Reading Matters
Reading is a joy and our Junior Book Club make sure they keep up to date with all the latest happenings in the literary world. Voting for your favourite books in the Lollies Book Awards is all part of this and when an invitation arrives to an Awards ceremony – well, you just can’t say no!
Kate Story and Lara Ward, Upper I, report on their recent exciting visit to the Lollies Book Awards: ‘On 18th January 2018, Upper I, Lower I and two Lower II girls from the Book Club went on a trip to the Lollies Book Awards. The Junior Book Club won this amazing event in September to December 2017 having read and voted for the shortlisted books.
On the coach and the mini bus, everyone was bursting with excitement to see all the inspiring authors and illustrators. However, when we arrived at the hall, we couldn’t keep our excitement in for any longer and the room was buzzing with anticipation!
It was phenomenal and inspiring to see all the authors achieve their awards. We were delighted to see that two of the books that we voted for had won their categories, ‘Oi Dog, by Kes and Claire Gray and Jim Field, and, ‘Future Ratboy and the Invasion of the Nom Noms’ by Jim Smith, As a conclusion it was an amazing show and an inspiring experience. This will be a book award that we follow closely in the future and will definitely vote for again.
Aliyah Khan and Sofia Lupin, Lower I, continue, ‘When we sat on the coach we sat with our friends. We played games and sang songs and watched the sun beginning to go down. When we arrived at the awards we crossed the road and the people who helped us were so kind. As we came in we saw balloons that said Lollies in big letters and big pictures of the books we had voted for. When the show began there were three comfy chairs that the judges sat in and talked about the books. There were lots of famous authors there as well. Michael Rosen, one of judges, told us a poem of how he ate a chocolate cake in the night. He made very funny sounds and made us laugh.’
Mrs van der Merwe, Form Teacher, Lower I sums up the experience, ‘This trip was an unexpected delight. Over the last term the Junior book club had been shadowing the Lollies Book Award. This is an award for the funniest children’s books in the country run by Scholastic. We shared out the copies of the book and when all of us had read them we gathered around the computer to cast our votes for the books we had liked best and waited to hear the results in January.
In early January, to our great surprise, came an email saying that when we had voted we had been entered into a draw and had won an all-expenses paid trip to watch the Awards held in the Beautiful Art Deco Venue, the Troxy, in East London.
After a quick but meticulous flurry of paperwork we found ourselves bowling across London and arriving in the East End.
The girls were delighted to find Goodie bags on their chairs and even more thrilled when they found out that they contained the last bestseller from Liz Pichon the author of the Tom Gates series along with a fruit smoothie and a selection of bookmarks.
In between the awards being given out we treated to a very funny show by the Horrible Histories Theatre Company, A dramatisation of, ‘Gangsta Granny’, Alesha Dixon reading from her new book and Charlie Higson and Liz Pichon drawing a monster based on the suggestions of the children in the audience.
We were very pleased that two of the books we had chosen had won but agreed that all books on the shortlist had been great books. Overall, this was a very entertaining and inspiring occasion and helped to deepen the girls great love of reading.’
Categories: Junior Whole School