Day 3 – International Children’s Book Festival 2026
Sun., October 11, 2026
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Annette Engellandt
Reading – Understanding – Creating: Illustrating Poems
Workshop
Free admission – Registration required
How do words become images? In this workshop, children and teens will discover how to creatively explore poems and short texts and transform them into their own works of art. Together, we’ll read selected texts, discuss their meanings, and approach them in a playful way through activities such as pantomime. Afterward, the impressions gained will be translated into art using graphic and visual techniques. Lines, shapes, and structures help bring moods, thoughts, and inner images to life.
The workshop creatively combines literature and art, inviting participants to rediscover language, unleash their imagination, and develop their own unique forms of expression.
Annette Engellandtstudied art education and art history. After many years as a co-owner ofLeander’s Bookstorein Mannheim and Heidelberg, she worked as an art teacher at the St. Leon-Rot Private High School until 2021. In her workshops, she combines her passion for literature, art, and creative design.
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Location: Makerspace
Recommended age: 10 and up
Free admission.
Registration requiredat:kibu-festival@dai-heidelberg.de
Space is limited.
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Isabel Pin draws live
Benoît Mandelbrot. Discovering Patterns in Nature
Even before the release of her new book, German-French author and illustrator Isabel Pin offers an exclusive glimpse into her biography of mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot. While drawing live, she will recount his extraordinary life story—from his childhood in Poland through his exile as a Jewish refugee to his groundbreaking discoveries. Inspired by the patterns of nature, Mandelbrot developed a new perspective on forms and structures.
Isabel Pinis a German-French author, illustrator, and lecturer. She has published more than 60 books for children and adults, combining nature, history, and cultural diversity with striking illustrations. She writes both simple, poetic texts for the youngest readers and complex historical stories for older readers. She has received numerous awards for her work.
The event is being held in cooperation with the German-French Cultural Center e. V. (dfk).
Duration: approx. 1 hour
Location: Library
Recommended age: 8 and up
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Kathleen Rappolt & Erik Sjøholm
Storytelling with Music – Freedombird
The Bird That Wouldn’t Stop Singing: A hunter tries to silence a singing bird, but even after he’s gone, the song rises anew from a hundred new voices. This ancient fairy tale forms the core of this bilingual storytelling concert—in German and English—about freedom, flying, and the courage to find one’s own voice. Interwoven with fairy tales from around the world, autobiographical stories of a childhood spent among birds, and live music featuring original compositions, it invites every child to sing their own song—and to never let anything silence them.
Kathleen Rappolt isa storyteller and theater educator from Berlin. With her poetic storytelling theater pieces, she captivates children and adults both at home and abroad, building bridges between people through stories. As a member of the Theater o.N. ensemble and a storyteller withErzählZeit, she brings stories to life with her voice, facial expressions, and commanding stage presence.
Erik Sjøholm isa singer-songwriter and storyteller from Ostrobothnia in Finland who now lives in Lucerne. His songs and stories move effortlessly between music and storytelling. Even as a child, he observed wild birds up close with his father—an experience that continues to shape his connection to nature to this day. Later, he fulfilled his dream of flying as a paraglider pilot. Since then, birds and freedom have been a recurring theme in his life and music—not least in his song“Fri som en fågel”(“Free as a Bird”).
Language: German & English
Duration: 1 hour
Location: Hall
Recommended age: 8 and up