Mum and Illustrator Katherine O’Shea successfully crowdfunded her music festival children’s book, leading to a reading of the book recorded by CBeebies from the Glastonbury Festival
After attending Glastonbury Festival in 2022 with her little girl Molly, illustrator and new mum Katherine was surprised to discover that no children’s picturebooks about a family going to a music festival existed. Understanding how popular festivals are becoming with families, she decided to be the first to do so for the family festival experience and ran a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the creation of Molly’s First Festival entirely independently.
“My husband and I had never gone to an event like that with a toddler in tow and were both rather nervous, given the fact she had been born during the Covid lockdown and was unused to such a large crowd,” recalls Katherine.
“I know there are thousands of people who will recognise this ‘family experience’ of a festival, and I wanted to write and illustrate this story for them.”
Happily, Molly’s First Festival became a reality after she ran an enormously successful month-long crowdfunding campaign, clearly proving that festival-loving parents wanted this for their kids!
And within a month of its publication, CBeebies decided to record a reading of the book as part of a TV special filmed at the Kidz Field at Glastonbury – the place where Katherine was first inspired to create the story. The show has since been broadcast several times, with a permanent home on iPlayer.
Molly’s First Festival has also been taken on a festival tour with the CBeebies Bedtime Story Tent for the last two summers, including Camp Bestival in Dorset, where the story was read live by DJ and festival founder Rob Da Bank in front of an audience including Katherine, her family, and several supporters of the crowdfund who had been drawn into the illustrations as a reward for their support.
One mum said her son was “so excited to see the book he is pictured in being read out. Something we will both cherish forever, and the best way to always remember our first festival.”
Katherine has since read her story at festivals and events across the country. This July, she was invited to family-friendly festival, Deer Shed, to join the official Saturday artist line up in their new literary tent, alongside speakers such as Simon Armitage and Andy Burnham. The fact that Katherine and her book are now becoming part of the amazing festivals that inspired the story, is truly rewarding.
Katherine’s next event for 2024 is for a Baby Rave with Big Fish Little Fish at the end of August in Compton Verney, where she will be doing a live reading on Sunday 31 August.
The book is available to purchase from katherineoshea.co.uk/festivalbook.html