A new lit experience

Myself and one of our english in school have started our own blog with the expectation of hwlping students to raise their awareness of literature through a different medium. We are directed the students to the site as often as possible and aim to have a number of things running through the blog. One of these is to offer students the chance to work out which literary characters we are pretending to be as we write our own versions of tweets for the characters we have chosen. I will giving students tips on the process of creative writing - I was once a published poet don't you know!! Our english teacher will be giving info about gcse and a level texts and we will be keeping students up to date with what we are reading as well as offering up any good websites that they may find useful in their study of english lit.
Its going to be a very refreshing use of technology and something that will hopefully grow within the school!!
If you want to take a look visit litexperience.wordpress.com

Kid's Lit Quiz

We took our two teams last night to the regional finals of the quiz and our students did really well. Although they didn't come in the top 3 their overall knowledge of books was fantastic. For my liking the quiz was aimed more at the classic side of children's fiction rather than the more exciting contemporary stuff which I promote highly in the library and thus gave an advantage to those schools whose libraries don't have as much newer stock but get students to read the 'classics'. It certainly is a shame that there was really no questions of books published more recently that the last 5-10 years as there certainly is so much good stuff out there. Luckily we do go into the quiz with our eyes open and the students went to take part and enjoy themselves rather than to be ultra-competitive. We still plan on taking part next year but I will still make sure that we promote all the great new stuff in our library and hope that they manage to update their questions for next year!!

London Meeting

I was at Scholastic on friday for a very hush hush secret meeting. It went exceedingly well indeed and I even left with a lovely cinnamon bun for my journey home. The weather was pretty rubbish but luckily the offices are just across the road road from Euston so I managed to stay pretty dry fo the whole journey - except for when I got back home!
The prject that I am working on with Scholastic is a very exciting one and although I am trying my very best to keep it a secret at Conference 2010 I will be making an announcement as to what it is going to entail. For know though all I will say is that 2010 is going to be a brilliant year!!

Kid's Lit Quiz

We had our schools final of the Kid's Lit Quiz in school today. For the last month or so we have running different rouns for students in yrs7and8 to compete against each other on their knowledge of books. The final had 11 teams who had scored the highest through the earlier rounds all competing for two places in the regional final for the South East and London to be held next week.
I was really pleased with how well all the teams did and it was an extremely close result. The winning group won by just one point and we have 3 teams tied in second. We ended up having to do a tie breaker - which was about the only i hadn't planned for!!
It really was a great day though and the two groups going through to the final I'm sure will do really well.
Running the event in school has been an excellent addition to our calendar of work in the library. It has livened up our autumn term and giving us another way of getting students to interact with books. Wish us luck for the regional final!!

Spooky Tunes

OMG as my students would say!! Sunday afternoon the University of Herts was treated to one of the most musical, illustratative (not even a word but hey ho!!) highlights of the year. James Mayhew and the University of Herts Philharmonic Orchestra put on an amazing show of classical music, story telling and illustration. James illustrated and told the stories as the orchestra played in the background filling the auditorium with a sense of awe. Both young and old joined as James especially put on a show that I will remember for a long time, and I'm sure others will to.

It is the third year that we have run this event as a book group and every year it keeps getting better. It's a great way to introduce children to classical music and others to the world of illustration and story telling - something that put together in this format is so electric.

I for one am certainly looking forward to next year!!!

Friday Meeting

I had a really good meeting on friday wiith the ladies from Puffin. We were looking at ways in which the FCBG can work with Puffin in the next year to help celebrate Puffin's 70th anniversary. It was really to get down to London, a place that I adore and where my family are all from, and to spend time talking about books and organising exciting projects that we can work on. We had a great discussion and hopefully a lot of really good stuff is going to come from it. A big thank you to Tania and Kirsten for making me feel so welcome too!!

