Percussive Playtime for the Under 5's with Cragg Vale Gamelan on Friday 22nd June at Crossley Mil Children's Centre. Whoop up some noisy fun on Javanese instruments! Workshops cost 50 pence and last for 45 minutes. Workshop times: 10am, 11am, 12 noon, 2 pm and 3 pm. Workshops limited to 10 children. Please note children must be accompanied by their parent / carer.

Puppets at the Rudolf Steiner Centre in the ever-popular story of Snow White and Rose Red (Wednesday June 27 7.00) and you can learn to make puppets in a workshop at the Centre the following Saturday June 30.

One of the hottest tickets in the festival is the appearance by best-selling author Jacqueline Wilson at the Picture House on Thursday June 21 at 5.45. Her books have been on countless shortlists and won numerous awards including The Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award, the Smarties Prize, the Sheffield Children’s Book Award, the FCBG Children’s Book Award. The Illustrated Mum was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book Award and won the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award. In a recent poll to find the Nation’s Favourite Children’s Book run by the BBC programme Bookworm her book Double Act was voted 10^th and was the only contemporary title in the top ten.

Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell author and illustrator of The Edge Chronicles appear at Central Street Infant School on Thursday June 28 to talk about fantasy and illustration. Beyond the Deepwoods, Stormchaser and Midnight over Sanctaphrax which form The Edge Trilogy have all hit the best -seller lists and have avid fans from nine to ninety! Readers of The Observer will know Chris Riddell in another guise — that of political cartoonist (and the first to depict William Hague in shorts!).