Love Libraries – Love of libraries and reading fostered by family festival

Hundreds of schoolchildren attend and enjoy the annual Wee Write book festival, which encourages a love of reading and library use.

The event, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024, had been cancelled last year due to the loss of critical grant funding but a scaled-down version was later able to proceed thanks to the generosity of donors.

Wee Write is held at venues across Glasgow, including the city’s historic Mitchell Library – one of Europe’s largest public libraries. The festival, run by Glasgow Life, features author readings, songs, games, interactive workshops and even coding sessions. Most events are free.

Authors

Wee Write Programmer Fiona Haddow said:

We didn’t think Wee Write was going to happen again, so it was really nice to be able to bring the festival back.

We do a schools programme, for primary one to seven and secondary pupils, and cater for early years as well. Our early years tends to be outreach through local libraries because a lot of them are wee tinies with small legs who can only walk a tiny bit. But they can get to their local library and access the authors we bring.

Even though we had a scaled-back programme for 2024, we had so much on.

The schools programme was fantastic and the secondary schools outreach was brilliant. We brought [young adult author] Ben Oliver to two schools and we had about 200 kids for those sessions, which was amazing.

Literacy

More than 600 young people attended the Wee Write “big birthday bash with the Beano” at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Fiona added. Beano’s Directors of Mischief, Mike Stirling and Craig Graham, aimed to give the festival a special birthday gift by writing a “supersonic” comic in less than an hour – with help from the audience.

Promoting literacy is a priority for the event and children can borrow or buy discounted books. Fiona said:

Wee Write helps start the reading habit in children. A lot of them have never been to a local library or the Mitchell Library. It’s this big, imposing building but when they do come in, they realise it’s for them. The Mitchell is the heart of Wee Write.

Getting to meet authors is also so inspiring for children, who are our readers of tomorrow.

Diversity

Diversity of authors is a focus of the festival, to reflect the growing diversity within Glasgow itself. Fiona said:

The city is changing and evolving all the time. Showing and reflecting that on the stage is important. In 2024 we had [award-winning writers] Nadine Aisha Jassat and Maisie Chan, who were amazing.

We brought Maisie to a book show in the past and children who attended had Chinese heritage. Their teacher couldn’t stop raving about it and said the children had been so inspired and could see themselves on the stage. They saw they could do this [write].

Another author, my friend Breanna McDaniel, has helped our network in terms of more diverse voices. The programme we can put in place now is largely thanks to her. She even came from Atlanta one year to volunteer for the whole festival.

Hooked

Fiona said a key takeaway for festival goers is how much reading can be a joy and that libraries are for everyone to visit and enjoy.

You can access a library regardless of your background and librarians make such a difference to children by encouraging them.

If kids are reading, that’s all that counts. Even if it’s the back of a cereal box, as long as they’re reading. I look for stuff for Wee Write to appeal to reluctant readers and kids who are inquisitive, or those who like non-fiction or who love to draw. We get kids hooked in as best as we can.

Welcoming

Wee Write participant Mike Stirling, from Beano, hailed the festival for its work to encourage young readers and improve literacy. He said:

Wee Write is a serious festival that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s so welcoming and accessible.

The organisers help make reading a great thing. It’s brilliant, like Glastonbury for books. The kids are engaged in reading and see how good it is.

Reading is such a good habit for kids to have and Wee Write is such a good introduction to books and libraries, and for them to see how easy it is to borrow books. It associates reading and books with positivity and excitement.

We encourage the kids at our show to take part and to read aloud to each other. The kids are wonderfully imaginative and have great ideas. The audiences at Wee Write are the business, so engaged.

Young attendees, teachers, parents and authors are also full of praise for the festival, with feedback praising it as “amazing”, “hospitable”, “wonderful”, “wowsers” and “so much fun”.

Learn more about Wee Write.