Storylines Festival: Finale on the books

By MARGIE THOMSON books editor

The 10th annual Storylines Festival will be launched tonight, ushering in a week of fun activities centred around New Zealand children's books, writers and illustrators.

More than 30,000 Auckland children will have their lives touched by the festival, either through having writers and illustrators visit their schools, or by coming to the free Family Day at the Aotea Centre (Sunday, June 29) a fabulous, happy day that last year attracted 20,000 children.

And this year, tapping into the worldwide hype over the release of the fifth Harry Potter book, Storylines organisers are holding a Guinness Book of Records-registered reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by media, sports and community personalities such as Dame Cath Tizard, Pam Corkery, Alison Mau, Simon Dallow, Elizabeth MacRae and more.

But, fabulous and happy as the festival is, behind the scenes things are different ... desperate, in fact, and the sad truth is that this could be the last year of the festival, even though it has grown wildly every year.

The problem is that hoary old one that attaches itself to many children's events especially, as organiser Robin Houlker notes, when it comes to putting on positive things for children: a chronic lack of funding and other resources.

"As a long-time advocate for anything to do with children, I know in the big world out there many people don't take children seriously. We're pretty good at helping sick children, and that's great, but where they're going to be having fun, we lose interest."

Storylines is fun but, behind the charming meet-the-author events, the workshops on how to write and illustrate, the Paper Plus Kids Lit Quiz that attracts 320 teams from intermediate and secondary schools around the country, and the stories brought alive with music, song, rhyme and dance, lies a most serious intent - nothing less than children's literacy.

"If we're going to have a literate society we must read: you don't become literate unless you read," Houlker says. And, she might well have added, most children won't read unless they're encouraged to do so.

Houlker is the kind of person who deserves a dictionary entry - to Houlker: to drive oneself relentlessly even when very ill in pursuit of charitable goals; to shamelessly badger government and other funding agencies; to keep trying with boundless enthusiasm, even when secretly you think you've reached a dead-end.

Storylines is run by volunteers, except for Houlker who is a paid part-time co-ordinator, the type of part-time that includes most of the hours of the day up until 2am the next day, and excludes only those hours when she's wearing her other hat, as Manukau Family Literacy project co-ordinator.

Storylines evolved out of a meeting of a small group of writers and illustrators, including Joy Cowley and Tessa Duder, who in 1992 climbed into a minibus and visited a few schools over several days, and ended the week with an event at the Auckland Museum.

It has grown incredibly. This year 31 writers and illustrators are involved in the week-long festival, including two international guests, and four vehicles will carry them to schools in Auckland. A special effort is made to always include Manukau City because of the high number of low-decile schools there. Also, the festival has spread to Hamilton, Tauranga and Christchurch.

Houlker has made 40 funding applications in the lead-up to this year's festival, has had some luck with pub charities, but has mostly succeeded in winning in-kind donations from companies. None of the money or products she has succeeded in winning has been able to help with administrative or personnel issues.

"We have had some success in building our base with private companies' support," she says. "Continental Car Services has given us five vehicles to use to get our writers around, and this year is putting signage on them for us, which is brilliant. The Heritage gives us room-nights for our international guests, and we are able to hold our Heritage Storylines Literary Soiree there [an event with Margaret Mahy, Gavin Bishop, David Hill and Australian guests Ann James and Libby Gleeson]. Vodafone is covering the cost of releasing one person from their regular job for a week to help with administrative work over the festival."

Variety, the children's charity, and publishers will help to ensure that books by festival participants are left in low-decile schools and early childcare centres.

These are all, as Houlker says, great ideas, but someone has to do the work to realise them.

Much overseas interest has been expressed in Storylines, as a standalone festival entirely focused on children's literature.

It is intellectual property, potentially a creative industry, but without the legal assistance to help evaluate the idea so as to market it effectively, and to work out patenting and licensing arrangements, nothing can be done and Storylines can not afford either the money or the time. An Australian arts management group is interested in taking this New Zealand idea to Melbourne, for instance, but without extra resources Storylines cannot use the opportunity.

What would make the difference between make-or-break for Storylines?

"Forty thousand dollars a year over three years," Houlker says firmly.

"It doesn't seem like much, but unless someone is prepared to front with it, this week's festival might be the last time Auckland buzzes in quite the way it does during this children-focused event."

What: Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children's Writers and Illustrators; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix world record Read Aloud.

Where and when: At schools and childcare centres around Auckland June 17-20; Aotea Centre June 21-22.