Reading Research

Research carried out by Booktrust has shown an increase in children saying that they enjoy reading. It also highlighted that children felt they were distracted by television and computer games, which is something that I think we all know anyway! What i found quite interesting was that around 74% of children said that they liked to chose their own books which I think is very encouraging. As much as I love to shout about and tell people about new books I love it even more when they come to me and tell what they like and are very fimr in their choices. It gives me a chance to talk to them on a different level about why they choose the books they do and then this can lead into giving them advice about other books they may enjoy.
Another slightly more worrying point was that only 5% of children would go on what their dads told them to read. Obviously there could be a number of reasons for this but from my experience it is mostly because there is a lack of male role models who read for children. We are very lucky in our school as we have three male english teachers who are all readers and encourage the kids to read as well. This though is not the same everywhere. I've worked in schools where there are no male english teachers and you can see the effect that it has. If a child grows up without knowing that its ok for boys to like, enjoy reading because they don't see the male figures in their lives doing it, it does have a detrimental effect on them.
But it is the same all over, all children need to see positive reading role models whether they are male or female. Now whether of not you believe that there is a problem with boys reading, we can't just look at one area and improve that only to find in the future that we have neglected all the other areas and now there is a problem with them. We need to make sure that we are always tuned into everyone's reading tastes and habits, providing in the book world a non-discriminative view point on age, sex, race, culture because as soon as we start catergorising things we break things down into groups and not everyone fits into a group. When we truly view reading as something for everyone and don't try to put labels on things then we will see a change in the whole rather than the spectrum. It may not sound radical to some but it does require people to think differently.

St Albans art forum

Last night I attended a meeting in St Albans to dicuss the possiblity of an arts froum being set up in the city. The idea would be that its not going to be council run, although funding may be available from local gov but that it is for the people by the people. There were certainly some interesting people there. Most people had very similar ideas ass to what was needed if this were a thing that could actually happen. Something was needed where there was a central database of information both for the different arts groups but also for other people wanting to find out what was going on. It was also suggested that there should be more tying up of organisations and idviduals with more people working together towards a common shared vision. It was felt that one person in overall charge leading a steering group and a committee was also needed.
It was certainly an interesting proposal and something that could prove to be very useful for St Albans' art and also for the individuals taking part.

Books cont..

I thought maybe I should let you know the books that I have been reading over the last few days. I'm quite pleased that I've managed to get back into the swing of reading books in a quick space of time. I used to be able to read around 5 or so books a week as I'm a pretty quick reader. Anyway a couple of what I've read since sat!! When I was Joe by Keren David. It was a proof book i got in the post a couple of days ago, really really enjoyed it! Its about a young boy who witnesses a stabbing in a park and has to go into witness protection along with his mum so he can testify against the people that were involved. As he moves into witness protection it takes him a while to get used to be someone different but it also allows him to start over again to be someone new, someone different from his character. He finds out that he is good at running, very good, and also that he has suddenly a lot of female attention. As Joe starts to get used to things there is always the threat of someone trying to get to him to stop him from testifying and then when things start to go wrong in his life when he makes friends with someone who has an even bigger secret to hide everything begins to fall apart again! A really good read from Frances Lincoln.
The next book is Marcus Sedgwick's new one Revolver. A really fast pace book which has you on the end of your seat all the way through. It is about the power of guns, but set in the past in the town of Nome where there was once a gold-rush this is not an issues book. The story is set in a cabin and is about the life of one family and in particular a father and a son. The story starts with the death of Sig's father who has fallen into the ice and died. Sig is waiting for his sister and his step mother to go and get help when a knock on the door silences Sig's thoughts. Upon opening the door Sig's life changes forever. At the door is a man who has been tracking Sig's father for ten years believing that he owes him a lot of money. As Sig's father has died the man decides that it is up to Sig to take on the ownership of the crime. As the story progresses the power of the gun that Sig has in the cupboard becomes stronger and stronger but will he have to courage to use it?
Abother book that I've just finished today is If You're Reading this it's too Late. It's a really good adventure mystery, which although isn't the best story of piece of written work ever does get you hooked and gives a certain amount of pleasure as you work your way through the mystery behind some very unsavoury characters and the great Max-Ernest, one of the heroes of the story!!

