The BFG is 30 - lets have a frobscottle

The BFG cropped up at our recent Volunteer Reading Mentors meeting. One of our smashing Reading Mentors has being using Roald Dahl's book in her reading sessions. The super use of language is working really well with her partner who can identify with the spellings and phrases such as  "human beans" and "snozzcumbers".

Then on the Schools Librarian Association Blog I learn the BFG is 30 years old! On the 13 September you can celebrate his birthday. So plenty of time to start planning some fun. Download the pdf leaflet.

Picture This! Illustrating Children’s Books at Gallery Oldham

I have just read about the rather wonderful sounding Picture This! Illustrating Children’s Books show at Gallery Oldham on the equally wonderful blog by Lynne Chapman. 


It sounds great, with illustrations from children’s books family activities. It includes some big names too: Shirley Hughes, Anthony Browne, Jez Alborough and Helen Stephens. 

Lynnes' doing a big family event on Saturday 28 January and the exhibition is on to 11 March, so lots of time to make the trip!

Video Games

When trying to engage a struggling or reluctant reader, computer games can often be a less intimidating approach than a hefty tome or badly photo-copied activity sheet. I've spotted a few interactive online resources that might be of interest:

• Root, an interactive spy story - This project started this week, new chapters of Root will be published every day for six weeks. Any one can get involved and influence the story by solving mysteries, foiling plans and eavesdropping into conversations!
• The Binary - A brilliantly presented online adventure, like an interactive book.
• Book Worm Adventures - A role-playing word game involving building words and battling monsters.
• Build your own Book Mobile - This one is a bit more 'old school', download, cut out and stick together your own beautiful mobile library.
• Word Fighter - This isn't out yet, but looks too cool for words (bad pun). 

I guess the inspiration for this post was the song I am kind of in love with at the moment, Video Games by Lana Del Rey. Song lyrics are another great idea to read with a partner, try googling their favourite song.

Have fun.

Sheffield Children's Book Award and Off the Shelf Festival 2011

Whilst at the Sheffield Children's Library I picked up a couple of leaflets giving details of the Sheffield Children's Book Award and Off the Shelf Festival 2011. Both look as excellent as ever.


Sheffield Children's Book Award


A nice line-up, although, if I am honest I haven't ready many at all. A few big names; Chris Riddell for Ottoline at Sea, David Walliams for Billionaire Boy, Terry Deary for Put Out the Light and Malorie Blackman for Boys Don't Cry. I'd like to mention a few local authors; Kevin Brooks for iBoy, Caryl Hart for Rhino, What Rhino and Alex T Smith for Egg.


But for me it is hard to look at anything except David Almond for My Name is Mina, a beautiful, beautiful tale, which I wrote about this time last year.


Off the Shelf Festival 2011


Like the book award, the festival has a real mix of interesting stuff;

• Gangs of Sheffield with Andy Messer
• Let’s Celebrate! With Debjani Chatterjee and Brian D’Arcy
• Meet the Author G P Taylor
• Nick Arnold’s Horrible Science Show
• Seeing Stars: Launch of the Sheffield Simon Armitage Soundscape
• Write Away with the WEA
• Crystal Set
• Goat Boy and Other Journeys with Fay Musselwhite, Susannah Gent, Linda Lee Welch, The Only Michael
• How to Create an Animated Show with Curtis Jobling
• Game for Poetry
• Graphic Art Workshop with Nick Hayes (he designed the great festival programme cover)

I also notice a nice project A City Reads, mapping the books that have inspired the people off Sheffield. Pick up a programme and get involved.

Wortley Hall Remembered - 7 July 2011

Some of our partner schools and Fay, one of our Reading Mentors, are involved in a Summer Show of drama, history and music at Wortley Hall on 7 July 2011. Sounds like a great evening out. Download a pdf programme.

Dr. Seuss says Read Read Read

A wonderful letter with great advice from Dr. Seuss:

Sent in response to a Librarian in Troy, Michigan in 1971. Found with more letters on Jack Cheng's blog.

