World Book Week

The start of the Spring term always heralds the arrival of World Book Week which this year ran from 27 February to 3 March. The week was book-ended (if you’ll forgive the pun) by author visits, with the middle being filled with dressing up as a favourite literary detective, and blind-dating with a book.

Our first visitors were our resident author, Seth Burkett, and his friend and mentor Ian Ridley.  Ian wrote for the sports pages of the Guardian for many years but has recently turned his hand to crime writing.  30 Year 9 students had the good fortune to hear Ian speak about crime writing, while a group of Year 12 English students attended his fascinating talk on his long career in sports journalism.  Meanwhile Seth gave an assembly and a writing workshop to our Year 7s who enjoyed hearing about his successes and setbacks and how to persevere when life doesn’t go as planned - try, try and try again!

Inspired by Ian’s crime writing talk, Tuesday saw students and staff dress as their favourite literary detectives.  With the help of our wonderful student librarians, the library was transformed into a crime scene and students had to guess what might have happened to (the fictional!) poor Betty Marie de’Ville, cruelly murdered while enjoying a quiet read in the Library!

In the middle of the week students were encouraged to have a blind date with a book.  Several intrepid readers took a chance on an unknown book – no complaints so far, but I won’t be buying my hat quite yet…!

On the final day of World Book Week, we had a visit from the wonderful Tamsyn Murray, author of a variety books including those for teen readers.  She gave some inspirational insight into her writing processes when giving assemblies to Years 8 and 9, and she delivered a couple of brilliant writing workshops to Year 7s.  Copies of her books are available in the Library!