Manchester Children's Book Festival
Find out about the Manchester Children's Book Festival and access it's free-to-use teaching resources.
About the Manchester Children's Book Festival
The Manchester Children’s Book Festival was devised by Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE when she was made Poet Laureate in 2009. The Festival worked with partners from across the city and nationally to deliver an annual programme of events, projects and competitions that engaged more than 10,000 young people from families and schools each year.
With the then Poet Laureate as the Festival’s Creative Director, a core strand of the festival’s work was Children’s Poetry, with events featuring the likes of John Agard, Grace Nichols, Gillian Clarke, Jackie Kay, Michael Rosen and other poetry royalty.
The Manchester Poetry Library, when it opened, was an obvious home for the project and the wealth of resources and contacts built up throughout ten years of collaboration and support for schools and libraries.
Early collaborations with the Manchester Poetry Library started with the co-curation of the Library’s Children’s Collection, with poet Mandy Coe, a book festival stalwart.
This began a series of book launches by long-standing friends of the Festival, including Mandy’s book ‘Belonging Street’ and a collection featuring local poet Matt Goodfellow, with Liz Brownlee and Laura Mucha ‘Being Me’. This was followed by the launch of Valerie Bloom’s CLPE-winning collection ‘Stars With Flaming Tails’ and another local poet, Dom Conlon’s ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’. We have since also launched Matt Goodfellow’s first verse novel ‘The Final Year’ and Oliver Sykes’ first collection ‘We are Family’, which was illustrated by Manchester Met Illustration Lecturer, Ian Morris.
This legacy of the Manchester Children’s Book Festival continues, as we continue to work with publishers, poets and illustrators through the Poetry Library’s Learning programme.
To be kept up to date with news about events and opportunities follow the Poetry Library social media or join our mailing list.
Teaching Resources
Each of these lovely collection launches were accompanied by the creation of teaching resources, which now sit within the Manchester Poetry Library’s ‘resources’ pages.
Other resources, that celebrate poetry as a tool for exploring YA and Verse Novels have also been added, along with resources connected to another Manchester Children’s Book Festival project, ‘Mother Tongue Other Tongue’.
These can all be found via the links below:
KS2/3 Poetry Resources
Each of the resources below are based on poems from a specific collection, but the ideas are transferable, focusing on ways to support the reading and sharing of poetry and suggesting ideas for writing and drawing activities to encourage children and young people to respond creatively.
We would like to thank Mandy Coe, who co-created the resource for her own book ‘Belonging Street’. This was the first resource we created and Mandy’s ideas have hugely influenced our approach to all of our other resources.
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‘Being Me: poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings’ by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha. Illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler.
Being Me: A Teaching Resource (KS2/3)Additional readings from Being Me by young people from the West Acting Workshop in Sussex and pupils from Lily Lane Primary School in Manchester have been edited into three short films by Pete Brownlee. (See below to view)
Readings of Matt Goodfellow's Poems from BEING ME, by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura MuchaReadings of Liz Brownlee's Poems from BEING ME, by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura MuchaReadings of Laura Mucha's Poems from BEING ME, by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha -
‘Belonging Street’ by Mandy Coe (poetry and illustration)
Belonging Street: A Teaching Resource (KS2/3) -
‘Stars with Flaming Tails’ by Valerie Bloom, with illustrations by Ken Wilson-Max
‘Stars with Flaming Tails’ teaching resource.Play audio recordings of Valerie and Ken speaking to Becky Swain and Charlotte Hacking:
- Clip 1 : Becky Swain, Director of the Manchester Poetry Library introduces the event
- Clip 2 : Valerie Bloom reads poetry set 1
- Clip 3 : Charlotte Hacking, Learning Manager at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, interviews Valerie and Ken
- Clip 4 : Valerie Bloom reads poetry set 2
- Clip 5 : Charlotte speaks to Valerie and Ken, Q&A 2
- Clip 6 : Audience Q&A with Valerie, hosted by Becky Swain
- Clip 7 : Valerie Bloom reads poetry set 3 to close the event
View animations showing Ken Wilson-Max’s illustration process. These work well played as the poem is read aloud.
