So when Being Human,<\/a> a national festival of the humanities, announced their 2016 festival theme of Hope & Fear<\/a>, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for the Vital North Partnership to get involved!<\/p>\n On 24th\u00a0<\/span>November, Newcastle University\u2019s Children\u2019s Literature Unit<\/a> hosted a\u00a0Being Human event at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children\u2019s Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n The aim of Hope and Fear in Children\u2019s Books<\/a> was to engage non-academic audiences in children\u2019s literature research in a fun and interesting way.<\/p>\n After an overview of how children\u2019s books engage with hope and fear by Dr Lucy Pearson, Lecturer in Children\u2019s Literature,<\/a> our first stop was the Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories<\/a> gallery.<\/p>\n Dr Jessica Medhurst, Knowledge Transfer Partnership Research Associate,<\/a> gave us a guided tour of the Michael Morpurgo exhibition. Dr Medhurst has been working with Seven Stories\u2019 Collections Team<\/a> to uncover the treasures within Morpurgo’s\u00a0archive,<\/a> and her tour highlighted the themes of hope and fear within Morpurgo’s\u00a0work. One visitor said:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe Michael Morpurgo exhibition was really visually pleasing. The person who took us around was really passionate and informative.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Next, we headed up to the Attic, where the Seven Stories Collections Team and Dr Pearson facilitated a hands-on session with original material from Seven Stories\u2019 Catherine Storr,<\/a> David Almond<\/a> and Judith Kerr<\/a> collections.<\/p>\n Our visitors really appreciated the chance to explore this original material in detail:<\/p>\n \u201cThe chance to look at the objects \/ drawings from the collection \/ archive was great.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Then, Seven Stories\u2019 Storycatchers Jayne and Lawrence introduced us to the Rhyme Around the World<\/a> gallery, where we had some self-led time to explore hopes and fears in nursery rhymes. And to have fun with the interactives… \u201cI dressed up as a sheep!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The evening closed with a drinks reception and quiz in the Attic, sponsored by Newcastle University\u2019s Humanities Research Institute. My knowledge of hope and fear in children\u2019s books was certainly tested, anyway!<\/p>\n Commenting on what they thought was most successful about Hope and Fear in Children\u2019s Books, I was really pleased to see that a number of our visitors said they liked the opportunity to \u2018chat to experts\u2019.<\/em> And I think this piece of feedback from a participant about the impact the event had on them sums the evening up for me, too:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s made me think about how literature can help children (and adults!) cope with fear, and indeed hope.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Being Human is the UK\u2019s only national festival of the humanities and took place this year between 17th<\/sup> \u2013 25th<\/sup> November 2016. The festival is led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London,<\/a> in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council<\/a> and the British Academy. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The concepts of fear and hope are central to children\u2019s books. The Vital North Partnership is part of Newcastle University\u2019s Humanities Research Institute. So when Being Human, a national festival of the humanities, announced their 2016 festival theme of Hope & Fear, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for the Vital North Partnership to get … Continue reading “Being part of Being Human 2016”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6222,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,13,20],"tags":[16,6,10,35,12,4,14,7,17],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collections","category-events","category-research","tag-collections","tag-events","tag-exhibitions","tag-festivals","tag-ktp","tag-partnership","tag-public-engagement","tag-research","tag-seven-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/files\/2016\/12\/MG_8009_Edited-1024x683.jpg\")
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