{"id":1013,"date":"2018-09-07T08:35:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T08:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2018-09-07T08:35:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T08:35:48","slug":"selcie-goes-to-the-edinburgh-international-book-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/2018\/09\/07\/selcie-goes-to-the-edinburgh-international-book-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"SELCIE Goes to the Edinburgh International Book Festival!"},"content":{"rendered":"

None of us imagined when we first started unpacking the Museum of Childhood book collection over 2 years ago, that we would subsequently be performing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.\u00a0 But it has happened!<\/p>\n

In May 2017 I sent a tentative email to the book festival organisers, explaining that we were planning to create an exhibition of children\u2019s books based on our findings in the archives.\u00a0 And that with the generous funding of the University of Edinburgh, we would have a publication to go along with the exhibition.<\/p>\n

At this stage we hadn\u2019t written the book or finalised our themes for the exhibition, but we knew we had a good idea and that everyone loves children\u2019s books!\u00a0 Fingers crossed, they would be interested.\u00a0 In October we finally met with them and described the wonderful collection, the work that SELCIE had been doing to bring the collection out from its crates and into the public domain.<\/p>\n

After 4 months waiting, in February this year we heard that SELCIE and the Museum of Childhood would indeed be part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.\u00a0 We were all very excited \u2013 and all rather nervous about making sure we had the publication finished in time!\u00a0 Sarah Dunnigan kept us to task, and the whole SELCIE team contributed to the final product \u2013 the Growing Up With Books<\/em> book.\"\"<\/p>\n

You can buy the book at the Museum of Childhood shop for a bargain price of \u00a36.00 with the proceeds going to Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital.\u00a0 And it will be available at the SELCIE conference on 23 November (more information about that here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

As the big day arrived we gathered at Charlotte Square where we hung out with fellow authors in the Author\u2019s Yurt, and browsed the extensive book shop.<\/p>\n

\"\"

SELCIE hanging in the signing tent while Gordon Brown photo bombs in the background.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the same day as our event, 15 August, some other celebrities were at the festival, notably the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Brian May from Queen, June Sarpong, Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin.\u00a0 All quite daunting, but exciting too!\u00a0 How amazing that SELCIE was part of this international festival.<\/p>\n

Sarah and I got microphones attached and were led into our tent \u2018theatre\u2019 where our audience were waiting for us to tell them about \u2018What children have been reading\u2019.\u00a0 We had almost a full house, and it certainly felt like we were being led onto a stage, about to perform. Sarah and I had so much we wanted to share with our audience about the Museum collection, so it was hard to condense it into 45 minutes, but we managed not to go over time, which meant the audience had a chance to ask us questions at the end.<\/p>\n

I outlined the history of the Museum and the breadth of the book collection, highlighting some star objects and then describing the SELCIE project and five themes of the exhibition and book:<\/p>\n