Book Week 2015

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.