This month’s Gibraltar Gibunco International Literary Festival will incorporate the third edition of the increasingly popular Schools Festival, where eight of the speakers taking part will be delivering talks to school children over the duration of the four day programme.

The story tellers and media celebrities taking part in the Schools Festival are the ever popular Christopher Lloyd, football pundit Guillem Balague, actress Maureen Lipman, poet Driss Alaoui, Horatio Clare, Maggie Gee, Richard Dunwoody and Nick Rankin.

Chris Lloyd and children’s writer Anna Bogey will also be carrying out special events for children at the Mackintosh Hall over the weekend so that children can enjoy these together with their parents.

The idea behind this festival-within-a-festival is to encourage children to take up the habit of reading books and also provide a space for authors to engage directly with local school children and their teachers.

Minister for Tourism Samantha Sacramento MP welcomed the emphasis on activities for schoolchildren that has become an integral part of the Literary Festival programme.

She said: “We wish to foster a love of reading among youngsters, particularly given all other modern day distractions, and this initiative is proving a successful means of achieving our aim. The Literary Festival is a truly open community event which is there to be enjoyed by all sectors of the community.

“We are extremely pleased that the growth of the event has represented an increase in talks for school children at the same time. School children are the readers of today and of tomorrow and therefore it is important that we encourage them to have a relationship with books from an early age.

“The hard work of all the teams involved in the festival in ensuring the success of the schools section must also be praised.”