Coventry Schools Arts Week Booknic Festival
On Saturday 28 June, Resonate was proud to support Coventry Cultural Education Partnership’s event, the Booknic Festival!
The Booknic Festival was the final event as part of Coventry Schools Arts Week, a brilliant new initiative that brought together children and young people from schools across Coventry to celebrate creativity, self-expression and the rich cultural life of our city. The Booknic was a celebration of reading, stories, languages and community.
In the lead up to the event, Coventry School children created banners about their favourite books. At 11am on Saturday, we gathered in Coventry War Memorial Park for a Parade with Coventry Impact Steel Band, chanting ‘We love reading books!’ as we went.
What followed was hours of bookish fun! There was a massive book swap, with hundreds of books exchanged throughout the day. Coventry Libraries led crafts and chatted to visitors about all the wonderful things you can do at the cities libraries, including joining the Summer Reading Challenge over the Summer Holidays. Kenilworth Books set up a pop-up bookshop, surrounded by crafts and book chats with Karin Celestine, Julia Rawlinson and Lydia Monks.
House of MASH donned specially-made book-themed outfits for three exciting Hullabaloo performances. The Schools Stage was filled with wonderful performances from Coventry School Children, including choirs, flutes and dance.
Over on the Tennis Courts, the University of Warwick Sports & Wellness Hub, together with Inspire2Coach, led drop-in Tennis workshops. We also popped up at the Skate Park, with Project Number 5 running drop-in skateboarding sessions. Despite the heat, we loved having the chance to try something new with tennis and skateboarding!
We were particularly proud to showcase activity from University of Warwick’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures. As part of their upcoming activity for the University’s 60th anniversary at Coventry Cathedral, ‘Language Learners as Peacemakers’, the team taught attendees about Sadako’s Cranes. These cranes have become a symbol of peace, and attendees had the chance to make an origami crane of their own. The team also led Korean Bookmark Making - so everyone had a bookmark to put in their new books!
Thank you to everyone who made this day possible and everyone who came along to celebrate reading!
The Booknic Festival is a Coventry Schools Arts Weeks event, supported by Warwick Institute of Engagement on behalf of University of Warwick.