Just because the library is closed doesn’t mean reading conversations have to stop.
With many of you having to stay at home for the next few weeks it seemed like the perfect time to launch our new Virtual Book Group!
Follow the link to WHATLibrary now and add your current read, comment, make or find a great reading recommendation.
Today the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Award Shortlists were announced and those of you in the library who took part in our speculative session with the long list a few weeks back might not be too surprised by the brilliant selection.
Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors and I look forward to reading the Carnegie selection over the coming weeks and sharing your reviews on the shadowing site. More details on the books and the award at the link below.
https://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/cilip-carnegie-medal-shortlist-2020/
Still halfway through Science Week and the annual Scholastic Book Fair arrived. Never one to pass up a challenge, the student librarians performed some quantum magic on the library to fit everything in and the fair ran for the planned four days selling some brilliant books to students (sincere thanks!!) and earning us some much needed funds for new library stock.
The incredible Ms Upton won “most students brought to the library” for the third year running and will be getting a set of books for her class in thanks!
To celebrate British Science Week this year, the library decided to go in a slightly sleuthy direction and set Y7 students the challenge of solving a murder!
The keen teen detectives were relentless in their pursuit of the truth and really impressed all week by competing in teams to get the closest to the who, how and why of it all. Great teamwork, communication, lateral thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, literacy and deductive skills were demonstrated with a little bit of forensics thrown in – perfect skills for the enquiry scientific mind.
The hardest challenge was working out who was the winning team!
For the second year running, the student librarians excelled themselves by putting together a Big Book Quiz for visiting teams of year 6 students from seven of our feeder schools. The highly competitive pupils battled it out for the Trophy and it was neck and neck till the end!
I love how this day allows our students to come together with future Wyreaders and really celebrate reading!
Last year you may recall that this Librarian helped out the winning y7 Enterprise Competition team by making a student-sized lightbulb costume to brighten up their presentation at the national final.
Well this year, our incredible Careers Lead, Mrs Sharpe decided to invite me along to the in-house heat to check out the winner Wymondham High will be sending to London this time. What a brilliant collection of creative ideas the year 7’s had! Amazing ideas for reusing rubbish to create something new. Congratulations were due to them all (and the Enterprise team who inspired and led the day).
Now if only I knew how to make a glitter-ball-music-playing-recycling-machine…
It’s always a privilege to help welcome an author to the school and today we were able to host bestselling crime author, William Shaw.
In Wymondham thanks to a collaboration with local community bookshop Kett’s Books, William spoke to classes of year 8 and year 12/13 English students with a rare level of candour and insight that everyone attending very much enjoyed.
He went on to speak to the wider community at a talk this evening. What a fantastic local opportunity – not to mention a great new set of books for the library!
It feels like such a long time since the last Carnegie Shadowing Group met! With a selection that is always guaranteed to be controversial, this award is a firm favourite on the calendar of the regular book group and those who make time just for this each year.
The 2020 longest sees the return of some familiar names, and one or two books that we have seem popping up on a number of lists over the past few months – I think it’s fairly certain Black Flamingo and Lark will make the cut. Here’s hoping for Julian and Marcus Sedgwick (two of our favourite authors) and I for one would like to see Nick Lake back after the previously shortlisted, There Will Be Lies. Also delighted to see Stepsister on the longlist as this was one of the books chosen for this year’s MAT Award – one of my favourite finds of this year so far.
We are all up for trying something new here at the library and having polled our graphic novel loving students we have decided to shadow the Stan Lee Excelsior Award for best graphic novel or manga.
The award falls into age related categories and there are 5 books per group – simply read them, rate them and return your opinion by 24th April – all votes on all books count so if you fancy a book group you can do in your lunch break – this is the one for you!
Pop in and check it out…
Feels like a long time ago when this librarian, and many others, contributed to the first UK National survey into the state of our school libraries. The results have been analysed and although the presentation to parliament has been slightly delayed by recent events, published, and are well worth a read by anyone interested in what’s working and what isn’t in our school libraries – and what the impact can be on students as a result!
Go to: Great School Libraries to find out more and read the full report for yourself.
