Sevenoaks Bookshop organises second Young Readers Festival for Saturday, September 21

A former Children's Laureate, a Cbeebies presenter and an award-winning illustrator are among the guests at a special event for young bookworms later this month.

Sevenoaks Bookshop is hosting the Young Readers Festival, the second it has organised, on Saturday, September 21.

Among those attending will be former Children's Laureate Chris Riddell, Blue Peter Book Award winner Onjali Q. Rauf, Cbeebies presenter Cerrie Burnell and illustrator Emily Gravett.

The event is a mix of both ticketed and free events for children all ages.

Ticketed events...

Children aged seven and over can join Onjali Q. Rauf, author The Boy at the Back of the Class, to talk about her her award-winning novel and her new book The Star Outside My Window.

Cerrie Burnell will be part of a panel with Zanib Mian and David Solomons entitled 'How to be a write - and you can too!' to be recorded live for a children’s books radio show and podcast Down the Rabbit Hole.

Whilst Chris Riddell will be introducing the first book in his new series, The Cloud Horse Chronicles: Guardians of Magic.

Tickets for these three events are available online at £6.50 each.

Free to attend...

Among the free to attend events will be storytimes throughout the day at The Vine Gardens, where children can meet authors and illustrators Rachel Valentine, twice Kate Greenaway Medal winner Emily Gravett, Sophy Henn and Sav Akyuz.

And at Sevenoaks Bookshop, author and award-winning illustrator Chris Mould will be painting the shop window before children join him in the afternoon for a reading from Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man, for which Chris created stunning illustrations in a newly published edition.

Festival goers can also enjoy live music, face-painting, and making their own concertina book with locally based The Art Trolley, run by artist Lorena Carbajal.

Fleur Sinclair, owner of Sevenoaks Bookshop, says: “Last year’s Young Readers Festival was a wonderful success, with audiences enjoying sell-out events with Axel Scheffler and Cressida Cowell among others.

“We’re thrilled to be bringing more brilliant, much-loved authors to Sevenoaks. It’s a wonderful opportunity for children in the town to meet and be inspired by some of the very best writers and illustrators working today.”

The Young Readers Festival is in association with Sevenoaks Literary Festival. To learn more about it, or to buy tickets for particular events, please click here.

• For more news and events related to primary-aged children please click here.