Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival

03/06/2026

☀️☀️☀️ Happy Volunteer Week! ☀️☀️☀️

Last year we had over 30 incredible volunteers who gave up their time to help make the Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival a success. We’re hugely grateful to them all for supporting us. We couldn’t have made it work without them. Also a big thanks to who sponsored our cute pink t-shirts so that they were easy to identify at the events. Most of our volunteers will be with us again this year 🙌 see you there 👋

☀️ 26/27th September ☀️

24/04/2026

03/04/2026

We are absolutely delighted to tell you that we have been successful in our grant application to the Holme Valley Parish Council!

This means that the second Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival can definitely go ahead in September 2026 🎉📚

The Holme Valley Parish Council have been so supportive of everything we’re trying to achieve with the festival and we are incredibly grateful to them for the support.

SAVE THE DATE: 26/27th September 🙌

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Beautiful artwork by 💛

Holme Valley Parish Council

14/02/2026

Here we are...over 30 reasons to stay with us this year!

For more details go to https://holmevalleycamping.com/events/things-to-do

06/01/2026

Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival

Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September 2026

A full weekend of live children’s author and illustrator events from authors all over the UK.

We are a not-for-profit organisation, Holmfirth Book Festival CIC, run by five local volunteers. We are passionate about getting children excited about books. In the years to come we hope to grow the festival further and become a destination for book lovers all over the UK!

Watch this space for the full programme as it comes together....

Find out more at www.holmfirthbookfestival.co.uk

21/12/2025

Save the date!

Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival

Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September 2026

A full weekend of live children’s author and illustrator events from authors all over the UK.

We are a not-for-profit organisation, Holmfirth Book Festival CIC, run by five local volunteers. We are passionate about getting children excited about books. In the years to come we hope to grow the festival further and become a destination for book lovers all over the UK!

Watch this space for the full programme as it comes together....

Find out more at www.holmfirthbookfestival.co.uk

29/09/2025

One of the most wonderful things about this weekend, and the thing that so many people have commented on, was the number of smiling faces as children came out of their events.

We feel like we made lots of children and their families happy this weekend and it’s hard to put into words how proud that makes us feel.

One of the highlights was The Gruffalo’s visit and this couldn’t have been done without the help of and . Thank you 🙌 This meant that over 100 families were able to meet their hero 💛

As we take some time to reflect on the weekend and look at your feedback, we want to say thank you. Thank you for trusting us and coming out in force to support the festival. We think, like you do, that we’d like to make this an annual celebration of children’s books.

Thank you to all our sponsors, grant providers, schools, volunteers, families and donators and everyone who believed in what we wanted to achieve. Without you, this wouldn’t have happened.

And to our brilliant volunteer directors; Alex, Penny, Dan and James who have been such brilliant support to Louise in organising the festival.

We’re going away to plan, fundraise and dream big for next year.

We hope you’ll join us 💛

28/09/2025

Sunday! We had a brilliant day yesterday with so many happy faces and we’re excited to do it all over again:

10am – 12pm – Meet the Gruffalo – this event is SOLD OUT

11am – 12pm – War of the Worlds with Chris Mould at The Civic – tickets required

1pm – 2pm – Illustrating with Jarvis – this event is SOLD OUT

1pm – 2pm – Phil Earle’s Dawn of Adonis at The Civic – tickets required

2.30pm – 3.30pm – The Beast of Holmfirth Celebration Event with Sarah Morrell – FREE but tickets required. Not many tickets left!

All tickets can be found by clicking ‘Book Now’ at the top of our website:

www.holmfirthbookfestival.co.uk

27/09/2025

We’ve made it to zero days!! 🙌🙌🙌

Saturday! Today is the first day of the Holmfirth Children’s Book Festival and we’ve got some brilliant events lined up for you:

10am-3pm – drop in to Holmfirth Library for Gruffalo crafts and story trail. This is FREE with no tickets required.

10am-11am – Hugh Raine’s Beano at The Civic - tickets needed

10am-10.45am – How to Spot with Suzy Senior at The Civic – SOLD OUT

11.30am – 12.15pm – Bim-Bam Boozle Bird at The Civic – tickets needed but not many tickets left

11.30am – 1.30pm – Read-cycle used book sale at Read (drop in for some amazing bargains and support the local schools too!). Cash preferred but we can take card payments.

1pm – 2pm – Spirit Warriors with Ashley Thorpe at The Civic – tickets needed

1pm. - 2pm - Badgers are Go with Susannah Lloyd at The Civic - tickets needed

2pm – 4pm – Meet the Gruffalo – this event is SOLD OUT

2.30pm – 3.30pm – Writing workshop with Abiola Bello at The Civic – tickets needed

3pm – 4pm - Matt Goodfellow’s The First Year at The Civic – tickets needed

Please note that the Josh Silver event is CANCELLED due to low numbers. Sorry for any inconvenience 😢

All tickets can be found by clicking ‘Book Now’ at the top of our website:

www.holmfirthbookfestival.co.uk

26/09/2025

Shhhh! Can you keep a secret? 🤫

Look who’s here! The Gruffalo is sleeping in a cosy nook below the shop tonight so that he’s fresh and ready to go tomorrow for his meet and greet session!

*** Please note that this event has been very popular and is SOLD OUT - we’re unable to take extra drop-ins. ***

But don’t worry we have so much going on over the weekend!

🎟️ For tickets and more information about our other events go to:

www.holmfirthbookfestival.co.uk

Huge thanks to and who have supported this event so that your tickets were able to be free 💛