Children’s Laureate and author of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson and How To Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell have been on the hunt to find the best storyteller in Britain. The search ended on World Book Day with Alison Williams from Kensington being named the first ever Storytelling Superstar.
Alison left the judges highly impressed with her retelling of The Tale of The Little Raindrop – performed with the inventive use of a nappy and Christmas tree bauble!
Alison was delighted to be rewarded with the title, which comes with the prize of a year’s worth of children’s books from National Book Tokens. She said: “I never expected to be selected as a winner when I entered the Storytelling Superstar competition – it is a true honour and I’m thrilled! I think it is brilliant that World Book Day is recognising the hard work of the millions of storytellers up and down the country doing their bit to get children engaged in books, with parents reading to their children and children to their parents”.
Julia and Cressida were joined on the judging panel by Sue Jones OBE, The Reading Agency Programme Manager for Young People. Sue heads up the Reading Activists project, which gives young people the chance to co-create and produce creative reading events in libraries.
Storytelling Superstar was just one in a series of events and activities in schools, bookshops and libraries that got children excited and reading for World Book Day 2012. Julia Donaldson, Cressida Cowell, Jacqueline Wilson and Eoin Colfer were among some of the top authors and illustrators who part in The Biggest Book Show on Earth, the country’s first online children’s book festival on World Book Day which was streamed live to three quarters of a million children from London’s Southbank, where The Duchess of Cornwall was in the audience.
Eight new children’s books can be exchanged for free with a £1 World Book Day Book Token which children and teenagers will have received from schools and nurseries. And the new World Book Day App featuring exclusive new digital-only content from bestselling teenage writers such as Anthony Horowitz, Charlie Higson and Malorie Blackman is available to download for free from Apple’s App store – and has already been downloaded more that 7000 times in 2 days. Why not download it to your iTunes here.
