Writing Club, Day 1

Now that was exciting! Earlier this week we had our first ever meeting of the new Writing Club. A dozen budding writers from 1st and 2nd class gathered for an hour of writing fun and games that even involved drawing, racing, stolen horses, drowning cats, sad rabbits and much more!

We used our own lives for inspiration as well as some intriguing pictures from some great books.

Some things we talked about:

• there is no right or wrong when you write your own story: you decide what is working for you, as long as it makes sense!
• don't kill your hero in the first page: otherwise it's going to be a very short story! (Unless you're writing a ghost or a zombie story, of course :) )
• the more questions you ask, the more answers you make up, the more your story grows;








• one picture can spark many different stories;
• farts. Yes, we talked about having farts in your stories. Is it ok or not? We decided that we were allowed one per story. So be sure to make it a good one!

With all of this in mind, we were ready for our next adventure...

TO BE CONTINUED!...

Disaster David has landed!

He's here! In the flesh and paper and ink, my last title of 2016, Disaster David has made its way to Dublin from distant Armenia where Zangak Publishing did a fine job with my words and Julie Grugeaux/de Terssac's stunning illustrations.
This is a story very freely inspired by a traditional Armenian tale about David, a young disaster-prone giant.
It involves sheep, leopards and chamber pots, among other things, and is a light-hearted musing on how one's failings can be turned to an advantage.
The book is published in both English and Armenian (two separate editions) and can be purchased in all good bookshops in Armenia as well as online here or there. There will be more widespread distribution eventually, so watch this space for updates!

Happy new year!

Have a great 2017, everyone!
Have you any new year's resolutions? Any big plans? Anything new you want to try?
Give it your best shot and, most importantly, have fun!

And the winners are...

Well done to all the entrants to our Christmas competition! We received 172 entries from all years, which is brilliant at such a busy time.
As promised, here are the answers to the questions of each quiz:
6th/5th class:
1. Alice in Wonderland (in Hebrew); 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (in French); 3. The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings (both answers accepted, in Japanese); 4. Pippi Longstocking (around the world!); 5. Harry Potter (and the Philosopher's Stone, in Armenian)

3rd/4th class:
1. Harry Potter; 2. The BFG; 3. The Cat in the Hat; 4. The Wizard of Oz; 5. The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings (both answers accepted)

1st/2nd class:
1. Wally; 2. Winnie the Pooh; 3. Winnie the Witch; 4. they're all elephants; 5. The Demon Dentist (it is the only book in the list NOT written by Roald Dahl)

Junior/Senior Infants:
1-D the boy in the rocket is looking for a star (from How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers)
2-B George the dog is looking for Harris (in Oh, No, George! by Chris Haughton)
3-E the Gruffalo is thinking about a mouse (in The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler)
4-C the family is going on a bear hunt (We're Goin on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury)
5-A the very hungry caterpillar has eaten all the fruit (The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle)

And now, without further ado, the winners!
Junior Infants: Heidi
Senior Infants: Tatyana
First Class: Sari
Second Class: Ryan K.
Third Class: Stephanie

Fourth Class: Ryan M.
Fifth Class: Kiera S.
Sixth Class: Sophie N.

Well done all and thanks to the teachers and parent-librarians for helping out!

Competition time!

To put us all in a festive mood, I have been running a bookish competition through the parent-run library. All classes have had their chance to enter as there were 4 different sets of questions for different age groups.
The Junior and Senior Infants were asked to match the pairs from famous picturebooks. First and Second Class had to answer a quiz, while Third and Fourth were to guess the book from the Lego creation and Fifth and Sixth had to work out the titles of well-known books... in foreign editions.
All the right answers will be gathered in a Santa hat (it's the season after all) and one lucky winner per year will be picked and given a brand new book, chosen based on their personal favourite reads.
If you're a pupil from SMGS and haven't entered yet, do it before Thursday 8 December!
You can find all the quizzes below and have fun working your way through them.

Answers and winners will be announced next week!

Give them books for Christmas!

It’s December, so we are officially allowed to use the C word and start on our shopping. Books are of course a great gift for children who love reading, as well as for those who haven’t yet fallen in love with it. Here’s your Patron of Reading’s own selection of brilliant titles published this year, for all ages.

Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments below!

My Dreams by Xavier Deneux

This is one for babies and toddlers, with big chunky pages, stark black and white illustrations and even some glow in the dark bits! A gentle bed-time read by the author-illustrator of the brilliant My Animals in the same series, for the same age group.

