The “paw-ty” was in Dumfries at the weekend as some of the nation’s most loved children’s authors and illustrators took part in the Big DoG festival.
It proved to be barking good fun as a celebration of children’s literature in Scotland’s Year of Stories.
One of the region’s award-winning authors, Susi Briggs, launched her new Scots picture book, Wheesht! and The Bookshop Band unveiled songs from their latest album, Dear Land of Story Books.
Folk duo Beth Porter and Ben Please wrote, produced and performed the music for Robin Robin, Aardman Animations’ first ever musical. It was released on Netflix as a Christmas special for all the family and won Best Original Music Award at this year’s British Animation Awards and was an Oscar nominee.
But, at Dumfries’ Moat Brae – Scotland’s National Centre for Children’s Literature – on Saturday, it was their live performance ofn songs from Dear Land of Story Books which won the day.
They said the songs were inspired by Scotland’s fabulous children’s literature, including Peter Pan.
The Big DoG Festival was held live at venues across Dumfries and online and included performances on the High Street.
Dumfries Museum hosted Nick Sharratt with Super Silly Museums; David MacPhail with An Amazing Illustrated Atlas of Scotland; Gill Arbuthnott and Balloon to the Moon; and Mara Menzies with Secret Museum storytelling inspired by a visit to the town’s museum and camera obscura.
Another highlight was world renowned Aardman Productions’ senior model-maker, Jim Parkyn, who shared skills and invited participants at Moat Brae to recreate some of their favourite characters from the screen – Morph, Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. Moat Brae also had free showings of some of Aardman’s best loved movies.
Tuck-in-Tales with Renita Boyle, The Kippford Mermaid, and One Button Benny and the Gigantic Catastrophe (in Arabic and English) with Alan Windram and Saffanna Al-jbawir were also popular.