Reading Mentor Resources at Firth Park Community Arts College

I was at Firth Park Community Arts College last week, placing a new Reading Mentor. We explored all sorts of new resources including many for particularly reluctant or struggling readers. I wanted to share them with you:

• Dark Man series by Peter Lancett - Minimal text and dark pencil illustrations, in particular the use of repetition helps embed word recognition
• Dark Flight series - 'Horror' tales designed to grab the attention of young teenagers with low reading ages
• Right Now! series by Dee Phillips - Very low word counts fiction books for teenagers lower reading ages
• Zig Zag series - Aimed at younger children but still popular at the secondary school
• Barrington Stoke - Barrington Stoke are our go-to publisher, the series above are aimed at young reading ages than Barrington Stoke's traditional audience, but their Solo and Go! series, plus the new Tribe series, will be suitable.

I also learnt that the rather wonderful author, Malorie Blackman, is name checked in the song Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah. How cool is that!

Photos: Doncaster Book Award and Bradford Reading Mentors Meeting

I was involved in a couple of great events last week, the Doncaster Book Award and Reading Matters termly Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting.

Doncaster Book Award

Gareth P Jones' novel The Thornthwaite Inheritance won the 2011 prize at a fabulous ceremony that I played a very small part in, I awarded the Creative Writing Prizes.

The day kicked off with a brilliant dance routine, with books! Lead by Lesley Hurworth, Chair of the Doncaster Book Award, and Reading Matters' Reading Leaders co-ordinator at the Armthorpe School.
Hosted by Dave Cryer, we were then treated to three brilliant performances by Phil Sheppard, The Two Steves and Tommy Donbavand:

Tommy's session, involved two lucky/unlucky candidates being turned into mummies like Cleo from the Scream Street Books:
It was a superb, packed day. I met all sorts of dedicated people, who all love to read!

Reading Matters Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting

Reading Matters termly Volunteer Reading Mentors in Bradford was a little calmer affair, but still thrilling to catch-up with so many people dedicated to developing reading skills.

Sheffield Poetry Festival

At the great World Book Night, I heard local authors from the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam University read from a their ‘Matter’ anthology and as a result found that, Fay Musselwhite's poem has been chosen by Simon Armitage for a Sheffield Poetry Prize.

Fay is one of our Reading Mentors. She is also involved in the first Sheffield Poetry Festival. She is collaborating with award winning filmmaker and taxidermist Susannah Gent to present a 30 minute performance piece called Goat Boy and Other Journeys, as part of the Sheffield Poetry Festival on Saturday 2nd April, 3pm at Bank Street Arts.

Sounds incredibly intriguing.

World Book Night 2011 at Waterstone's in Orchard Square, Sheffield

That's me at Waterstone's in Orchard Square, Sheffield on World Book Night, 5 March 2011. It really was a great evening. The Waterstones' guys really looked after me. Everyone was super friendly. Well, they were when I had explained that my copies of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon were for Reading Matters Reading Mentors, not just up for grabs!

Loads of familar faces turned up from schools and other settings, aplogies to anyone I didn't speak to very much, it was pretty busy for a while. I did sneak a peek at the other attractions:

• Rachel Genn reading from her forthcoming novel The Cure.
  
• Local band Nat Johnson and the Figureheads (very quiet even for a books hop, but cool)
  
• Local authors from the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam University read from a their ‘Matter’ anthology (as I was checking this out, I saw one of our very own Reading Mentor, Fay Musselwhite's poem has been chosen by Simon Armitage for a Sheffield Poetry Prize, brilliant)
  

World Book Night was all round a great evening, I am looking forward to what the Reading Mentors and their partners make of The Curious Incident. I almost ended up with more books than I started with! I have registered my interest for 2012, and I'm hoping some more books for young people are included, I'd suggest Holes by Louis Sachar, but what do I know!

Crystal Peaks Library | World Book Day | Save Our Libraries

An important community event in aid of World Book Day (3 March 2011) is taking place in Crystal Peaks Library to help promote libraries in a bid to 'Save our libraries'.

A full day of events taking place for adults and children, including readings from famous authors and a visit from The Lord Mayor of Sheffield.

Michelin Starred TV Chef and author Tessa Bramley talks about her books and books that have influenced her life.

Award winning play write and novelist Elizabeth Baines, reads from her books and talks about how libraries played a role in her life.

Local author Martyn Johnson reads from his book "What's tha up to, memoirs of an Attercliffe Bobby" and talks about his involvement in the making of the book Black Diamonds.

Local poet Rob Hindle reads from his books and talks.

