This year’s Book
Week went off with a literary bang as always.
Students started
the week by considering the books that they think everyone should read before
they die, in the first round of voting for the Swans Book-It List. With so much top notch YA fiction around
these days it was a tough call, but a clear top ten of favourites was revealed
in time for the second ballot which took place later in the week. With all votes counted and verified, our eventual
winner was the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. Here in the library we weren’t too surprised
since these books are never on our shelves, this despite the fact that many
students own personal copies! We will be
writing to the author of this exciting trilogy to make her aware of our choice
and (who knows?) she may even reply.
On Tuesday,
students took part in “Guess the Teacher’s Favourite Book” which pitted Kestrel
against Hawk against Falcon against Eagle in Book Week’s first ever house
competition. Fourteen teachers wore
clues to their favourite books and all students had to do was figure them
out. But there was a hidden catch… with
so many to find and only one day to do it in, was it even possible? On your own - certainly not; but in a house
team – piece of cake! It was the Falcons
that were the eventual victors having seen that this challenge was as much
about teamwork as it was being well-read – well done to them.
Wednesday saw
students walk away with something new for their shelves in our second annual
book swap, and on Thursday, students from Year 7 had the honour of meeting
successful author Lorraine Mace who came in to read to them from her novel
“Vlad the Inhaler” and also have a chat about the writing process in
general. The keenest writers of Year 10
also had the opportunity to meet Lorraine, who writes crime fiction under the
name Frances Di Plino, and she gave them a writing workshop on the importance
of characterisation and dialogue in fiction.
Such a thrill for all involved to meet a real writer and learn more
about books from an insiders’ perspective.
On Friday the
library launched this year’s reading challenge – Book Bingo – which challenges
students to read a range of fiction in order to complete their grid. This will continue until the end of the
academic year with various prizes for form groups and individuals who meet
their targets. Game cards are available
from the library now.
The best part of
Book Week, however, is always the final assembly which takes place on Friday
afternoon. The book trailers that KS3 students
have spent the past few weeks working hard on had been whittled down to the
finalists, which were screened in front of a panel of judges (and the whole
student body) so that a top three could be selected. The standard this year was EXCEPTIONALLY high,
but well done to the winning team who produced a chilling and original tribute
to their source material. KS4 students
were challenged to create a mini movie inspired by Jekyll and Hyde and the
finalists were startling thoughtful and original, with our eventual winner
creating an animation (single-handedly) that managed to be frightening and
moving in equal measures, not unlike the original story. Well done to all.
The Spelling Bee
was a truly epic battle, with the whole audience literally on the edge of our
seats and the two strongest competitors taking it right down to the wire with
their ninja-like spelling capabilities!
It was anyone’s game until propiety propietry propriety finally stumped our
close runner-up (and a fiendishly tricky one it is too!). Excellent spelling is SUCH a valuable (and
underrated) skill and we are fiercely proud of all the competitors in the Bee
this year, especially having seen their feverish rate of revision in the
library first hand!
So that’s it for
another year. But don’t despair - because,
as we know, every week is Book Week as far as the English department and the library
are concerned. So keep reading, keep
enjoying, keep discussing, keep sharing, keep on taking journeys to amazing and
unexpected places without even having to leave your sofa. (AND KEEP GETTING YOUR
READING RECORD SIGNED!)
PS If you have
any ideas or suggestions for Book Week 2016, please leave them in the comments
below.
