Children & young people

Dominic Sandbrook

Adventures in Time: The Second World War
St Cross College 10:00am Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Harry Potter

Celebrating 25 Years of the Harry Potter Books
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman

Climb Aboard the Solar Express CANCELLED
Blackwell’s bookshop 12:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Bodleian Guides

Children’s Stories: A Family Walking Tour
Weston Library 1:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Katherine Rundell

The Good Thieves
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Lemony Snicket Interviewed by Imogen Russell Williams

Poison for Breakfast
Sheldonian Theatre 4:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Kate Pankhurst

Fantastically Great Women
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Ben Okri Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Every Leaf a Hallelujah
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Myles McLeod and Greg McLeod

Create your own Knight’s Tale
Blackwell’s bookshop 12:00pm Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Bodleian Guides

Children’s Stories: A Family Walking Tour
Weston Library 1:00pm Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Janina Ramirez

50 Goddesses, Spirits, Saints and Other Female Figures Who Have Shaped Belief
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Allie Esiri, Natascha McElhone, Ronni Ancona, Mark Quartley and Diana Quick

Poetry for Every Day of the Year
Sheldonian Theatre 4:00pm Sun 27 Sunday, 27 March 2022 See this event
Onjali Q Raúf

The Boy at the Back of the Class
Sheldonian Theatre 1:00pm Tue 29 Tuesday, 29 March 2022 See this event
Sophie Kirtley

Stone Age Adventuring
Lincoln College 10:00am Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Kevin Crossley-Holland and Chris Riddell

Tales of Arthur the Always King CANCELLED
Lincoln College 12:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Bodleian Guides

Children’s Stories: A Family Walking Tour
Weston Library 1:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Jacqueline Wilson

The Primrose Railway Children and The Runaway Girls
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Gill Lewis

Animals, Adventure and Activism CANCELLED
Lincoln College 4:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Emma Carroll

The Week at World’s End
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Ben Garrod

Why did Dinosaurs go Extinct and Saving Endangered Species
Sheldonian Theatre 12:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Petr Horácĕk

On your marks, get set, DRAW! CANCELLED
Lincoln College 12:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Bodleian Guides

Children’s Stories: A Family Walking Tour
Weston Library 1:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Michael Morpurgo

Animal Tales CANCELLED
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Sita Brahmachari

When Shadows Fall
Lincoln College 4:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Christopher Lloyd

It’s Up to Us: A Children’s Terra Carta for Nature, People and the Planet
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event

Festival information:

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.