Lari Don launches Readathon

Hello!

Another exciting day in the lives of Flora's Bookworms.  Our wonderful parents continue to organise fund-raising events to help improve school facilities. 

We love a Readathon and we love Lari Don, who visited us at Assembly on Friday morning to launch this latest fund-raiser.  Lari was, as ever, totally engaging and gave us a sneak preview of her latest book.  Can't wait for that one to be published!

So many children dressed as a favourite book character for the launch of Readathon and Lari was most impressed when Harry Potter (aka Joel Gutteirez) played beautifully on his violin.  Take a look at our lovely costumes.

Over the Easter holiday, our library is to be refurbished - fresh paint, carpet, new bookshelves, seating and, most importantly, new books.  We are very grateful to everyone who visited our Book Fair this week.  Every book you purchase earns us commission and allows us to add to our stock and replace much loved books which have seen better days.

Book Club continues to thrive and new members have joined us this week.  We have some really great books for P7 so spread the word and come along to our lovely new library next term.

We hope you will all take part in Readathon - there are prizes to be won.  If you're not sure what to read over the holiday, why not come along to Book Club on Tuesday or Thursday and we will recommend something captivating, engrossing, exciting, magical.

Curl yourself up with a good book.
Happy reading from your Book Club friends.

World Book Day

Hello!  What an exciting day we had yesterday for World Book Day.

We started our day with a sharing Assembly.  Each class voted for a favourite book, made a poster then representatives came to the front of the school and told us why their class liked the book so much.  Here are some of the lovely posters they made:-

 

 

In the afternoon, we held a Book Sale to raise money for our charity, Book Aid International.  At the last count we made a whopping £360!  Thank you so much for your generosity.  Here are the children enjoying themselves with their new books:-

 



 

Several pupils have asked to join Book Club following the enthusiasm of our World Book Day Assembly, so we look forward to welcoming them next week.

Happy reading from Flora's Bookworms.

And the winner is...

Yesssss!!  Our favourite won.  'The Nowhere Emporium' by Ross Mackenzie won the age 8 to 12 category.  Here we are with Ross, and Sophie who wrote a prize-winning review of his book.

In the Bookbug category, Simon Puttock won with Mouse's First Night at Moonlight School.

Have you seen the BBC tweet with Joe's review of Gangsta Granny by David Walliams?  We even had a 'like' from David himself!  So, great work, Joe.

Amy, Lydia and Fraser were most professional with their interview questions and were lucky enough to meet and interview Emily Mackenzie who wrote our favourite, 'Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit, Book Burglar'.  Here they are with Emily at the Grand Central Hotel.

Well, great excitement yesterday at the Book Awards, but more to come today for World Book Day.  We're starting off with a special assembly where each class will share the book they have voted as their class favourite.  In the afternoon, we are holding a book sale.  All books will be priced £1 and the proceeds will go to the charity, Book Aid International.  A great big thank you to everyone who has already donated books to this event.

Now, in a previous post, we promised to share with you some of our fantastic book reviews, so here is Iona's review of 'The Nowhere Emporium'.  Happy reading.

The Nowhere Emporium

Reviewed by Iona Muir P7A

Ever wanted to read a book that transports you into another world? Well, this is the one for you!

Attempting to escape his unhappy life in the orphanage, and being chased by bullies, Daniel Holmes discovers a magical and mysterious shop - The Nowhere Emporium.  This is where the adventure begins.

When I started this book I immediately wanted to keep reading as the suspense was amazing.  Throughout the book I was able to put myself in the character’s shoes.  It is a magical story, your emotions running high all the time, there is always adventure in The Nowhere Emporium.

For some people, the transferring between two different plot lines may be confusing, although it does eventually make sense, I really enjoyed that whilst reading.  The magic in the shop made it like a jigsaw as eventually all the pieces of the book fitted together to create this wonderful story.

It is currently on the Blue Peter Awards shortlist.  This book is very well thought out, even the names have logic to them.

Finally, I would rate this book 5/5 as it’s a magical read and takes you on a journey, your imagination always on the go.

Well done, Iona.  What a great review.  So many children want to read this book now!

Scottish Children's Book Awards

Today's the day!  We're all ready to go.  Train from Waverley Station to Glasgow Central then to the Grand Central Hotel for the ceremony.

We're keeping our fingers crossed for Ross Mackenzie and Emily MacKenzie.  We'll let you know who wins.

Last week the BBC came to the school to deliver a workshop on interview techniques and we all had fun interviewing each other.  We learned a lot about how to structure questions and how important body language can be.

Fraser P7C; Amy P6A and Lydia P5B have been selected to interview the winning author in the Bookbug category.  They have been working hard at preparing their questions and practising their interviews with their friends.  What an exciting opportunity for these pupils!  And they don't yet know who they will interview.  Will it be Emily?  Simon?  Pamela?

Check in tomorrow and we'll give you the winners.

We'll also let you know what we're doing for World Book Day!

Happy reading
Your hard-working, interviewing, gallavanting Book Club.

Scottish Children's Book Awards - Voting

Hello again

Well, we've read all the books, shared the Bookbugs with P1 and P2 and all voted for our favourites.

