Since 2021, we’ve been working with the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity to bring authors and illustrators onto the wards of the Royal Hospital of Children and Young People. Activity includes reading, drawing, playing games and sharing stories; to help take the children’s minds away from their hospital environment. These sessions are part of our year-round Communities Programme and here we reflect on our recent visits over March. 

On World Book Day, we were delighted to spread some book-related joy around the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, by bringing wonderful children’s author Nadine Aisha Jassat to visit. 

Nadine interacted with children and families in the outpatient’s area, ward waiting rooms and the Melville Unit for older children with mental health conditions. Alongside reading excerpts from her books, Nadine brought some fun illustration and creative writing activities to do. We were delighted to be able to gift some of Nadine’s most loved books to children on the wards, including her titles The Hidden Story of Estie Noor and The Stories Grandma Forgot. 

Then, only a couple of weeks later we were excited to have children’s author, Mike Nicholson, join us for a visit. We were particularly pleased that he chose to spend the publication day of his latest title My Granny Went to Scotland with us! 

We spent a lovely morning with Mike going between waiting rooms, the outpatient’s area and visited some great children up on the isolation wards. Like Nadine, Mike varied his activities depending on the age and interests of each child, reading excerpts from different books and playing games. There were lots of chuckles (and disapproving faces!) as Mike shared one of his characters, Gus’s, collection of bad jokes…which the children truly did think were terrible (they are sprinkled throughout Mike’s book Museum Mystery Squad and the Case from Outer Space if you want to test them out for yourself). 

In total (between these two visits), we were able to gift over 50 books to the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity, which have already been gifted to patients across the hospital. We are pleased, as always, to be part of the ECHC’s fantastic programming of cultural events and activities which they deliver every weekday across the hospital and we are already planning many more visits for the rest of the year! 

Thank you to Nadine Aisha Jassat and Mike Nicholson for their participation in our year-round Communities activity and Argonaut Books, a bookshop in Leith, for providing discounted books. 

Thank you to the players of the People’s Postcode Lottery who support the Book Festival’s year-round Communities Programme.