Early Years / KS1 Poetry / Picture Books
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‘Blow, Wind, Blow’ by Dom Conlon and Anastasia Izlesou (part of the Wild Wanderers series)
The Wild Wanderers series by poet Dom Conlon and Anastasia Izlesou, published by Graffeg is a series of 12 picture books. ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’ is the third book.
Though, as picture books the target audience is presumed to be younger, the themes and ideas and the science in these books are relevant to readers of any age.
(Charlotte Hacking, speaking at the launch of ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’.)
Watch a Zoom recording of the ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’ launch event, including a reading of the book by poet, Dom Conlon.
Download ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’- A teaching resource, below.For details of ‘Blow, Wind, Blow’ and the other books in the Wild Wanderers series see: graffeg.com/collections/wild-wanderers
Mother Tongue Other Tongue
Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multi-lingual poetry project celebrating cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools in the UK. To support schools participating in the competition, a series of short videos for use in classrooms were created and are available to watch online. These videos feature poets talking about their own bi- and multi-lingual backgrounds and the impact that this has on their writing process. Each also shares a poem in their Mother Tongue and talks about why they have chosen to share this poem. Video recordings of writer-led poetry workshops are also available on request.
Poets featured include Valerie Bloom, Usma Malik and Bohdan Piasecki.
Prose Teaching Resources
As well as the poetry resources listed above, we have also produced two prose resources.
- We have produced two prose resources, one, ‘Boy, Everywhere’ by A.M.Dassu, is based on a specific book, which follows the story of Sami, a refugee from Syria
- Alex Wheatle, is a resource focusing more broadly on the work of the award-winning writer who worked on and featured in the BBC TV Small Axe series
Each of the resources contains links to film clips and other websites and they are designed to give examples of ways that students can read, comprehend, research, challenge and respond creatively to the ideas explored in prose texts, sometimes by writing poetry!
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‘Boy, Everywhere’ by A.M.Dassu: a Teaching Resource suitable for KS3/4
Telling the story of 13-year old Sami, who is forced to flee his home in Damascus to travel to a new life in Manchester, this book offers an opportunity to engage pupils (Y6 and older) with important themes. This resource contains ideas for ways of using the book to read, empathise, research, analyse and respond creatively. With additional links to other websites and classroom resources, this is a one-stop-shop for anyone wanting to use this book in their classrooms.
‘Boy, Everywhere’: A Teaching Resource (KS3/4)Boy, Everywhere: Teacher/CPD event Recording
In April 2021, an online event featuring author A.M.Dassu introduced teachers and librarians to the book and to our resource. The recording of this event is available below and would be useful to any teachers wishing to use the resource or the book in their schools:
- Clip 1: Author A.M.Dassu in conversation with Dr Chloe Germaine Buckley from Manchester Metropolitan University
- Clip 2: The MCBF Boy, Everywhere teaching resource is demonstrated by Kaye Tew
- Clip 3: Teacher Sajeda Amir from Levenshulme High School discusses the teaching resource with Chloe and A.M.Dassu
- Clip 4: A.M. Dassu reads from Chapter 9 of Boy, Everywhere. This chapter is the extract used for the Conscience Alley exercise in the teaching resource.
- Clip 5: A.M.Dassu and Chloe Germaine take audience questions.
Boy, Everywhere: Schools Q&A with author A.M.Dassu
Author A.M.Dassu discusses her writing and the book in response to questions posed by pupils from Manchester schools, who sent in questions. This film would be a good introduction to a class who are reading the book, or who have read it. -
Alex Wheatle: a Teaching Resource with elements and links to other resources suitable for KS3/4/5
Bringing together aspects of award-winning author, Alex Wheatle’s work, this resource includes links to the comprehensive BBC Schools resources created to support the ‘Small Axe’ series, as well as links to essays and other films of Alex talking about his YA novels. The resource contains a number of ideas about ways in which students 12-18 might engage with Alex’s work and life.
Alex Wheatle - a teaching resourceA Schools Q&A with Alex Wheatle
This film is a perfect introduction to Alex’s work and would make a great starting point for discussion in classrooms. Alex’s honest and sometimes shocking answers to questions posed by pupils touches on issues of racism, politics, history, injustice, the Black Lives Matter movement and the important role that storytelling can have in re-writing, re-presenting and re-telling our Histories. Even the Royal Family get a mention.
Alex Wheatle: A Schools Q&A