SWINDON YOUTH FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE 2025 

Every year, the librarians of the Swindon secondary schools collaborate and organise the Swindon Youth Festival of Literature – a celebration of everything book-ish with visits and workshops with authors, poets and illustrators. This year we celebrated the 18th year of this award-winning Festival. 

PHIL EARLE

Our headline event at The Wyvern Theatre saw 48 excited year 7 students hanging off every word of author Phil Earle. Many of the students were already familiar with his book When the Sky Falls, the captivating story of a young boy Joseph and Adonis, a silverback gorilla. Inspired by a true story and set during World War 2, Phil posed some tricky questions making us all think about what we would do when faced with the same dilemma Joseph was. To decide what you would do – read the book just like our students have!

Abbie “It was really fun, and he was so interactive with the audience. I will definitely be reading all of his books. It was very inspiring.”

Millie “It was fun to hear about Phil’s new book coming out and hearing about the inspiration for When the Sky Falls”.

 

JULIAN SEDGWICK & CHIE KUTSUWADA

The whole of year 8 and 9 were gripped by Carnegie nominated author Julian Sedgwick and Manga artist Chie Kutsuwada. Both Julian and Chie had the audience rapt as they told the story of how communities on the coast of Japan recovered and supported one another following the devastation of the 2011 tsunami. From resilience and determination, they focused on superstition, ghost and yokai and their role in Japanese culture all tied together in their books Tsunami Girl and 100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Café. As Julian read, Chie live drew the manga characters before our eyes. It was just amazing. Fun fact – Chie has drawn the Manga version of part of Liam Payne’s music videos and created the illustrations for the BBC’s adaptation of the story of skateboarder Sky Brown.

The year 10 Art GCSE class were then treated to a session with Chie who delivered a step-by-step manga drawing workshop, focusing on the head shape and distinctive eyes and hair of manga characters. She spoke about the history of manga and how it is just part of everyday life in Japan. Fun fact – manga books were historically printed on cheap paper. This paper could only “hold” black and white ink and so that is why, to this day, traditional manga is still just black and white. 

 

ASH DICKINSON

Performance slam poet and Festival favourite Ash Dickinson inspired year 7 students to find their inner poet with his entertaining and interactive workshop. Ash spoke about how poems are a great outlet to express your feelings and inner angst by removing the feelings from your body and put them into words on a page. Students demonstrated their passion for poetry with plenty of performers, including science teacher Mr Plumb, clamouring to take to the mic! 

JENNY MCLACHLAN

Over 220 pupils from our partner primary schools were entertained and inspired in an interactive fun filled talk about magic, dragons and using your imagination with Jenny McLachlan. The Land of Roar series came alive with pupils recreating Arthur and Rose emerging into the attic for an adventure – live storytelling at its best! The event was on Remembrance Day, and pupil representatives from each school spoke about the history of 11 November, and read In Flanders Fields by John McCrae. It was extremely moving and the pupils did their schools proud with their mature and respectful observation.   

BOOK QUIZ

The Ridgeway librarians were delighted to host the finale of LitFest event week: the hotly contested Inter School Book Quiz. 12 schools entered teams of 6 students from years 7 to 9, to answer 14 rounds of questions all linked to books from Manga to Music, and from Roald Dahl to Reading with Pride. Our heads of school, Frances and Jasmine were fabulous quiz leaders and the Festival sponsors, Bower Bailey Solicitors came to present the awards after a nail-biting tiebreak between The Ridgeway School and Abbey Park School which ultimately saw the team from The Ridgeway claim the trophy!

TIEBREAKER QUESTION – In what month and year was Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone published?

 

CELEBRATION EVENT

After a short breather from LitFest week itself, all the participating schools welcomed families of students that had been awarded prizes in the various LitFest competitions to The Pattern Church where we celebrated their achievements with the Mayor and our business sponsors.  
 

It was a fabulous week celebrating everything book-ish. A massive thank you to SASH for funding the Festival along with our business sponsors Browns Books for Students, Bower Bailey Solicitors, Bert’s Books, WH Smiths, Beard Construction, the National Literacy Trust and House Estate Agents.

Mrs Day & Mrs Dry 
LRC Managers