The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, better known as the Hay Festival, is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for 10 days from May to June.
Welsh Myths and Magic – Tuesday 27 May 2025, 2.30pm – Meadow Stage
Two acclaimed Welsh authors discuss their work with the National Poet of Wales. Claire’s Welsh Giants, Ghosts & Goblins was Waterstones Welsh Book of the Year 2024. She mixes stories from all parts of Wales, reimagined through her own, idiosyncratic lens, with the character of Idris the Giant weaving them together.
Manon’s The Blue Book of Nebo explores the aftermath of a worldwide catastrophe through the eyes of a small nuclear family in a remote village in near-future Wales. Manon has won Wales Book of the Year as well as being four-times winner of the Tir na N’Og Welsh children’s literature award.
Buy your tickets here: https://www.hayfestival.com/p-23242-claire-fayers-and-manon-steffan-ros-talk-to-hanan-issa.aspx
Red Sky in the Morning, Poets’ Warning – Sunday 25 May 2025, 2.30pm – Creative Hub
Join Alex Wharton, Children’s Laureate Wales, and be transported by creative electricity, joy and mystery. In this event poetry, rap and songs dance together as one. Combining his four collections of fizzy-dizzy words, he seeks to connect us, transport us and inspire a love of playful, curious and imaginative language.
Alex Wharton is an award-winning writer and performer of poetry for adults and children. His first book of poetry for children, Daydreams and Jellybeans, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award, the Lollies Book Awards, and was named as a National Poetry Day Recommended Read.
Buy your ticket here: https://www.hayfestival.com/p-23219-alex-wharton.aspx
We’re absolutely thrilled that Noah Frye Gets Crushed by Maggie Horne has been longlisted for the prestigious UKLA awards!
The UKLA Book Awards are the only children’s book awards judged by teachers.
They seek to celebrate children’s books in order to encourage teachers to increase their professional and personal knowledge of recently published high quality children’s books and promote the place of books for young people in all educational settings from nursery to key stage 4.
The books selected for the award are titles that teachers can share with pupils as part of regular classroom experience, eg to: read for pleasure in the teacher’s read aloud programme to the whole class inspire extended response from learners (through discussion, creative interaction or understanding the wider curriculum) be the focus of study (set books, shared and guided reading) enhance all aspects of literacy learning and literary study.
Selection committees and teacher judges are asked to look, first and foremost, for well-written, engaging ‘reads’ and, where appropriate, outstanding illustration and design.
Best friends Luna and Zoey can’t stop talking about boys and kissing, but Noah just wants everything to go back to the way it was. To fit in, Noah pretends that she likes Archie, a boy from school, even though she’s not quite sure. When new girl Jessa joins their group things get even more confusing. Can Noah admit to herself who she really likes, not who she thinks she should? to steal one of the three legendary Embers of the Sun from the town museum for them, and they’vetaken his precious secret map to make sure he’ll agree!
We’re absolutely thrilled to have three of our titles featured in The Bookseller Buyers Guide’s Season Highlights! Find out more about our lead titles for Autumn 2024 below.
In a world where the shadow-like ‘daayan’ stalk the night, the mages of Agraal are the only ones able to defend the realm. So, when Princess Thiya discovers she has the extraordinary powers of a healing mage, she captures the attention of earth mage Isaac. In order to lure Thiya to the frontline to help defeat the daayan, Isaac does the unthinkable, he takes Thiya’s true love Amara hostage.
Together with fire mage Kaayan and her brother Lochan, Thiya must make a perilous journey to rescue Amara. But not everything is as it seems and the powers at work behind Amara’s abduction might come from the darkest heart of them all.
A poignant, moving love story set in a rich and vivid world inspired by Indian folk tales.
It’s been 140 years since the Wolf swallowed the Sun, so why are all the cats in the dark, fog-shrouded town of Starspill bothering Zac about it now? He just wants to stay warm, listen to stories, and work hard for his brother as an apprentice starsmith. But the cats have other ideas. They want Zac to steal one of the three legendary Embers of the Sun from the town museum for them, and they’vetaken his precious secret map to make sure he’ll agree!
Huw always pops in to see his nan on the way home from school – she bakes him cakes and never fusses about his homework. So it’s a great shock when, one day, Nan forgets his name, and calls him Johnny – the long-unmentionable name of her late brother. As Nan slowly slips into the grip of dementia, Huw and his friends go on a quest to learn more about Johnny and what happened to him.
Exploring themes of friendship, family bonds and the history of conscientious objection in WW2, Feather is both modern and historical, as well as being relatable, particularly for children who may have grandparents with a similar dementia struggle to nan.
