Henley Literary Festival 2025

Dinosaurs, inventing, the British Empire and rapping are among the subjects children around the country can hear about at Henley Literary Festival’s schools programme this autumn, in-person and online.

The Festival – one of the UK’s most popular book events – returns from 4-12 October, with the line-up of over 100 events for adults and children to be announced in July. The ever-popular schools programme, supported by the Fane Group, takes place each weekday morning (6-10 October) and is now available to book. Schools can either attend in person, with each child receiving a book as part of their ticket, or watch online for free. Last year the latter included schools from Manchester, London and Kent as well as locally.

Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce returns to Henley as year 6 head to Hollywood in his latest novel The Blockbusters! Frank’s appointment to this prestigious position means that the last five Laureates have all spoken at the Festival. Broadcaster turned bestselling children’s author Dermot O’Leary takes his audience back to World War Two as a foxy secret agent and code-breaking chicken save the day in Spy Fox and Agent Feathers. 

Sathnam Sanghera, No.1 bestselling author of Empireland and Stolen History, will discuss his engaging and essential look at the British Empire, its epic journeys and the rebels who resisted, from Pocahontas to Gandhi.

Younger children will love making experiments with Izzy the Inventor creator Zanna Davidson, and going on a dino-tastic adventure with children’s television presenter and dinosaur expert Andy Day and his illustrator Steven Lenton. And to start the week off, Monday October 6 sees World Book Day ambassador MC Grammar introduce his brand-new series The Adventures of Rap Kid as he shares the joy of working with words.