Welcome to WORD PLAY a unique festival for young folk and their families, taking place at How Brave is The Wren Bookshop (Kings Heath) and schools in Birmingham in June. An exciting programme of
author visits, workshops, reading, storytelling & writing activities fully focused on children and aimed at encouraging their love of reading & creative writing.
WORD PLAY FESTIVAL 2025
Word Play 2025 takes place between 16th -22nd June, authors & illustrators we’re welcoming this year are: Diane Ewen, Ian Douglas, Helen Hancocks, Teresa Heapy, Jenny McLachlan, Simon Mole, Thiago de Moraes, Lui Sit, Adeola Sokunbi, Ashley Thorpe, Pari Thomson, Chanté Timothy James Turner, Bethan Woollvin.
All events taking place at How Brave Is The Wren are bookable via our events page
Schools Programme Our schools programme is presented as a mixture of live author visits, translation and creative writing workshops and pre-recorded sessions. It takes part during school hours between 16th – 20th June. Current participating schools include Colmore Junior School, Kings Heath Primary School, Hall Green Junior School and Hall Green Nursery and Infant School. Any schools in Birmingham interested in getting involved in future editions of Word Play can contact Jenny: [email protected]
WORD PLAY Magazine: A longside the workshops we produce the WORD PLAY magazine, full of activities and samples of new books to read, limited to a print run of 2500 all school pupils included in the Primary schools programme receive a free copy, with copies available to purchase from How Brave Is The Wren shop in Kings Heath / Birmingham.
The magazine is designed and illustrated by Ben Javens find out more about him HERE
Word Play Secondary
In 2023 we ran a pilot programme bringing Word Play to secondary schools in Birmingham, with 3 fantastic authors Hiba Noor Khan, Gita Raleigh & Jeffrey Boakye visiting students across years 7 & 8 at Queensbridge, University of Birmingham, King Edwards Camphill Girls & King Edward Camphill Boys schools. We had an amazing response to this and are now planning a full programme of events for November 2025.
WORD PLAY Festival is created by How Brave Is The Wren, the children’s bookshop. The festival aims to encourage a love of reading, storytelling and writing. It was made in collaboration with a host of brilliant authors, illustrators and publishers, thank you to everyone who has made this possible, special thanks to all the schools involved especially the reading, English leads and the Librarians, Anorak Magazine and Ben Javens.
Word Play has been supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Word Play Secondary
Read all about our pilot programe for Word Play in secondary schools
WORD PLAY MAGAZINE
Take a look at the Word Play magazine, this digital copy will be accessible via Issu until 18th June 2023
WORD PLAY BOOKS
For all books featured in the Word Play programme