Children will be able to delve into the pages of their favourite tales when a book festival returns to St Ives.

Book Jam will come to the Corn Exchange on Saturday, June 7, where The Gruffalo, Creaky Knees and a giant bee will be let loose around the town.

Youngsters will have the chance to meet authors and illustrators while getting involved in creative activities.

There will be readings, demonstrations and workshops, as well as a production of The Hare and the Tortoise, a colouring corner, badge making, books for sale and soft play areas.

The organisers ACE – Friends of St Ives Corn Exchange – have also invited some special guests including pirates and the festival’s mascot Bumble Bookjam.

This is the third year that the annual event has come to the town. Sponsored by St Ives-based Move with Us and supported by The Hunts Post, children will have the chance to join illustrator Pam Smy – whose work has featured in books by celebrated authors such as Julia Donaldson, John Agard, and Arthur Conan Doyle – as she creates a mural.

Also making an appearance will be Nicola Killen, an award-winning children’s book illustrator whose debut picture book Not Me! was published in 2010 and Fluff and Billy Do Everything Together the following year

She said: “The workshop will involve imagining fantastical creatures then turning them into a pop-up to take home. It’s a way of getting children excited about books – and giving them a chance to see some of the processes involved in making them.”

Illustrator and children’s book enthusiast Marion Lindsay, whose credits include Ready, Steady, Ghost! and Ping!, added: “This year I will be holding a collage workshop at St Ives Library. We will be creating dragons from paper, card, glittery bits and bobs and anything else that seems suitably dragony and can be stuck down. I’m hoping that the children will come up with some extraordinary beasts with which we can decorate the walls.”

Marian Savill will lead a craft workshop based on the best-selling story Handa’s Surprise, by Eileen Browne, and St Ivo School students will perform dramatisations of some of Roald Dahl’s most entertaining poems.

There is also a packed programme of workshops on the agenda with names including author Tim Collins (Cosmic Colin), illustrator Elys Dolan (Weasels), author Clementine Beauvais (Sleuth On Skates), author and illustrator Dave Shelton (A Boy and a Bear in a Boat), and master storyteller Andy Hawkins.

INFORMATION: From 9.30am-4.30pm. All of the events are free. To find out more about the workshops, or to register, email Ros Pascoe at bumble.bookjam@btinternet.com or call 01480 467094. The Aesop Theatre Company’s Hare and The Tortoise runs from noon-12.45pm in the Charter Hall at the Corn Exchange.