Record turnout at Sharjah children’s fest

ore than 60,000 people visited the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival during the first three days.

SPOILT FOR CHOICE ... Kids pick and choose books at a stall during the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival at Sharjah Expo Centre. — KT photo by M.Sajjad

Sharjah - More than 60,000 people visited the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival during the first three days of its 7th edition that began on April 22.

The festival will go on until May 2 at the Sharjah Expo Centre, and the visitor turnout this year is expected to surpass last year’s edition, which saw 140,000 visitors.

The unprecedented number of 2,028 events spanning the Children’s Programme, Cultural Programme, Culinary Programme, and the Social Media Café, in addition to the first dinosaur exhibition in the region and the Sharjah Exhibition for Children Book’s Illustrations, has greatly contributed to this record number in only three days.

Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, Chairman of Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), said: “The Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival receives increasing attention from year to year, and this year we have seen a significant rise in the number of visitors, which reached 60,000 in the first three days. This remarkable increase is attributed to the diversity and the increase in the number of events, the participation of a selection of Arab and international publishers and the presence of many renowned guests and celebrities.

“We have noticed the impressive interaction of visitors with the Dinosaur Exhibition, hosted in collaboration with London’s Natural History Museum.”

Al Ameri pointed out that the world-wide fame enjoyed by the Sharjah Exhibition for Children Book’s Illustrations held alongside the festival contributed to the attendance of both children and adults, whereas the huge turnout of adults were interested in visiting the exhibition to view artwork exhibitions created by 134 artists from 31 countries.

Themed ‘Discover My City’, this year’s Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival is hosting 109 publishing houses from 15 countries and is seeing the participation of an elite group of prominent Arab and international figures, renowned writers, artists and educational experts from all over the world.

The guests include Egyptian artist Lubluba, Jordanian author Rawdha Al Hudhud, and Kuwaiti artist Abdul Naser Al Zayer, who took part in ‘Adnan and Lina’, the popular children’s animated TV series.Participants also include Egyptian director Shawki Hijab; Egyptian writer Yaqoub Al Sharouni, winner of the ‘New Horizons’ award for the world’s best book at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair; and Omani Academician Dr Fatima Al Lawati, educational expert in Gifted and Creative Education. -news@khaleejtimes.com 

• UAE