News & Blog
All the latest news from A Town Explores A Book 2024

Automata Making in 2024 with Cabaret Mechanical Theatre
We are delighted to partner with Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in 2024 to offer automata-making workshops to primary school aged children as one of the ‘8 Ways to Connect’ schools engagement

An exciting New Rail Heritage Project as part of the ATEAB 2024 Festival
The festival team is delighted to announce that Southeastern Communities Rail partnership CIC will become one of two major project partners in the 2024 festival exploring book choice The Railway

Creative Writing Competition prize winners announced!
Discover which 12 young writers are prize winners this year, with competition judges Yasmin Aishah and Maya Coombs reading the shortlisted entries

Schools festival bunting designs brought to life!
We invited schools to create their own bunting designs inspired by this year’s book. Explore this animated showcase of pupils’ work…

Secondary school students write songs inspired by Mary Seacole
Artists Ruby Colley and Hannah Collisson have been working with students at local secondary schools to write new songs on the theme of adventure

Festival activities for families this Spring holiday
A Town Explores A Book runs throughout the Spring school holiday. Here is a round-up of family activities during the festival!

Innovation: A diverse early-career artist team leads the festival
A Town Explores A Book festival centres the voices of those who have experienced barriers to accessing heritage literature in traditional educational settings

Join it Up: applied arts supporting reading and writing in the quest for fun
One of the school engagement projects this March has been a brush stroke exploration. Water colourist Susan Miller has been working with 200 school children exploring Mary Seacole’s adventures through

Creative writing competition deadline extended!
School communities have asked for an extension to this year’s creative writing competition for 5-14 year olds in order to set this activity as a holiday project! The new deadline

Design your bunting! Schools festival artwork inspired by Mary Seacole
#ATownExploresABook23 is inviting schools to create artwork inspired by this year’s book, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole, which we will print and display as bunting

Planning Underway for April Community Events
A Town Explores A Book is all about community, and planning is already underway for two big events in April that come under the festival banner, and will bring together

#ATEAB23 Crowdfunder a Great Success Raising Over £7,000!
The festival community showed up and and showed overwhelming support for #ATownExploresABook23 and our aim to offer creative workshops and activities to thousands of school-age children. As the Crowdfunder closed

Gensing Gardens
In 2022 ATownExploresABook hosted a programme of events, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to mark the 150th anniversary of Gensing Gardens.