Local Community theatre group read from children's books and plays.

Workshop on reading to your children.

I am not going to make it, I'll be at the FOOTSEY Expo, but I hope some Reading Matters representatives will be there.

Watcher by Lee Weatherly - Barrington Stoke Book 41

Watcher is inspired by the by Lee Weatherly's visit to a school to do a writing workshop. I just wanted to take the opportunity to recommend this sort of work. I know a local school here in Sheffield where Bali Rai visited. This was a bit controversial, he is not the most 'politically correct' speaker, but this is exactly his appeal to the children he met.

Meeting authors in this way makes it clear they are just regular people with no super powers. Being a writer or whatever is accessible to anyone with the dedication.

The other benefit of authors visiting schools is new inspiration for books like Watcher.

It is a proper novel with dense chapters that move the story along and builds the tension.

Sarah tells her story, she is bullied and lonely and self-conscious about her weight. This in part due to her mum leaving seven years ago with little explanation. Sarah learns that her mum is living nearby and stalks her for an opportunity for revenge for her departure. This makes her even more moody and temperamental, and affects her relationship with her father and friends. Her behaviour becomes more an more extreme as she seeks to 'break in' to her mum's life.

The book ends quite suddenly after a dramatic resolution. We are left knowing Sarah's future is not going to be easy. But with everything out in the open, it is going to be better.

I know a lot of people will relate to Sarah's tale, feeling let down by her parents affects all aspects of her life, at one point she announces she is "fatter than ever". A modern story for older readers.

Jeremy Strong's Campaign for Fun

Author Jeremy Strong is looking for the funniest school in the UK and Ireland with his Campaign for Fun.

By being a bit silly you could win all sorts of cool stuff! Mr Strong also has some nice downloadable resources to check out. He has also introduced the Campaign for Fun in an article on The Guardian website. He list all sorts of great books to cheer us all up:

• Fungus the Bogeyman
• Lauren Child's Clarice Bean
• Allen Ahlberg
• Julia Donaldson
• Elephant Elements
• Andy Stanton
• The Wrong Pong
• Louise Rennison

For something a bit more involved but no less fun how about The Reading Zone's picture book competition.

Interplay Leeds Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting

Last Thursday (9 December 2010) we held our latest meeting for Volunteer Reading Mentors and School Co-ordinators. The first thing to say is that it was very cold and very icy, so thanks to all those people that made it along. Leeds was Frozen.
We are very grateful to Steve Byrne and all the staff at Interplay for hosting us and supplying generous amounts of much needed tea, coffee and cake. The refreshments were not the main reason for travelling to Interplay however, we were there to hear about their latest project, which has potential for Reading Matters to work along side them in schools.

Interplay have been delivering a workshop in Special Schools that is based on the short Story Spit Nolan (Creative Short Stories), author of Alfie.

The workshops provide a thrilling and engaging sensory learning experience centred around the construction of old-fashioned go-carts that feature heavily in the story.

We are hoping that as Interplay take the workshops to more schools, Reading Matters will provide Reading Mentors and/or Reading Leaders to sustain and embed the inspiration and enthusiasm generated by this exciting project.

At the same meeting I gave a short presentation about some recent developments at Reading Matters. I'll share these with you in a separate blog post very soon.

2010 Book Awards - Sheffield Children's Book Award and YoungMinds

Today (23/11/10), I was at the Sheffield Children's Book Award at the City Hall where the 2010 winners were announced. I am sure there will be an official announcement with all the winners, but here is a hint - Morris the Mankiest Monster by Giles Andeae and Sarah McIntyre did really well.

It was a superb event the City Hall was full of kids shouting and screaming and stamping their feet for books and reading! I have never done so much clapping in one hour.

I was at the Children's Book award with some of the volunteers I had trained as Volunteers for the Summer Reading Challenge. Both project are organised by the Sheffield Library Service, who deserve a lot of credit.

Another award I have been involved in was also announced this week. The 2010 YoungMinds Book Award was won by Siobhan Curham, author of Dear Dylan.

There is a lovely post on Siobhan Curham's own blog about the award. She writes about how she struggled with a lack of confidence, and that 'I love being able to go into schools and tell the least confident of kids, ‘if I can do it then so can you.’ It is quite emotional and the blog post after she won is even more so.

