Amelia in Hull

‘Big Malarkey Festival’ and meeting Lauren Child!!

Hey guys!! So recently, on Monday 26th June, I went to the ‘Big Malarkey Festival’ which was on at East Park for an hour after school time. ‘Big Malarkey Festival’ is a literary festival and this is the first literary festival to ever happen in Hull!! One of the activities on Monday was to listen to Lauren Child being interviewed as part of her becoming 10th Children Laureate and then you could get your book signed by her afterwards!! So since Lauren is one of my favourite children’s authors, I sat and listened while she got interviewed and afterwards got my book signed by her and got a picture with her!! So in todays blog post, I’m going to be sharing my experience at the ‘Big Malarkey Festival’ and giving you my honest opinion on it.

The set up of the Big Malarkey Festival was really unique and colourful. There were lots of different tents set up all with different activities going on inside. Some of these were to make your own comic strip, to draw with Shoo Rayner the illustrater in residence at the Big Malarkey Festival and listening to Lauren Child be interviewed as part of her being 10th Children Laureate and get your book signed by her afterwards. We sat and listened to Lauren Child be interviewed for the full hour. During this time, she talked about her books which include the Ruby Redfort series, Clarice Bean series and Charlie and Lola series, how she illustrates her own books and how she got into writing in the first place. At the end of the interview she was met with a massive round of applause and after that everyone flocked outside to get their book signed by her. Me and my sister both brought a book for her to sign (I brought a Ruby Redfort book, she brought a Clarice Bean book) and then we posed for a photo with Lauren. I’m so grateful that I got the opportunity to go to the ‘Big Malarkey Festival’ and meet Lauren Child and I really hope they’ll consider making it an annual event in Hull.

I would rate this event 10 out of 10 stars since I really feel like it connects people with books and reading and the overall set up of the ‘Big Malarkey Festival’ was amazing!! There was also a wide range of events linking to literature going on throughout the week.

Thank you for reading this blog post!! Who’s your favourite author? Let me know in the comments!! There’ll be another blog post out next week but until then bye for now!!

Amelia Grace a.k.a Amelia in Hull

20 comments

  1. Sounds a really lovely experience for you to meet a very special author. I love the Charlie and Lola books for very young children. A well written blog. Well done

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  2. A not-to-missed-experience and clearly you and your sister were most impressed to meet Lauren Child and to learn about her writing and illustrating. Perhaps your wish of it becoming an annual event will materialise! Thanks Amelia – another great Blog!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Hi Amelia! I was hoping to catch up with you as I was in hull myself last week at the Royal Hotel! But talking about books… do go search for “About A Dog”, published by Austin Macauley. It’s about me and my little dog, but it mirrors human relationships. We launched a few months ago at LONDON Book Fair, and we were mobbed by photographers and even Russian TV! I’m trying to bring together local book shops as we did some book signings last year, and we had queues of people wanting to stroke the dog!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      • Amelia hi! I am in Hull every couple of months as it happens! But there is one way we can really collaborate! My book publisher is organising with me a national book signing tour, with me and my little dog.

        Can you suggest any Bookshops in Hull that I can contact? Once I get a date for doing a signing, we can then kindly ask you to cover it on your Blog?

        Good plan?

        Rich.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I would suggest waterstones since I think there have been book signings there before. If not, you could always try whsmiths since they have a couple of stores in Hull. I’d love to cover it on my blog!! I will order your book and read it so I can actually properly collaborate with you on it. If you would like to email me so we can discuss it further my email is ameliainhull@gmail.com 😊

        Like

  6. Favorite author? Ah… Too much. Too much. I have so many… Okay now that I think of it… Not so many, but more than one for sure. 😅

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Aw that sounds like such an awesome literary festival! 😊 I’m happy that you had such a good time. I haven’t gotten to have a book signed by an author yet, but I’d love to someday! I have a few favorite authors (I can never choose!), so the ones that I’ve been loving recently have been Karen Witemeyer, Lori Wick, and Elizabeth George!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment