Children's events

Morgana Weeks: Illustration workshop - Colourful characters! Design a character for a story (suitable for all ages from 5 years upwards) 

Saturday 16th September 

Book fair. Stalls. Free entry, no ticket required

Jenny Moore:  Create your own Top Trumps based on heroes and villains from books

Taking inspiration from her books , imagining us as Heroes and Villains. 

Jenny's latest books for children include Odelia and the Varmint, a fast-paced comedy adventure about a pair of fictional pirates who escape out of their book into Victorian London, and the Emba Oak series, a funny fantasy series featuring dragons, evil necromancers and riddling prophecies. More information can be found at Odelia and the Varmint (newfrontierpublishing.co.uk) and Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows - Maverick Children's Books (maverickbooks.co.uk) 

Makers Mews & author Jessica Jade: Sea Stories & Sewing

Sew a Sea Creature from repurposed felt templates.  

Suitable for all ages from 5 years upwards.

Meet Author Jessica Jade and Shellabella as they take you on ocean adventures, meeting magical sea creatures. After rescuing a turtle from a balloon string Shellabella wants to spread the message about the dangers of plastic in the sea.  Get inspired by the story and then make your very own sea creature from felt and recycled materials to take home, with Lucy of Makers Mews. 

Sew your very own sea creature using felt, stuffing and thread salvaged via Plymouth Play Scrapstore. Precut fishy felt template options include jellyfish, rays, fish, whales... which will you choose?

SAFETY NOTE: Sewers will be using real needles and craft scissors. There will be small pieces of plastic and felt. All children will need supervision by their carer.

Biku Ghosh: ‘Our Climate - Our Future’ 

An opportunity to listen and learn from our young generation about the most significant challenge facing humanity – the climate crisis. Free hot drink available

(children & young adults, but suitable for all). Free. 

Come dressed up as your favourite characters and play with the props and costumes in this magical hall.

A space to create, read, perform, watch , make, listen and most of all Imagine.

Family Fun – Meet the Authors and Artists, performances and children’s shows, creative activities and themed spaces to fire creativity and stimulate the senses: mermaid and sea lagoon, time travel history corner,  enchanted forest, Alice in wonderland  “Tea party” and a magical spell casting and emotion potion apothecary.

Meet the Authors and Artists:

Paul Roberts : Doors to yesterday – Time Travel through a magic door

Morgana Weeks – Wabi Sabi Creations Artist, Illustrator and graphic novel writer (until 1pm)

Jenny Moore

Jessica Jade – Meet Shellabella and the Seaglass boy in the mermaid lagoon for some sensory storytelling. 

Rob Holmes  Mindfulness and readings from the Master Owl Series

Meet Shellabella and the Seaglass boy. 

"My name is Jessica, and I am a single mum to two wonderful children, and in my free time I write books, illustrate, and paint. I have designed dress up dolls for clothing boutique, JoJo Maman Bebe, Ghostwritten books and illustrated for self published authors as well as producing my own.

One day, while drawing together, my daughter came up with the name "Shellabella" for a mermaid character, and we thought it would be lovely to give her an underwater hospital and I started making stories about her. Shellabella is a mermaid who promotes empathy, inclusion and understanding of conservation efforts while embarking on a magical underwater adventure. 

This year, I have made a longer story and added more depth to the characters, including neurodivergent traits. My children have enjoyed listening to this story and have been actively involved in contributing ideas. I hope that Shellabella's adventures will also captivate and engage other children."

Reading and sensory play with Author Artist Jessica Jade in the mermaid lagoon

Rob Holmes – Master Owl and Mindfulness. 

Rob will be reading from Master Owl and sharing a mini mindfulness session for children.
Rob is an author, inventor and entrepreneur.  He has self-published four books, invented and owned two patents for best selling children's products, built and sold two businesses and found time to raise four children.  With his Master Owl mindfulness books, Rob started free visits to Westcountry primary schools in 2021 and so far has visited 72 schools, teaching mindfulness to over 16,000 children and selling over 2,000 books to parents. In 2023, Rob has written a feature film screenplay and his first script has just made it through to the finals of a global screenwriting competition.   www.robholmes.org

WONDERZOO – Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile.

Wonderzoo Present Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile. An interactive performance workshop, think storytelling, performance, writing , percussion and a whole lot of noise from one of the regions most versatile, humorous and community minded performance collectives.!

Interactive performance (all ages)

Announcement of competition results for children’s short stories, followed by reading of winning entries, plus presentation of the Summer Reading Challenge cup by Ros Parkes and children’s author, Jenny Moore.

'Isabella's Story Bicycle': When the doors of Isabella’s theatre on the back of her bicycle open wide she will whisk you away to another world.

About Isabella Necessity

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, my blossoms! Isabella loves to share stories from her incredible bicycling adventures in the wilds of the world. She has outwitted mountain trolls, sung opera with donkeys and ridden a pixy horse across Dartmoor. When the doors of Isabella’s theatre on the back of her bicycle open wide she will whisk you away to another world.

The Show:   The Buskers of Bremen and other adventurous tales

Isabella's latest Story Bicycle adventure takes place in Germany. A donkey, a dog, a cat and a cockerel have all been told they are old and useless. Those feisty animals won’t let that stop them following their dreams - even though it turns out to be waaay more dangerous than they thought! 

Graphic novels -Writing stories with Art with webcomic writer and illustrator Morgana Weeks (suitable for all ages). 

"I am an illustrator based in the green woodland areas of Dartmoor , Devon in the U.k

I have always loved nature and enjoyed drawing animals and aspects of the natural world, as well as writing little stories about the creatures I get to know.This lead me to become Vegan for the animals and the environment passionate about keeping the natural world thriving for generations to come . 

Drawing ever since I could hold a chubby crayon in my hand , my art developed slowly over my lifetime and eventually I studied Fine Art at Aberystwyth University, eventually graduating in 2011 with a BA Hons Fine Art degree specialising in Illustration."

Jackie Juno – ‘Onwords and Upwords’. A lively evening of performance poetry and humour – Jackie Juno plus SHAN poets support, compere Peter Fox.