Competitions

It's great so many book related competitions out there at the moment. I have come across three really good ones in the last couple of days and for someone who enjoys writing there is one really good one from Frances Lincoln that looks brilliant.
As part of their diverse voices children's book award they want to celebrate cultural diversity by having an unpublished author submit a piece of work that they feel emcourages and promotes diversity within children's fiction. With a minimum of 15,000 and a maximum of 35,000 words anyone over 16 can enter.
Another competition which you may want to enter has one of the federation's exectutive members on its judging panel. Martin Kromer has been asked to sit on the panel for the Seven Stones competition. The competiton gives children a chance to become a character in a book. All they have to do is read the book The Seven Stones and write in no more than 100 words what your fave charater was and why!
The third competition is from Penguin and gives readers of Charlie Higsons new zombie book The Enemy a chance to win a really frightening experience at Thorpe Park on halloween. All you need to do is visit and www.the-enemy.co.uk/halloween good luck!!

Books

I have been quite lucky so far this half term and have managed to read a few books already. In our library we shadow so many book awards through the year (in total we run 14 book groups through the year) that keeping up with all those books as well as making sure i am reading books for the Red House Book Award its always hard to be on top of things. I am hoping to finish off this half term the Teenage Book Award but also to read some of the books that have been piled up next to my bed!!

Our School

A little bit of a personal one now as for the first half term of school we have been extremely busy in our school library. Of course we have been continuing to test as many books as possible with some becoming extremely popular. At the moment we are all loving the Hunger Games, an excellent read that has had all talking at break and lunchtimes about it. We have also been shadowing the Teenage Book Award, which has been a great list and has given us loads of things to talk about, whether good or bad!!
We have also been celebrating Black History Month and National Poetry Day throughout October and have run a number of really fun interactive events including invited rapper and poet BREIS to our library to work with students on creating their own raps. We booked BREIS through the excellent website Apples and Snakes and would highly recommend them and BREIS.
In Herts we also have a big history with the abolition of the Slave Trade and visited our county archives to learn more. Having a background myself in creative writing it was great to have the students partake in some imaginative writing using the excellent archives as inspirations for their stories.
Another project that includes writing has been the Write Path International Story writing project which we also took part in. It was great fun to write stories that had been started by top authors and then contributed to by schools all over the world. The students that took part loved it so much they have started their own version of it between them and as a school we are also writing another story that has been contricuted to by staff and students. It was a project we started last year and proved so successful we decided to do another one!!
One new thing for our library has been to turn it into a eco friendly and sustainable one. We have set up a group called the committee whose job it is to work within the library to make sure we are meeting certain requirements. We are also going to be working within the local community sharing stories with primary schools, raising money for the local children's hospital and Great Ormond Street, planting tress in a new local forest and also working to raise books for a school in South Africa that we have recently been twinned with. We hope that we can make our library work as hard as possible to become a major part of our local community and to help other libraries around the world and area enjoy reading as much as we do!!

Campaigns

Since my last post its been great to see the support that the reading campaigns are getting. Alan Gibbons is doing sterling work and finally it seems that Cilip the Professional body for librarians has got on board. My feelings about Cilip are not unknown in the fact that all the work Alan is doing is amazing but for those librarians who pay their fees to Cilip you wonder what their job is if its not to defend the rights of libraries and librarians.
It is though encouraging to see so many people supporting Alan and there was a also a really positive article in the Yorkshire Post last week highlighting the campaign and the ways in which it is helping to bring this issue into open.

Wow

Well after thinking that it would be nice to take a couple of weeks of on holiday it seems that that has turned into, well, a couple of months. I cannot believe how much time has gone since i last posted on here. But I can promise you that it has defiantely not been through a lack of activity! Since the last post I have spent a lot of time having meetings in dark rooms about very exciting porjects that are going to be taking place over the next year! At the moment it's all a little hush hush but I can say I am very excited indeed!!

London Meeting

I had a really positive meeting yesterday up in London about a project that I have been working on for a while. I'm hoping that is going to become a big thing and another way in which the federation can get more people reading and enjoying books and in particular all types of books!

There will definately be more to come on this but at the moment I am keeping things under my hat!!

St Albans Literary Dinner

We held on Thursday the 2nd July our second Literary Dinner at the beautiful setting of the St Albans Abbey. As with most groups we run a lot of events for children throughout the year and decided last year that it would be really good to hold something for adults. I reprised the role of compere again this year and think I did a pretty ok job! We were really lucky to have a great line up of authors who all spoke about their books and writing and read from their books.
To open the evening Philip Ardagh gave us some anecdotes about his writing and his love for Aussie tv show Neighbours. Next Leander Deeny, actor and author, read from his book Hazel's Phantasmagoria' and acted out the scene from the film Atonement which he appeared in alongside Keira Knightley. To round the evening off we had Kevin Crosseley Holland - a writing hero of mine! - who told us about his writing and his love of myths and legends and old england!

