Bestselling author Rob Biddulph supports Stratford Literary Festival’s Build a Library initiative
THE bestselling and multi-award winning author/illustrator, Rob Biddulph, joined the Stratford Literary Festival in a packed couple of days of events with local schools to celebrate its donation of hundreds of books to their libraries.
The author, who was behind the hugely successful online #DrawwithRob events during lockdown, began by entertaining 450 children at a special session hosted by the Croft School Preparatory School, joined by children from Alveston, Bridgetown and St Gregory’s primary schools. Rob had all the children drawing and then mesmerised them with his guitar and a special reading to an animated film of his charming new book, I Follow The Fox.
Over the next two days, Rob visited Shottery Primary, Bishopton Primary, Our Lady’s Catholic Primary in Alcester, Studley St Mary’s Primary and Our Lady’s Catholic Primary in Princethorpe to officially ‘open’ the schools’ newly-stocked libraries.
The Build a Library initiative, the result of a very successful fundraising campaign by the festival with funding raised matched by The Big Give, enabled all five primary schools to each receive over 130 new books, curated in partnership with Warwickshire Library Service, to help restock their depleted library resources.
“We beat our fundraising target by 50 per cent,” said festival director Annie Ashworth. “That demonstrates how strongly people feel about wanting to support children’s reading and especially access to books in school. As a charity, this is at the heart of what we do, and we are so thrilled to have had Rob with us to celebrate this very special campaign.”
With several bestselling children’s books under his belt, including Odd Dog Out, Rob is passionate about encouraging youngsters to read, and is involved with the National Literacy Trust’s Coronation Libraries initiative spearheaded by the Queen.
He added: “I have absolutely loved visiting schools with the team at the Stratford Literary Festival and seeing how their amazing library initiative will benefit children first hand. Providing kids with access to books is the very best kind of gift, and it’s been wonderful to see all those smiling faces.”
Sharing his delight at the initiative and Rob’s visit, Marcus Cook, headmaster of The Croft, said: “We were thrilled to open our doors to other local primary schools as part of the Stratford Literary Festival this autumn.
“Having Rob Biddulph talk to the children about his literary journey was nothing short of inspiring, the Draw with Rob session created a theatre full of children waving their wonderful creations on clipboards, and his new book took us all on a special, and very beautiful winter adventure.”