While the “Africa Rising” IPA Regional Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya will be grabbing the headlines this week, news comes from Ghana that the acclaimed Accra International Book Festival is expanding its horizons.
At home it will be launching its first Accra Children’s Book Festival in September, while further afield in Africa Cameroonian Ngalim Jusline Veeyeenyuy will be ensuring the main festival encompasses all of West Africa, and to bring Middle East and Asia interest Indian national Marewad Atul Balaji has been tasked with the job.
Ghanaian writer Elizabeth Matilda A. Mantebeah will be coordinating the Accra Children’s Book Festival which will go under the title AccraChildFest.
No further details yet on the wider West Africa and Middle East / Eurasia expansion (thanks to MyJoyOnline for what little we do know), but we have a few more details about the AccraChildFest, which is scheduled for September and will be the first children’s book festival in Ghana.
The Accra International Book Festival (not to be confused with the Ghana International Book Fair in Accra 29 August through September 1), claims to be
the largest public celebration of literature in Accra.
The AccraChildFest will be,
suitable for every age group ranging from ‘babes in arms’ sessions to toddler storytelling and teenage crafting workshops.
Accra International Book Festival Executive Director Iris Naa Norkor Akwetey said the Book Festival aims at bolstering reading and writing among Ghanaian children and will be.
A befitting family legacy to bequeath to one’s children is to ensure that they are literate and book lovers … We also want to encourage teachers to teach their students how to creatively interact with characters in the books they read.
