Final school programme event for The Bookman at AWRF

Lucky kids I thought to myself as several hundred of them sat listening to two of the world’s great historical writers – one in the field of reference and the other in fiction – New Zealand historian Anne Salmond and the renowned Australian writer Thomas Keneally.
A dynamic duo.

Two keen intellects sparking off each other in what turned out to be a lively and entertaining discussion on the differences between the early years of settlement in New Zealand and Australia. This is the way to learn history. Apart from one young man in the back row near me playing games on his i-Phone the audience (90+% students) were hanging on to every word.

Congratulations to the AWRF for their schools programme. It is a marvellous build-up to the main event which gets underway tomorrow morning, Friday, and runs through to Sunday evening. Interesting to see the school programme numbers growing enormously and also to observe the number of adults attending these sessions.

Tonight is the New Zealand Listener Opening Night with readings by Colm Toibin, Emily Perkins, Thomas Keneally and William Dalrymple. We were late buying our tickets and so are upstairs in the circle the stalls being completely sold out several days ago. Augurs well for the rest of the Festival.