The Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival is one of the biggest children’s literary events in the world, in 2018 just missing 250,000 visitors, and hitting 300,000 in 2019, before the Pandemic arrived to dampen the Arab Renaissance. The children’s festival managed a subdued version in 2921 after being shelved in 2020. But this is 2022 and the Arab Renaissance is back on track, with the United Arab Emirates, as so often, leading the charge.
The 13th Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, this year running May 11-22, takes as its theme “Create Creativity”, and one of the centrepieces for the 2022 event will be the Robot Zoo Exhibition, with eight animal robots and fifteen hands-on activities exploring nature and science.
The Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival is one of the biggest children’s literary events in the world, in 2018 just missing 250,000 visitors –
and hitting 300,000 in 2019, before the Pandemic arrived to dampen the Arab Renaissance. The children’s festival managed a subdued version in 2921 after being shelved in 2020.
While both events welcome the public, the ADIBF is the more hybrid trade-and-pubic facing of the two, but each year the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival ups its trade-facing game.
This year 25 authors from five continents help fill a programme that, per the press release, “includes literary and trade discussions, author meet-and-greets, workshops, industry conferences and performances,” with US animator and film-maker Kyle Balda (Minions, Jumanji and Toy Story 2) among the international names the children will be familiar with.
For further information on the celebrity line up check out this post from the UAE’s National, which is especially worth a visit for its slide show of images from the 2021 event.
TNPS will hopefully revisit the event’s news as the festival gets underway.
