech fashion future - should have a sticker on the cover, warning: "Smart Inside".

Toynbee had some pretty shocking back-up research for the girlification rant:

A report from the American Psychological Association shows how sexualisation harms girls - and it's getting worse, more of it and more extreme. One study showed how anxiety about appearance harms brain function: girls were asked to try on a swimsuit or a sweater in a private dressing room, supposedly to give their opinion. While waiting they were asked to do a maths test. The girls given swimsuits did much worse than those in sweaters, as thinking about their bodies, mostly negatively, undermined their intellectual self-confidence.

Aww.

At the end of the day, ridiculing girliness is negative in its own right, isn't it?

As the mother of a girl who is just emerging from a strong anti-pink phase and entering a more fashion conscious age, I say: let's not suck the fun out of being a girl. What will really empower a girl is permission to be whoever they want to be.

P.S. The second book in Fiona's Pink Chameleon series is Blue Gene Baby - with a BLUE cover.