Wokingham Children’s Book Festival enjoyed its eighth successful year in October, and Wokingham town council is already planning the ninth for autumn 2026.
The festival attracts around 1,000 attendees to events over a weekend in mid-October. It also offers outreach opportunities to around 2,000 school children within the town of Wokingham by organising author visits in town schools.
The event is funded by Wokingham town council with logistical support from our libraries service.
Wokingham borough council believes strongly in supporting disadvantaged families for the Book Festival, and the town council works with local charities to support complimentary tickets for the weekend events for disadvantaged families, but it does find that for a number of reasons, few take up this offer.
The outreach conversely offers author visits via schools to students regardless of their socioeconomic position, with no stigma and in a school timetable. This proves to be a powerful method of engaging with students who might struggle to attend weekend events or feel such events are not accessible to them.
The town council is seeking a sponsor to support the estimated £2,000 cost of running the outreach part of the project. This would fund approximately four authors visiting students across schools in the town for a whole day each.
Sponsors would have the opportunity to provide a banner or other publicity method to promote their support of their event(s). They would be mentioned on the website and on social media.
Any sponsor able to cover the full amount will also get their logo on selected printed publicity materials.
