These include our festival ‘opener’ on Wednesday 28th May (half-term week) on Harwich beach: Know Your Beach Workshop. Join Seaside Explorers’ leader, educator and environmentalist Libby Scarfe as she shares her passion for outdoor adventures and all things marine. The workshop, which primarily is designed for 5 to 11 year olds, will combine storytelling, a chance to explore the natural coast environment, and a creative community beach clean. All welcome.

Another family activity not to be missed is Wildlife Detectives at the Wild Space on Sunday 8th June. As part of our Criminally Good Day, the team at Wild Space are opening this hidden green oasis in Washington Close in Maldon for families to gently explore the wildlife and nature that can live happily in an urban environment. There will be a range of activities to take part in and a trail to follow that will test everyone’s detective skills, and no matter whatever your age, you will come away feeling more connected and knowledgeable! Again, all welcome.

If bats are your thing, you will want to head to the National Trust’s Rainham Hall on Saturday 21st June for Batty About Bats – a rare chance to find out more about our local bat-tastic friends. From bat detectives, bat story-writing, and bat masks, this is the ideal opportunity to discover more about the species living in our local area, and more importantly, how we can help ensure their survival.

Finally, we are thrilled to be hosting a cornucopia of free drop-in family events in the beautiful Minories Garden in Colchester on Sunday 22nd June. Get creative and messy in our bespoke Earth Kitchen, try your hands at spice-painting with artist Lora Aziz, weave your own willow Twinkle, Twinkle star with storyteller Glenys Newton, learn more about spices from around the world with cook/writer Radhika Haworth, take your seat for our Twinkle, Twinkle Storytelling Armchair featuring BBC Essex’s Rob Jelly amongst others … and more. It is going to be a lot of fun.

Tickets for all events are available now at essexbookfestival.org.uk/events.

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About the Event:

Based on Snowy Joy (2019) written by Sade Fadipe (an Essex-based children’s author) and adapted for stage by Margaret’s Music Ltd, this vibrant production is a captivating fusion of drama, music, and dance, exploring themes of family, kindness, resilience, refuge, dignity, and community.

Adanah, a lively tween from Lagos, Nigeria, is overjoyed about her first-ever winter holiday to England. With snow topping her bucket list, she’s ready for the adventure of a lifetime. But her plans take an unexpected twist when she stumbles upon Khindamah – The Land of Broken Toys. Here, Adanah reflects on all she has left behind, until she comes face to face with the displaced children of Khindamah, paving the way for the heartwarming tale of the Toysavers.

Directed by Margaret Omoniyi and performed by Community360 Children’s Book Club, Sade Fadipe (its resident author), and motivational speaker and author Dee Lana, the production also features vibrant and inclusive dance performances by Afromoves, Colchester, choreographed by Julia Obasa and her dance group.

Perfect for audiences across generations—from the 60s to the present—and recommended for ages 6 and above, this unforgettable experience will leave hearts warmed and spirits lifted.

Snowy Joy and the Toysavers
Doors 1:30pm, Show at 2pm
Standard: £7, Concessions: £6, Family ticket (for 4 people – at least one child): £22
This show is recommended for those aged 6 years and older

Donate a ticket: There is a Pay It Forward option for this show. You can choose to purchase tickets for families that may not be in a position to afford a ticket to see this wonderful show.
Please email ticketing@colchesterartscentre.com to be in line to receive Pay It Forward tickets.
This show is recommended for those aged 6 years and older

This is a seated show.

Book tickets: Colchester Arts Centre website

Credits

Artists:
Director & Co-Producer, Margaret Omoniyi (Margaret’s Music Ltd)
Author & Co-Producer, Sade Fadipe
Choreographer, Julia Obasa (Afromoves, Colchester)
Illustrators, Tayo Fatunla & Shedrach Ayalomeh
Text, Illustration and Publishing Copyrights: Sade Fadipe

Community Engagement:
Mr Godwin Daudu, (Engagement Officer and Co-ordinator, Community 360 Children’s Book Club).
Mrs Arit Akpan, (Director, Re-Breath CIC, Colchester).

Supported by: Colchester Arts Centre.

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Whether it’s making your own giant jelly fish out of a plastic bottles and bags (bring you own if you can) or joining in our quest to plant 1000 sunflowers in recycled festival brochures and coffee cups in solidarity with the Ukraine and also wild bees, their main pollinator, at our Greenwood Words Day at Burnham-on-Crouch on 2nd June.

Helping children’s author Ray Star and digital artist Lily Hunter Green Solve the World’s Worst Crime: Climate Change in our special Earthlings Tent which forms part of our Criminally Good Day at High House Production Park on 11th June.

Or simply sitting back and enjoying Theatre Lark’s free family performance of What! A Load of Rubbish at Cressing Temple Barns located in one of the giant oak barns that are playing host to our Midsummer Madness day on 25th June.

The icing on the eco-cake though has to be launching the festival into Space with the Essex Steamettes, a group of young female coders, at Hylands House on 19th June. Quite how they will be doing it, and why, will be revealed on the day!

All of these activities are free. Some of them are drop-in, others require tickets in advance.

To see all of our free events go to our Events List and search for the category FREE

Who Are We Now? Firstsite, 4th June
Platinum Meditations

When we realised that this year’s Essex Book Festival was going to coincide with the Queen’s Jubilee Weekend celebrations, the challenge was to come up with something a bit different for Colchester, given that it’s one of the UK’s oldest recorded towns stretching back to Boudica and beyond.

Something that would give us an opportunity to explore where and who we are now. After all, there have been some pretty monumental changes since the Queen came to the throne in 1952.

We are thrilled to be welcoming Jason Cowley, Essex-born award-winning journalist/writer and Editor-in-Chief of The New Statesman to talk about his latest book Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England. Jason gives an account of an England poised on the brink of enormous change.

Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair’s New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us.

Cowley weaves together the seemingly disparate stories of the Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, the East End Imam who was tested during a summer of terror, the pensioner who campaigned against the closure of her GP’s surgery and Gareth Southgate’s transformation of English football culture. And in doing so, Cowley shows the common threads that unite them, whether it is attitudes to class, nation, identity, belonging, immigration, or religion.

‘I can’t tell you how refreshing it is in these polarised times to read a book on politics that doesn’t have an axe to grind . . . an essential read.’

The Sunday Times

Running alongside Jason’s event we are equally delighted to be hosting the first of two workshops led by Cultural Historian/Mythographer/Novelist Marina Warner, Poet/Writer Philip Terry and Songwriter/Writer Adrian May to create our own A Living Almanac.

Most people are familiar with Whittaker’s Almanack and Wisden Almanack. So what is A Living Alamanac?

Almanacs have provided knowledge and foreknowledge of important dates, beliefs, stories portents and charms for centuries – calendars that offer an alternative form of time-keeping.

Our A Living Almanac will use words, images, local myths, historic events, songs, memories and the imagination to create and grow a collective community almanac build capturing the essence of now as we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

See our Events List for details of these and all of the events in this year’s Essex Book Festival

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