Edinburgh International Book Festival: Top 5 Kids events

Patrick Ness, Michael Morpurgo, Louise Rennison, Doctor Who and Melvin Burgess & Margo Lanagan

This article is from 2012.

Brian Donaldson picks the five things you should take the children to this week

Patrick Ness

With A Monster Calls, Ness is cementing his already burgeoning reputation as a must-read author for the 12-16 group. When this book about a boy dealing with his mother’s battle against cancer won him the Carnegie Medal, Ness said the experience was ‘extremely humbling, and a little unnerving’.

3-16 Aug, 5pm, £7 (£5).

Michael Morpurgo

As if he wasn’t doing well enough, the success of War Horse has taken things to another level for the former Children’s Laureate. Here, he discusses the process of having another of his books, Private Peaceful being adapted for the big screen.

3-17 Aug, 5pm, £4.50.

Louise Rennison

A Midsummer Tights Dream is the latest adventure in the Tallulah Casey series and features more delirious chaos at Dother Hall performing arts college.

3-18 Aug, 2pm, £4.50.

Doctor Who

The Who cult shows little sign of cooling off and this event features Jenny Colgan (who has written the new Time Lord book, Dark Horizon) and sci-fi author Steve Cole to discuss just why the Doctor continues to get right under our skin.

3-19 Aug, 8pm, £4.50.

Melvin Burgess & Margo Lanagan

Writing for young adults might occasionally mean touching on some dark materials and these two have had their fair share of both plaudits and brickbats.

3-20 Aug, 6.30pm, £4.50.