I think our Reading Matters Mentors can also play a big part in boosting the self-esteem of struggling students, the comments on Siobham's blog show what a difference it can make.

Request - Books with a local connection.

I was in Cromford at the weekend. I notice an advert for Derbyshire Reading Detectives. I checked it out and it's a fantastic project, plotting books with a Derbyshire connection on an online map.

When writing about Meet Me by the Steel Men, I suggested books with a local connection are great for use in reading partnerships.

I have a little list of Sheffield and Rotherham ideas, but I would love to hear some more. I have set-up a Discussion on Reading Matters Facebook Page for people to add their suggestions. Please come and join in!

A few football reading resources

I have been going on about football a lot recently, my last review was a football story. But the World Cup means (almost) everyone is hooked on the sport.

At both the Inspired for Life event in Rotherham and a celebration event at Sheffield Town Hall for Volunteer Reading Mentors last Friday, I talked to people about engaging reluctant readers. We found football was often a great 'hook' . I thought I would list a few of the resources I have found that can work really well:

• Football based stories, such as The Dirty Dozen I reviewed recently
• Football Games such as these England Football Stars Top Trumps Specials or this BrainBox Football Quiz
• Comic style stories such as My Brother's a Keeper or Moving the Goalposts
• A football based play, such as Not Just a Game or Selling Out
• Some non-fiction such as Great World Cup Moments or Wicked World Cup 2010
• Poems; I Love You, Football or Fantastic Football Poems
• Biographies, the Name Your Link are great and include Wayne Rooney and Hope Powell
• Learn some new skills with Soccer Skills (Usborne Activity Cards) or Football Skills
• Football Things to Make and Do or the official 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Activity Book

Competition Time

I have spotted a few competitions to try:

Bounce into Books

We have just missed the week long Bounce into Books festival (in particular I missed Tommy Donbavand at my local library), but there is still time to enter their competition. They are looking for the most peculiar facts about your neighbourhood to be included in a new book Yorkshire: A Very Peculiar History. Sounds like fun, closing date is 28 March 2010.

Harriet Goodwin

Next, do you like the idea of appearing as a character in a book, well author Harriet Goodwin is offering the chance to be in her next book, The Extraordinary Legacy of Elvira Phoenix. A great opportunity, closing date is 31 March 2010

Sheffield Libraries Readers Card

Finally, and this is more for older readers, Sheffield Libraries' new reader’s card scheme lets you get free coffee, but also the opportunity to win prizes. It is a pilot scheme running up until 18 April 2010, which I presume is the closing date.

Fox Friend by Michael Morpurgo - Barrington Stoke Book 4

Michael Morpurgo is Reading Matters patron, so I felt it only fair that I review one of his several Barrington Stoke books next.

Fox Friend is a delightfully written, short book. Morpurgo is a master of his craft, and each sentence is a perfectly judged. As a result the emotions and atmosphere of the story based on a Devon farm are deeply felt, but the text is so easy to read.

There is a nice overview of the Morpurgo supported Farms for City Children charity, which adds another degree of realism to the book overall.

One of the main threats to the Fox Friend is a hunt, which dates the book a little, but the lovely story and dramatic ending more than make up for any such downsides.

The Number 7 Shirt by Alan Gibbons - Barrington Stoke Book 3

The author Alan Gibbons, who writes for Barrington Stoke supported us at our Reading Leaders event in December, he was great speaker and signed a whole stack of books for us. I thought it was only fair I covered one of his books in my ongoing weekly project.

I am not the biggest football fan, but I know roughly who's who. I also know a lot of the children we read with are much bigger followers than me.The Number 7 Shirt is going to be for them, assuming they can, at the very least, tolerate a book about Manchester United!

Encouraged by personal pep talks from five classic wearers of the Manchester United number seven shirt, Jimmy Beech gets himself together and goes all the way with the Manchester United Academy. It's an inspiring story. The messages the legends provide are all based on real situations, and chapters all end with a page of facts about each star. So although Jimmy's journey is pure fantasy, it all feels very grounded and very motivational.

My only worry is that any book like this goes out of date, it is not a big deal but all the kids will spot that, Ronaldo, has now moved on, and is no longer "United's current number seven". Don't let that put you off, it is going to be spot on for many new readers.

Finally, here's Alan's signature, to prove I'm not making it up: