This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Children’s authors Lauren Child and Cressida Cowell have announced that they will design BookBenches based on their own children’s book series Clarice Bean and How To Train Your Dragon, to be unveiled on the streets of London this summer.
The benches, shaped as open books, will form part of a public art trail of 50 BookBenches launched for the National Literacy Trust’s Books about Town project to celebrate London’s literary legacy and raise vital funds for literacy.
The National Literacy Trust is working with Wild in Art to bring Books about Town to London as a unique opportunity to explore the capital's literary connections, to enjoy art from some of the country's top artists and to experience the joy of reading for pleasure. From July, visitors will have the chance to discover the BookBenches by following literary trails around London. City of London has confirmed that they will host one of the trails and other benches will likely appear in Greenwich, Kensington & Chelsea and Bloomsbury.
Ralph Steadman and Paul Kidby are among the top artists and illustrators painting bespoke benches for the public art trails. Steadman illustrated Lewis Caroll’s children’s classic Alice Through the Looking Glass in 1973 (for which he won the Francis Williams Book Illustration Award) and he will reproduce some of these illustrations on a unique BookBench. Kidby, artist for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, is on board to paint a Discworld bench, too.Both of these BookBenches and a range of other book titles are still available for sponsors who want to put their names behind literary works of art. The Estates of Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming are paying tribute to literary heroes Poirot, Sherlock and James Bond by sponsoring illustrated benches in their honour.
A lovely initiative. If you spot a BookBench on your travels this summer, we’d love to see your snaps on Twitter or Facebook.