Aimed at ages 9-14, the original Welsh edition, Pluen, won the Tir na n-Og Award Wales children’s fiction Award in 2017.
The news is finally out! The tale of the tiger sea captain, Skrimsli, written by Nicola Davies with illustrations by Jackie Morris, has been shortlisted for The Wainwright Prize for nature writing, in the Children’s Category. This comes hot off the heels of Skrimsli’s 2024 Wales Book of the Year win.
Illustrated by Jackie Morris, this epic prequel to The Song that Sings Us tells the thrilling story of a tiger sea-captain, a boy called Owl, a desert princess, a horse with a heart of gold and many others as they fight to save their worlds from war, hate and environmental destruction. Born into captivity in a circus, Skrimsli must work out where he belongs in a world ruled by human fear and greed. But he soon finds he has friends in many places, and that fear is not the only story…
Jackie said: There are few characters that are so dear to my heart as Skrimsli, the tiger captain, born in the imagination of one of Wales’ finest writers, and now roaming the wild. It is a real honour that the strength of this
Skrimsli is the second fantasy adventure from author Nicola Davies set in a world where animals and humans can sometimes share their thoughts. It traces the early life of Skrimsli, the tiger sea captain who, along with his friends, Owl and Kal, must escape the clutches of a tyrannical circus owner, then stop a war and save the ancient forest.
Also in the series:
Harlon has been raised to protect her younger siblings and their outlawed power of communicating with animals. But when the sinister Automators attack, they must flee for their lives. In a thrilling adventure they must all journey alone through ice fields, forests and oceans to try to rescue each other and fulfil a mysterious promise.
The Let Your Imagination Fly project aims to organise author visits to schools, libraries or community centres, particularly in low income and/or ethnically diverse areas across Wales, to target potential new readers through social media, and to collaborate with reading promotion agencies to encourage more children from Wales to read for pleasure.
Since the project’s launch, we have been working alongside our fantastic authors with schools, libraries and reading promotion organisations to reach as many new readers as possible.
Here are some snapshots from over the summer:
If you would like to find out more about the opportunities to get involved with Let Your Imagination Fly, please contact Megan.Rees@fireflypress.co.uk
Huge congratulations to Nicola Davies whose stunning adventure novel Skrimsli has won the Wales Book of the Year Children’s Book Award 2024!
Illustrated by Jackie Morris, this epic prequel to The Song that Sings Us tells the thrilling story of a tiger sea-captain, a boy called Owl, a desert princess, a horse with a heart of gold and many others as they fight to save their worlds from war, hate and environmental destruction. Born into captivity in a circus, Skrimsli must work out where he belongs in a world ruled by human fear and greed. But he soon finds he has friends in many places, and that fear is not the only story…
Jackie said: There are few characters that are so dear to my heart as Skrimsli, the tiger captain, born in the imagination of one of Wales’ finest writers, and now roaming the wild. It is a real honour that the strength of this tale has been recognised by Wales Book of the Year. This book is born of truth and carries a great green message, about how to make a better world. It is also a rip-roaring adventure. So proud to have played a small part in its creation.
Firefly publisher Penny Thomas said, ‘Massive congratulations to Nicola and Jackie, and a huge thank you to the judges for picking this stunning and important book from an outstanding field of Welsh writing for children in English, which also included wonderful authors Atinuke and Lesley Parr.
‘This was also a tremendous night for Firefly which has never won a Wales Book of the Year award before. I am so proud of this awesome story and all it stands for: inclusion, kindness and forces for good in a environmmentally threatened world. If you want change, you have to write it!’
To celebrate Skrimsli’s win, we’re running a limited time offer for 50% off the hardback gift edition of both Skrimsli and The Song That Sings Us.
Firefly is roaring forward this weekend as hard on the hells of Skrimsli the tiger, our heartwarming story, Call me Lion by Camilla Chester is shortlisted for the UKLA awards, with the ceremony taking place tonight.
Skrimsli is the second fantasy adventure from author Nicola Davies set in a world where animals and humans can sometimes share their thoughts. It traces the early life of Skrimsli, the tiger sea captain who, along with his friends, Owl and Kal, must escape the clutches of a tyrannical circus owner, then stop a war and save the ancient forest.
Also in the series:
Harlon has been raised to protect her younger siblings and their outlawed power of communicating with animals. But when the sinister Automators attack, they must flee for their lives. In a thrilling adventure they must all journey alone through ice fields, forests and oceans to try to rescue each other and fulfil a mysterious promise.