In the Bookbug category, our favourite was 'Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit, Book Burglar with 'Mouse's First Night at Moonlight School' a close second and third place going to 'Never Tickle a Tiger'.

Well done P1 and P2 and thank you to the wonderful readers in P7 and P5 who read to all the younger children.

The Young Readers category was much more difficult to judge.  P7 definitely admired Ross Mackenzie's novel, 'The Nowhere Emporium' whereas P5 and P6 enjoyed the other two.  The overall favourite was 'The Fastest Boy in the World' by Elizabeth Laird, second was 'Ravenstorm Island' and 'Nowhere Emporium' came third.

But which one will win the big prize?  The award ceremony takes place on Wednesday, 2nd March at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow and 16 lucky pupils will have the opportunity to attend.  In addition, our school has been invited to be part of the BBC filming team who will interview the shortlisted authors.  The BBC is running a workshop in school training the pupils in interview techniques and also teaching them how to make films of their own.  More lucky pupils will be able to attend this exciting event so watch out for the letters tomorrow!

Both our book clubs are well attended and we do our best to replenish our stock.  An exciting one for P7 is the Costa prize winner, 'The Lie Tree' by Frances Hardinge.  Sophie is currently reading it so we'll let you know what she thinks of it in our next post.

In the meantime, here is Sophie's review of the P7 favourite - The Nowhere Emporium.

The Nowhere Emporium

Book Review by Sophie Sinclair

I usually find it hard to describe books in one word. They are a whole other world, contained inside your imagination. So, it’s not exactly a piece of cake summing them up in a few syllables. But as I read this book, I knew exactly how to describe it. This book is utterly magical.

Pursued by bullies, 11 year old orphan Daniel Holmes races through the streets of Glasgow. By chance, he stumbles into a cryptic antique shop. Daniel wouldn’t know it yet, but the hardship and anguish of his life was about to change forever.

This book was a whirlwind of magic, mysteries and surprise. There was never a dull moment and I could have read this cover to cover in one sitting. (In fact, I almost did!) For some readers the interchanging plot lines may be a little confusing but I enjoyed it as it built up the bigger picture little by little. Ross Mackenzie describes everything beautifully, and I love how everything has meaning and logic, even the names. 

I would recommend this book to any reader who wants a dose of magic and adventure in their life.

Bet you can't wait to get started on that one!  I'll let you into a secret - it's my favourite too!  Well done Ross Mackenzie.

Until next time

Your friendly Book Clubbers.

Book Group Discussion

Hello Everyone

We're really getting into the books for this year's Scottish Children's Book Awards.

On Tuesday, P7 discussed their first book - The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie.  Definitely the thumbs up for this one!  We thought Daniel was a well-drawn character we could identify with and Lucien Silver and his daughter Ellie were also very convincing.  We guessed straight away that Vindictus Sharpe was up to no good, just from his name - a real vindictive character.

The novel moved along at a fast pace and was easy to read.  We liked how the story was interspersed with events from Lucien's past life which helped us understand the role of Vindictus.  Setting the novel in Glasgow and Edinburgh was also great for us as we could easily picture the places visited by the characters and it somehow made everything more real for us.

Ross Mackenzie used really descriptive language and he made it seem to us that if we use our imagination then the world holds endless possibilities.

So, well done Ross and thanks for a great read.  It was magic!

Thank you, Mr Marshall for joining us for our Book Group discussion - hope you found it interesting and you come back again.

Look out for our next post when we will be discussing Mysteries of Ravenstorm Island: The Lost Children.

This book is magic!

Book Club

Hello Everyone.  It's been quite a while since our last post so apologies for not keeping up-to-date.

We are pleased to announce that we have two Book Clubs up and running this year:-

P7 meet on Tuesday at 1pm in the Library

P5 and P6 meet on Thursday at 1pm in the Library.

Our remit is to read all three of the books shortlisted for the Scottish Children's Book Awards:-

1)  The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie

2)  The Fastest Boy in the World by Elizabeth Laird

3)  The Mysteries of Ravenstorm Island: The Lost Children by Gillian Philip

The first of our Book Group discussions will be this Tuesday, 10th November 2015 when P7 will be debating the merits of The Nowhere Emporium.  We're looking forward to an interesting and informative exchange of views.

We'll let you know how it goes and we might even get round to posting some of our reviews of this book.

The fund-raising for the refurbishment of our library has been fantastic and we would like to say a special thanks to everyone involved.  We would also like to thank you for your continued support at our Scholastic Book Fair - this year we received £1000 in commission which will go towards lovely new books for the library.

Book Week Scotland is fast approaching and P7 will be having fun reading the Bookbug books with their P1 buddies.  We are also hoping P5 will read with their friends in P2.  There are many events taking place in libraries throughout the city so why not browse the website and find something interesting for the family to visit together.  You can find more details at the website for Scottish Book Trust:-

http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-scotland

We hope you continue to read for pleasure.  Please let us know your favourites and if you need a recommendation, then just drop us a line.

Happy reading
Your friendly Book Club readers.


Here are some pictures of P7 engrossed in their reading.