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WORD FOR KIDS!

The school holidays may be over, but there's a huge amount of fun coming up at the WORD Christchurch Spring Festival with a programme of entertaining and educational events for kids of all ages. Even better, it's all free.
 
The whole family will enjoy The Great WORD Story Hunt! which kicks off our programme on Saturday 31 October. Children will find clues in the amazing 
Tūranga library and hunt all over the library to find some of Aotearoa's leading writers delivering stories, poems, comics, and songs.

Sunday 1 November is jam-packed with events throughout the day! In Dragons, Gods & Adventure junior fiction writers Heather McQuillan, Tania Roxborogh and Bill Nagelkerke will share their adventure novels. Paula Green will show children why poems can be better than an adventure playground in Poetry Playground. You won't want to miss the popular musical duo Loopy Tunes as they launch their latest bilingual picture book. And Eileen Merriman will be discussing her novels for teen readers in A Trio of Sophies along with fellow young adult author Karen Healey. 

Free Family Events are presented by Freemasons New Zealand.
EXPLORE THE PROGRAMME
SPONTANEOUS STORYTELLING FOR FAMILIES
Reading together as families, whatever the size, has been shown to help children's imagination and ability to learn. So just think what creating stories together could do! In Spontaneous Storytelling for Families children and adults get to make stories together through connection, play, and improvisation. Meegwai Productions hosts this intergenerational workshop which promises to be a lot of fun. The workshop costs $10 per person (ages 6+) and there needs to be a minimum of one adult present. Please also note that the workshop ends at 11.45am not 11.15am as advertised in the WORD Christchurch printed brochure.
 
GET YOUR TICKETS
MEET OUR YOUTH JURY
Clockwise from top left: Claude, Otto, Nelly, Sebastien’s cat Reign, Rosie, Mia, Isla.

WORD Christchurch is proud to present our 2020 Youth Jury who have programmed two remarkable events at this year's festival: In Other Words and For You(th)

We encourage you to attend these events and find out just what's on the minds of our rangatahi. 
Supported by Rata Foundation.

MEET THE YOUTH JURY

READ ALOUD SCHOOLS DAY AT WORD

The popular Read Aloud Schools' Day returns again for this year's WORD Christchurch Spring Festival for primary and intermediate age children to celebrate writing for children and young adults. The event brings together some our best New Zealand writers to inspire youthful readers and writers. Selina Tusitala Marsh, Jonathan King, Miriam Lancewood, Weng Wai Chen, Tania Roxborogh and Toby Morris will read from their work. The first session is booked out but there are still places available in the second session. Contact schools@wordchristchurch.co.nz to book now! 
 

The Schools Day event is made possible by the support of our partners, Harcourts Gold. Lynette McFadyen, of Harcourts, tells us about some of her favourite childhood books and characters.

What book did you love as a child? 
It’s a long time ago now but, it was a big volume of stories about Disney characters

Who is your favourite character in children’s books? 
Hairy Maclary

What are you looking forward to seeing at WORD Christchurch Read Aloud School's Day? 
Happy faces and delight at the discovery of new books
 
WORD WRITERS ON 'HOME'
WORD Christchurch has a distinctly local flavour this year and so we asked the WORD writers what the idea of 'Home' meant to them. Keep an eye out for our other writers' descriptions of home on our social media pages. 
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

WORD WRITERS IN THE MEDIA

WORD Christchurch writers have been featuring in the media over the last week including Elizabeth Knox who spoke to Stuff about climate change.

Poet Laureate David Eggleton featured in this Stuff story about his tenure being extended because of COVID-19 and his second-year inauguration ceremony was covered in Hawkes Bay today.

Don't miss this review of Tusiata Avia's The Savage Coloniser by Selina Tusitala Marsh at the Academy of New Zealand Literature.

Emma Espiner looks at the upcoming election and the differences in coverage from the television debates over at Newsroom.
 
AROUND TOWN
Octavia Cade, The Ghost of Matter / Image of Anne Frank courtesy of Anne Frank House.

Catch SFF writer Octavia Cade at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora
for a talk about her book The Ghost of Matter followed by a tour of Rutherford's Den on Thursday 22 October. Octavia will also be taking a writing workshop on Tuesday 20 October, and you can catch her at the Monsters in the Garden session on WORD's New Regent Street Pop-up.
 

Let Me Be Myself - The Life Story of Anne Frank is on display at the Air Force Museum until 31 October 2020. Exploring the events around World War Two and the Holocaust, the exhibition asks each visitor to consider what they might do in similar circumstances, while learning about themes of identity, prejudice and discrimination through the contemporary stories of six young people coping with the challenge of being different from their peers.⁠

We love our local bookshops in Ōtautahi! And this Saturday is New Zealand Bookshop Day - an opportunity for bookshops to celebrate their communities with events, deals and competitions, and an opportunity for the community to celebrate their bookshops by buying local! It's also a great opportunity to pick up a WORD Christchurch programme, if you haven't already done so. We're so thrilled to have such a great festival partner in the University Bookshop who do such an amazing job at all our WORD festivals. They have some great deals this weekend - including a free book tea towel with any purchase over $20. Scorpio Books also has some great deals on bestsellers and some in-store meet and greets with leading children's authors, Gavin Bishop and James Norcliffe. You can grab a WORD Christchurch programme while you're there and they're also available at UBS, The Children's Bookshop, The Colombo Bookstore and Tūranga.

We are proud to partner with Booksellers NZ, with all our readers in the New Regent Street Pop-Up receiving book vouchers to spend in local bookshops!
 

BECOME A WORD CHRISTCHURCH SUPPORTER

WORD Christchurch is a charitable trust and relies on a huge amount of support to bring outstanding events to the community and to keep ticket prices affordable. We love what we do, and we’d love to give you the opportunity to help. By becoming a patron, supporter or donor, you are part of the WORD Christchurch team and can enjoy the buzz of helping to stage events that make Christchurch a dynamic place to live. Find out how you can become a vital part of WORD Christchurch here.
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WORD Christchurch
PO Box 29 270
Christchurch 8440
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