Local author runs kids’ workshop
Woodcote author Sue Palmer ran an interactive workshop for about 30 Year 4 children at Watlington library on the High Street, showing how festival energy is filtering down to community events. That’s a tidy reminder that book‑festival momentum isn’t just trade buzz — it produces grassroots programming that feeds future readers. If you track author outreach or school visits for programming ideas, this is a compact, replicable example. (henleystandard.co.uk)
About 30 Year 4 children from Watlington Primary School left class for the High Street library and spent the session with Woodcote author Sue Palmer, who ran an interactive workshop instead of a standard reading. (henleystandard.co.uk) Palmer is 56, lives in Woodcote, and has been creating workshops for primary school children since 2016, so this was part of a long-running schools program rather than a one-off author stop. (henleystandard.co.uk) The visit was arranged at Watlington Library with help from Friends of Watlington Library, the local charity that says its job is to protect, support and promote the community library. (friendsofwatlingtonlibrary.org, sypalmer.com) The workshop centered on Palmer’s children’s book *The Shell Secret*, and her school materials describe these sessions as cross-curricular events that mix literacy with science and supply follow-up material for teachers. (watlington.oxon.sch.uk, sypalmer.com) Watlington Primary’s Year 4 page says pupils were invited to the local library to hear Palmer talk about *The Shell Secret*, and the school newsletter said Year 3 and Year 4 pupils were inspired to learn more about rock pool micro-habitats after the visit. (watlington.oxon.sch.uk, watlington.oxon.sch.uk) That detail explains why libraries like this use authors for daytime programming: one event put a local writer, a public library, and two primary school year groups into the same room around a book the children could keep reading afterward. (watlington.oxon.sch.uk, oxfordshire.gov.uk) Palmer’s own site says Friends of Watlington Library invited two classes from Watlington Primary and describes the session as combining social history and biology, which is a practical format for schools because it fits more than one subject in a single trip. (sypalmer.com, sypalmer.com) This was not Watlington’s first Sue Palmer event either: Friends of Watlington Library advertised a March 19 workshop for Years 3 and 4 in 2025 called “Could you be an astronaut,” and Watlington Primary’s Year 3 page records another library workshop with Palmer about space. (friendsofwatlingtonlibrary.org, watlingtonprimary.ovw1.juniperwebsites.co.uk) So the news here is small on purpose: one library on one High Street used one nearby author to turn a school visit into a hands-on book event, and the model is simple enough for other towns to copy without needing a major festival budget. (henleystandard.co.uk, friendsofwatlingtonlibrary.org, sypalmer.com)