How to Find Gold by Viviane Schwarz

Anna and Crocodile are on a mission to find gold: they have to be really sneaky and really clever about it, in case of competition. This is a glorious read, with bright and funny dialogue that will prompt map-making and treasure-hunting around the house for sure. 3+

Rabbit and Bear series by Julian Gough and Jim Field

Take Rabbit, who has never uttered the word ‘fun’, and Bear, who is kind but a bit dim-witted. Place them in a snowy countryside with some mouldy carrots, the makings of a snowman and a wolf (maybe). This is an extremely funny read, with some gross bits occasionally thrown in, to read aloud or read all by yourself. 6+

Mega Robo Bros by Neill Cameron

Sibling rivalry with robots and super powers, what’s not to like? An awesome, fast-paced and hilarious comic that is the first in a series. Brilliant! 7-10

Hello World by Jonathan Litton and L’Atelier Cartographic

For the fact-lovers out there, here comes this atlas with a different. Take a stroll around the world and learn to great the locals in over 150 languages. With flaps to lift and big, detailed pictures to pore over, this promises hours of quiet reading. 8+

Tamsin and the Deep by Neill Cameron and Kate Brown

Another fabulous comic with plenty of adventure and suspense, and a healthy dose of magic and scares. Tamsin is off surfing when a rogue wave drags her under apparently forever. A month later, she resurfaces, apparently unscathed, but she has brought back from the deep a magic stick and, unfortunately, a very nasty creature… 9-12

Football School by Alex Bellos, Ben Lyttleton and Spike Gerell

A treat for football fans, Football School is a handy guide to explaining absolutely everything through football. Hilarious and full of fascinating trivia. 9+

Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Sputnik may look like a dog, but, really, he is an alien from outer space and his mission is to find 10 good reasons to save Earth from its scheduled annihilation. Prez is the human boy who first opens his door to Sputnik and thus the crazy adventure begins. A big, fat novel that reads super-fast because it is so giggle-inducing and action-packed. 10+

Survivors by David Long and Kerry Hyndman

These true stories of survival from the past century should delight those who love facts and ‘real’ stories. The real-life heroes in these pages have survived being attacked by bears, trapped in canyons, surrounded by sharks and crashing in their plane in the jungle. Heartening, gripping and occasionally graphic: edge-of-your-seat stuff. 11+

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

Prepare to cry, prepare to laugh as you meet ex-best friends Franny and Suzy. Ever since Franny died at the beach, Suzy has stopped talking. Stopped talking, but not thinking. Suzy is a practical, scientific kind of girl and what she thinks is this: there must be more to Franny’s death. Heart-breaking and empowering in equal measure, this is one to cuddle up with. 12+

Nothing Tastes as Good by Claire Hennessy

One for Young-Adult readers, this is the story of Annabel, a snarky, anorexic teen who also happens to be a ghost. Her job is to look after Julia, an over-achieving, bright girl with an obesity issue. The irony isn’t lost on Annabel who has very personal notions of what it might mean to ‘help’ her charge. Spot on, funny and gripping, it doesn’t shy away from strong language and mature topics. Young Adult

For more great book ideas, head over to Inis magazine, where you will find books for all ages in English and Irish. Your local library should also have a copy of this year's Inis Reading Guide, which contains over 250 quick reviews of books for babies to young adults: picturebooks, early readers, chapter books, big, fat novels, fact books and poetry.

Happy browsing!

Babies on Board

As part of my tenure as Patron of Reading in SMGS National School in Inchicore, I have run a couple of sessions of Baby Bookclubs and it's been a hoot, or, more specifically, a roar.
Together with their dedicated grown-ups we have read about kings, queens and castles, about babies and about dinosaurs fierce, meek and fast.
Part of the session is spent reading together: we follow the text on the page as much as we wander from it to make connections with the toys we have in the room, to compare with our own skills (can you be very, very slow like the triceratops?), to manhandle the book or just pore over the images (and maybe do a bit of counting and name some colours, or, even better, find ourselves in the pictures).
The babies are in reality toddlers, with ages ranging mostly between 18 months and 2 and a bit, with the exception of a young lady for whom we are still counting in weeks (17 weeks old for session 1) and who is all eyes and ears: her fellow bookclubbers hold as much interest to her than the books and props. Last week, she was plied with a cloth book and spent half of the session engrossed in it. The other half she spent manipulating dinos like everyone else.
We shout, we run, we sing, we dance. Baby Bookclub is not a quiet affair. But we are engaged, we turn the pages ourselves when we are ready, we comment on everything, we learn (a tiny bit) of sharing and taking turns and we do some absorbing art at the end.

Even in those few sessions, I have seen some very rewarding sights, from the toddler who didn't really want to be there at 9 and didn't want to leave at 9.45, to the 2-year-old who had never quite taken to playgroup but was leading the way in Baby Bookclub.
It is also a chance to answer any questions the grown-ups may have, share reading tips with them and throw in the odd book recommendation. Book doctoring without the white coat!
I'm hoping to do more of these sessions in the new year and can't wait to see how our club members get on with it. For more, head over to my Patron of Reading blog, where you can see the very artistic craft we produced and some extra resources (dinosaur songs, anyone?).