Go on indulge yourself it’s World Book Day so you’ve got every excuse to spend a bit of “me time” with your nose buried in a book. In fact why not make every day World Book Day in your house. Take a trip to the Library or support your local book shop and invest in one of the books listed in the Wootton Bassett Arts Festival’s Syllabus.

The Speech and Drama section has classes in Prepared Prose Reading, Memorised Prose or Verse Speaking.

Prepared Prose Reading

In this class performers select a passage from the set book and practice performing the story to an audience. Set books in the children’s classes include:

• The Badger’s Bath by Nick Butterworth
• A Bear called Paddington by Michael Bond
• Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo
• Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson
• Room with a View by EM Forster

Performers of 17 and over are free to select a passage from any book by Evelyn Waugh.

Memorised Prose

In this section performers are free to select a passage from any book so just chose your favourite!

Verse Speaking

…or you could indulge yourself with some time spent on poetry. Poems have been set for ages 6 to 16 years and include:

• Goldfish by John Walsh
• Spaghetti, Spaghetti by Jack Prelutsky
• Five Eyes by Walter de la Mare
• The Mallard by Phoebe Hesketh
• The Thought Fox by Thomas Hardy

…and for those 17 and over you are invited to perform a poem, extract or sonnet by Sir John Betjeman.

So lots of excuses to pick up a book whether it’s prose or poetry and all you have to say is you are doing your bit for World Book Day!

Download a copy of the Syllabus on our website: www.wbaf.co.uk for full details of all Festival classes and the ISBN numbers for books in both prose and poetry sections.