Events
To entertain us we had slam poet, A F Harrold or Ashley as we were all invited to call him. He treated us to lots of his dramatic poetry, with some consisting of just two lines of verse. He had pupils and adults in stitches weaving in and out of the audience reciting his humorous poems. With a quick break for refreshments - the oat cakes and juice went down a treat - it was back to the business of discussing the all important short listed titles. It was inspiring to witness the pupils’ knowledge of the titles as well as their likes and dislikes. The Chair of the Berkshire Book Award then asked participants to vote on their favourite titles. We don’t wish to give the game away but the top four favourite titles on the day were, The Enemy by Charlie Higson, The Set Up by Sophie McKenzie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kenney and Brigands MC by Robert Muchamore. A big thank you goes to Roz Heinze and the staff of Ryeish Green School for hosting the event and providing refreshments. Do keep reading the books and posting your comments on the website. The voting will take place during 6th – 13th March so don’t forget to hand in your votes to your librarian during that week. We will all be on tenterhooks until Wednesday 17th March when the winner will be announced. Keep Reading!
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WE'RE OFF! NOMINATE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Our venue was the theatre at Bearwood College, Wokingham, colourfully decorated with props inspired by last year’s top three contenders. The scariest being a skeleton in a raincoat to remind us of the winning book Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire by Derek Landy. The event kicked off with informative presentations by pupils from Licensed Victuallers’ School, Ascot and Bearwood College. The students reminded us of last year’s shortlisted titles and provided a useful refresher on how the Berkshire Book Award actually works. The highlight of the afternoon was the two guest speakers, Tanya Landman and Sophie McKenzie, having us in fits of laughter recounting their writing experiences. Tanya described a recent literary event where she created a murder mystery tale which involved the death of a famous children’s author – don’t worry it was only fiction. Sophie on the other hand, explained, in a very humorous way, why she should ‘not be let out’! The authors followed their talks by interviewing each other and closed their session by answering some selected questions from our audience.
The final stage of the proceedings - the countdown to GET READING and we were off on the sixth year of the Berkshire Book Award. |
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The Berkshire Book Award website