Two local authors — and a jolly old fellow from the North Pole — will be the special guests at a reading festival hosted by the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

The 14th Annual Children’s Reading Festival — set to take place in Victoria Park on Saturday — will feature book readings from children’s author Nadia Aguiar, who wrote the fantasy trilogy ‘The Lost Island of Tamarind,’ as well as a reading from author Ellen Kelly.

Governor’s wife Margaret Fergusson will also be reading a holiday story, which is near to her heart at 11.30am, while Santa Claus himself will be on hand to spread holiday cheer and take pictures with the children at 1.30pm.

Organisers are currently looking for any last minute sponsors who can help make the event an even bigger success.

Nina Jacobs, co-organiser for the event, said: “We have some fabulous sponsors on board this year including More Pink Bermuda, who are setting up a creative arts station, KPMG, Spa Water and Brown and Co, which has provided us with gift certificates as raffle prizes. But obviously this is an expensive event to put on.

“We give one free book to each child (from toddlers through to primary six) that comes to the park and paying for these books gets to be the big challenge and that’s why we are looking for more sponsorship.”

Ms Jacobs said the sorority started running the event in a bid to promote literacy in the community.

“Our aim is to get parents reading with their children to foster that love of reading at home,” she said. “This event is a physical example that shows how literacy and reading can be fun. The park is set up in a way there that there are fun castles, creative art activities and authors who will be reading stories they love to the children, and that happens every half an hour pretty much.”

Families typically attend the event for the whole day and can enjoy complimentary water, juice boxes and fruit or vegetable juices. There will be some refreshments on offer throughout the day, as well as hot chocolate and baked goods for sale at a stall hosted by teenagers from the sorority’s mentee programme, Delta Gems.

Other highlights of the event include a booth set up by the Parents Resource Centre, open for parents who wish to discuss and literacy challenges they may be experiencing. This will be staffed by the Speech Language Pathologist from the Department of Health as well as Reading Resource teachers from Department of Education.

Sandys Middle School Drumline will be showing off their talents and opening the event at 11am.

Anyone looking to help sponsor the Children’s Reading Festival is encouraged to e-mail Denise Riviere at denise.riviere@gmail.com or Ms Jacobs at njacobs@goslings.com. Donors can also make donations directly to Delta Sigma Theta’s HSBC account 010-496826-001.