About NCBF

The Northern Children's Book Festival is the biggest free children's book event in Europe.

Over 40 visiting authors, poets and performers visit the North East of England for 2 weeks each November.

20,000 children in local schools take park in the events (these are closed sessions) with 5 thousand children, their parents and the general public attending a final Gala Day spectacular which this year is to be held in Blyth, Northumberland.

The Gala Day brings together the leading lights of UK children's books who run multi-sessions throughout the day. Add to that a range of art and craft sessions, storytelling, other book related events and a huge Festival Bookshop and you can begin to see the scale of it....it's MASSIVE!

This is the 21st Festival and authors see NCBF as the event to attend. Schools and libraries vie with each other to have one of the UK's top authors visit them.
Teachers and librarians get a tremendous boost from the spin off of an author visit.

12 local authorities in the north east of England come together to run the festival every year...planning for next year's festival will begin the week after this year's Gala Day! It's a huge collaborative effort between libraries and publishers.

We have featured on BBC TV's Blue Peter and librarians as far away as Japan and Hong Kong have sought our advice on how to run a book festival!

For more information on this year's NCBF please call us on: 0191 433 8529