Sprinkling some literary fairy dust

PaulJenning600 — Paul Jennings will be one of the star attractions at the Children’s Book Festival this week. Image: www.moke.com.au

[dropcap style=”color: #dc943c;”] W [/dropcap]arrnambool’s own Paul Jennings will lead a trio of award-winning children’s authors and illustrators at the Warrnambool Books Children’s Festival this week.

The festival runs from Thursday, May 15 to Saturday May 17 at 169 Fairy St and features a different author each day, starting with young adult author Sue Lawson.

Sue is the author of three highly acclaimed books – Finding Darcy, After and Pan’s Whisper – and will be signing books in-store on Thursday from 4pm-5pm.

Illustrator Judy Watson will be in the chair from 4pm-5pm Friday and signing copies of some of the more than 20 children’s books she has illustrated, including Goodnight Mice! which won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for children’s fiction.

The festival will come to a colourful end on Saturday with Paul Jennings in-store from 11am-1pm, together with live music and a transformation of Fairy St into fairy street, featuring fairies, free lollipops and giveaways. Paul is one of Australia’s most successful authors, having sold more than nine million copies of his books worldwide.

The festival coincides with Warrnambool Books celebrating its 30^th birthday, which is no small feat in itself: we hope they are around for another 30.