Our Read Summer Workshops

Yesterday saw the last of this year's Our Read summer workshops, which were held at Toxteth Library and the nearby John Archer Hall with the help of The Haven Project, who support the emotional wellbeing of young asylum seekers and refugees. The workshops were open to everyone and were attended by children from the ages of six to sixteen, who were able to enjoy the great range of events and activities staged over the three weeks.

The sessions were loosely based on The Unforgotten Coat, Frank Cottrell Boyce's book about a Bootle schoolgirl who befriends two Mongolian brothers, which he kindly wrote for this year's Our Read campaign. Activities included sampling food from around the world, making cakes and going on a treasure hunt around Toxteth Library, as well as a visit from Frank himself to read from the book and help with some creative writing exercises. The children were excited to meet Frank and especially thrilled when he signed a copy of the book for each child to take home.

We were also joined at one session by Carl Hunter and Clare Heney, whose photographs illustrate The Unforgotten Coat and who led the children in a photography workshop, during which they were encouraged to explore their environment using Polaroid and digital cameras. Other activities included a journey to Princes Park which concluded with a keenly-contested game of football, and things were topped off yesterday by a party at the John Archer Hall involving lots of exciting fun and games.

We hope everyone enjoyed the workshops, we certainly had a lot of fun putting them on and it was a great pleasure to meet so many lovely people. We'll be back next year so watch this space to find out what we've got planned!