Events for Children and Young People

Cwtch up for this joyful event full of familiar rhymes, riddles and tongue twisters, from ‘Oranges and Lemons’ to ‘She Sells Sea Shells’. Allie Esiri and her guests present these and contemporary favourites such as ‘Baby Shark’ and new rhymes from Floella Benjamin, Julia Donaldson, Brian Bilston and Michael Rosen. Allie’s beautiful anthology A Nursery Rhyme for Every Night of the Year is a definitive collection of nursery rhymes, each introduced with a quirky fact or historical reference.

Please note that the final line-up may be subject to change.

Spend time in the company of one of our best-loved children’s authors, and the creator of characters including Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, Jacqueline Wilson, as she introduces her new book. The former children’s laureate, who has written more than 100 books, brings together the modern world and Victorian London in The Other Edie Trimmer, as the title character finds herself travelling back in time when she begins to write in a Victorian notebook she’s been gifted.

There will be no book signing after this event, but bookplates with Wison’s signature printed on them will be available from the bookshop.

From Icarus to Hades, the characters and stories of Greek myths are some of the best known in the world. But what if the sirens were men luring brave heroines to their death? Or Icara and her mother flew too close to the sun? Or a beautiful man was forced to wed an underworld queen? Comic creator Karrie Fransman and digital wizard Jonathan Plackett explore the art and activism of gender swapping, illuminating the gender binaries hidden in our language, the roles we adopt and the stories we’ve been telling our children for generations.