On the whole it was a brilliant evening and one which we hope will be happening every year!!

Alan Gibbons Conference

I attended the Alan Gibbons conference at the weekend with a stand for the Federation. As a Federation it was great to be able to support the work that Alan is doing for the whole library sector. It was also great to see so many people passionate about the causes attend. The conference itself was full of heartfelt stories about the system failing but also about hope of what can be achieved. I am a school librarian myself so Alan's work is something that is very important to me as an individual, but also what Alan is calling for and what the campaign is trying to achieve as affects the work that we do as a charity. A lot of our groups work with school librarians and public libraries in holding events for authors and in encouraging people to read. Libraries are the place where we hold strong links through the country to help complete our own aims and a destruction of these and a de-professionalisation of the role of libraries can only have a bad effect on what we are trying to achieve and make our job a lot harder.

From the conference a lot of things sprang to my mind about ways in which there might be something we can do but one of the most upsetting things was the average age of the people that were in attendance. This is by no means a mark against anyone that there was there and as librarianship as a profession but if all this great work that is going on does manage to achieve something who is going to be taking this on in the future when the majority of the profession is no longer around? Unfortunately as a profession librarianship isn't seen any more as a career, now whether this is because of the way the job has steadily been deprofessionalised over the years, or the stigmas that surround librarians or any other issues. If you want to study to become a librarian there are very few places where you can do this. Only really Aberystwyth can offer this and that is a crying shame for the profession.

I hope that from the work that Alan is doing one of the factors that comes out of it is the work that can be done by a librarian - that it isn't just shelve stacking and not something that might be a career. We need more people wanting to become librarians and we need more people of a younger age to decide to take it up as well otherwise all the hardwork that is going on at the moment through campaigns such as Alan's will be lost.

Carnegie

It's great news to see Siobhan Dowd's book Bog Child win the carnegie. It's a brilliant book that doesn't have to have a fast moving plot that has adventure at every turn, but a book that you can enjoy reading because of the high quality of the writing. There is so much to think about in all her books which makes it even more of a shame that beyond Solace we will have no more of her books bless our library shelves.

We had our own carnegie party with our shadowing group in the library. 40 odd students with strawberries, pizza, prizes and a whole afternoon of fun. As always we didn't pick the right winner and we voted instead for Knife of Never Letting Go to win the Carnegie and Varmints winning the Greenaway. We weren't too disappointed though, we all enjoyed it, especially the pizza!!

Our Book Week

The RHCBA Ceremony

A quick video of some of the highlights from the RHCBA 2009 Award Ceremony

School Website

I've been getting some people asking about our school library and the kinds of things we do. Basically for a bit of info if you want to check out what we do look at www.ReadAllOver.moonfruit.com!!

My Libraries Book Week

This is just a small snap shop of some of the things we did during our Book Week. Being a secondary school Librarian is my main job, but obviously I spend a lot of time doing things for the FCBG. Being a school librarian means though that I can work with the people who we are trying to promote reading to. I get to see first hand what works and what doesn't and get that instant gratification when you are able to create a new reader. All this helps with the work that I do at a National level.

Alan Gibbon's e petition

For all those that support Alan Gibbons and his quest for the book I urge you to sign the e-petition on the 10 Downing Street pages. If you follow link http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/literacy/ it will take you to the correct sign. This petition should be signed by all those that feel we have a right as citizens to libraries, information, books, reading etc etc. As a school librarian myself this is something that I feel everyone should get behind. Libraries in schools are a fundamental part of a childs education in life. A library encourages a love of reading, opens the doors to so many possibilities and has such an impact in every part of our lives that they are neccessity.
I urge everyone to sign the petition and hopefully together we can get things changed!

Read On

The Publishers Association put on a meeting yesterday to discuss how it could be possible to make it madatory for all schools to have a Reading for Pleasure policy in place. The meeting took place at the Puffin offices in the Strand and some of the biggest names in publishing, literacy organisations, school practitioners, Librarians and Authors were in attendance.

There was a lot of discussions around how this could be implemented and many ways on how we could go about making it happen. Discussions ranged from starting at grass routes levels and making it mandatory and assessed in Initial Teacher Training to setting up a lobbying committee and working party to carry on the work that the group had started.

It was clear that everyone in the room had a clear goal for the programme, for education to see the importance in reading for pleasure and for the school agenda to reflect this in all parts of the school not just as an add-on or extra.

The outcomes of the meeting look very positive with the setting up of a working party of all the main players in which we will be following up the issues and ideas raised in the main meeting.

It's a very positive movement that looks like it will achieve what we hope it to. There are lots of parties both in schools and out that will support it and hopefully it gain momentum and change the way reading and reading for pleasure is perceived in education and schools.

Anthony Browne

It was a great priveledge to be at the announcement today for the new Children's Laureate. Michael Rosen has done such a great job over the last two years that for anyone its going to be a hard task to follow but the laureateship gives the author/illustrator a chance to champion their corner of children's fiction as well as the bigger picture. With Michael poetry played a vital part of his campaign and rightly so. Poetry is such an amazing medium yet something in schools that it so prescibed it becomes tedious, boring and uninspiring - something that Michael Rosen has spent time trying to cure. He has also looked at, like I said the bigger picture. How writing and reading is seen in schools and how 'whole reading cultures' within schools is more the exception than the rule.

The new Children's Laureate - Anthony Browne - will bring his corner of the writing world - picture books - to the forefront. I imagine we will see Anthony showing the world just how amaxing they are and that the links between pictures and words are so close that picture books are for everyone to enjoy and not just those under a certain age. In my opinion the appointment of an author/illustrator is brilliant. In my work I know the importance of picture books and how great they are to share stories (something Jacqueline Wilson championed in her stint). They are also full of so many over types of writing and like poetry in a picture book each word is chosen on its merit to reflect the story and work in cohesion with the pictures on the page.

I can see in the next two years us getting back to the importance of picture books with Anthony Browne spearheading a new revolution. So all hail Anthony Browne - new Children's Laureate 2009-2011!!

Sophie McKenzie

Well done to Sophie McKenzie on winning in her category and also being named the overall winner of the Red House Children's Book Award. Our school really enjoyed the book, in fact they thought all 3 of the older category were worthy winners, and all the staff enjoyed it to!!

RHCBA

WOW what a ceremony and a great result for reading general!!

I was really lucky to not only enjoy a great ceremony but to meet some really great people at this years Red House Children's Book Award Ceremony. The ceremony is always one of the massive highlights of the year and this year was by no means an exception. The whole atmosphere was buzzing from the very moment that the children started to arrive. You could feel their anticipation as they met their favourite authors and gathered numbers of signatures from those whose books they had spent the last year reading and enjoying.

For me it was great to see so many people having fun and enjoying themselves in the name of books and reading. That is what the Award to me is about. It's not just a recognition of all the books that have been read through the year and all the work that the organisers and children have put into it. But its also a recognition of great writers, writing books that we enjoy and ultimately it's about reading. Celebrating a love and enjoyment in its art and giving something back to that act which has given us so much pleasure!!

All in all a great day and very enjoyable with a very worthy set of shortlisted authors and winners. Special congrats go to Sophie McKenzie - Blood Ties is a great book!

Literacy Trust

I met with the Literacy Trust yesterday to talk about how we as organisations can work together. It seems silly that there are so many organisations out there all trying to get reading seen as an important issue and getting as many people reading as possible, that we are not working together to achieve our aims.
The meeting was extremely useful and highlighted ways that in the future we might be able to build more of a partnership.
It is my belief that by working with other organisations the potential impact for the Federation is massive. Not only are we able to reach a wider range of areas but also of children and families. The Literacy Trust is interested in the Literacy of families and especially those families in areas where literacy is a problem. Through the work we do we are already reaching some of these areas but as always we want to do more and get more children reading.
Hopefully in the months to come we will be able to meet with most of the bodies involved in reading and builld the relationships between us, which in the end will benefit readers and potential readers, which is what we are all aiming to do!!

Telegraph Article

On wednesday there was an article in the Telegraph on what it is that makes children read. As a school librarian that is reasonably active, I was quite taken aback by how the article stated that reading does not happen in schools and that it is at home where children are learning to read and being engaged in reading. I can only imagine that this is a side swipe at the curriculum and lack of whole book reading that occurs, something that Michael Rosen commented throughout his Laureateship. But the article did not mention at all the work that goes on in libraries. Sometimes a school library is the only place where a child will have access to books. The article praises parents for the work they do but there is no mention of other organisations such as the Federation, Literacy Trust, Booktrust etc where so much work goes on. Anyway moan over, it is nice to see more about reading in the national press, you just wish that maybe the articles reflected real life better!!

Two Laureates

I was lucky enough to go and see both Michael Rosen and Andrew Motion talk at the British Library yesterday on poetry in childhood and both of their experiences of poetry when they were young. The talk, as is what you expect from two dedicators of changing the curriculum to support more poetry, focussed a lot on what children in schools are receiving now. One of the main points made was how little interaction both Laureates had with poets and authors in their repective youths and that they never had a writer visit their schools. They both agreed that this gave them a massive disadvantage. As they were saying this I couldn't help but think of all the authors our groups manage to get into schools to give students the opportunity to see what a real life writer is like. I can only imagine the impact that this has on the children that get to see these authors and have them enthusing them about the art of writing itself.
I know when I was young we never had a visit from an author either and there was always a sense that people who wrote books were either dead or were these great people who were so inaccessible that if I ever wanted to become a writer then it was something that would be very hard to achieve. Now I'm not saying it is easy to become a writer in terms of published work, many a writer will tell you that they have a whole file of rejection letters, but what I have come to realise is that authors are just like you or me. They are not inaccessible at all in fact quite the opposite. In my school library I try and get as many authors as possible to come and talk to as many students as possible. The comments I get back from the kids is amazing and you can really see the impact it has on their reading and their writing. So far this year our author visits are in double figures and when we run them we have people clambering at the doors to get in. The teachers all want their classes to see the author and its not to get a free lesson its because they know the impact that it has on the students.
The fact that the Federation brings so many authors to so many children is a massive achievement. Everyone that runs a session with children and authors knows the positive impact that it has, not only in the short term but also in the long term. There are so many different ways that author visits can influence people. Nowadays I am still enthused to go away and read an authors book and even to believe that maybe one day I might be a writer. If this is the effect on me then imagine what it is like for all the children to realise that becoming an author is actually an achievable thing and something they can strive towards.

Well i think i my just have recovered from conference!! thank you to everyone for all their lovely comments over the weekend and I hope that people will enjoy following me over the course of the next year. Like I said in my speech at the close of conference every year we go to a magical place to meet old friends and make new ones and to be enthused about the year that lies ahead of us to go and do the best s we can to fulfil our promise of bringing books to as many children as possible. As we sit and listen to the wonderful authors talking and then discuss with friends old and new what we have seen and heard we leave conference with renewed expectations as to what we can achieve in the future. We are all volunteers who do these roles with our hearts first because we know it is the right thing to do, we know the difference we make even if others don't. Conference allows us remember this, as we are surrounded by people just like us, people passionate about reading and books we are recharged, reinvigorated to go and encourage new readers and expand those already reading. Conference really is a magical experience and one that takes a couple of days to digest!!

Well as the conference starts to loom ever closer and with my speech having its final touches made to it I am full of hope for the next year. After the NYR reading has been more in the spot light recently and whether or not you feel the NYR was a success or not, more people are talking about reading. This can only be a good thing, and gives the opportunity and opens doors for other great work to be showcased. I am hoping that we as a Federation will continue to build on the good work we do and that this will develop further readers and reading communities through our national and local work!

Reasons

There are a number of reasons why I wanted to write this blog. There are probably too many to mention but the main ones are to give people a view of what it is going to be like to become the Chair of such an amazing charity, its also to share with you what the experience is like for me. I am shall we say a little nervous on whether I can do an amazing job - I really hope so!! - and as I have no idea of what to expect sharing my journey through the next year will hopefully be a very interesting experience.
I will try throughout the year to post about things that I have been involved in, things in the book world that happen - whatever these might be - and anything else linked to my role that might just interest people.
Anyway that's enough for the moment - please follow and I hope you, along with me will enjoy the ride!!