Scottish Children's Book Awards

Hello everyone

Voting for the award has now closed.  We had great fun reading the books and sharing the Bookbugs with P2.  The books with the most votes were as follows:-

Age 8 to 11:  The Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens by Alex McColl

Bookbug (Age 5 to 7)  Robot Rumpus by Sean Taylor and Ross Collins

Good luck to all the authors and we look forward to hearing who wins on Wednesday, 4th March.

Many pupils wrote reviews of the books and entered the review competition.  You can read their reviews by following this link:-

http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/scba/review-competition-2015

Orla, in P7, particularly enjoyed Pyrates Boy by E B Colin so we thought we would share her review with you:- 

"Suspenseful, gripping, tense.

“Pyrates Boy” is a about a young boy who believes he can make a better life for his sister who is working hard in Glasgow to survive. He ventures across the world to Jamaica looking for a job to earn money to help is sister but he is yet to find out that working in his masters garden is not all that it seems. He works laboriously in the blazing tropical sun for very insufficient pay. After one year of backbreaking work, a Scottish lady takes him across the ocean to his home land, Glasgow.

During the voyage a colossal wave strikes the ship capsizing it and killing all on board but the boy, named Silas Orr. Fortunately he is picked up by the unusual pirates led by the infamous captain Black Johnnie. He gives Silas a chance to become a cabin boy and vow that he will stick by the pirate oath. 

After many years of being a loyal pirate, it takes him by surprise when a mysterious led box is spotted secured on the ankle of a human buoy. He is soon to know that this is where the real adventure begins."

Our school Book Week will begin on Monday, 2nd March.  It will be launched by Lari Don at Assembly on Friday, 27th February, then Lari will deliver workshops to P5 and P6.  There are lots of exciting events planned for Book Week so follow us on Twitter to find the latest updates.

In previous years, our most successful event has been the book swap, so dust off all those lovely books you are finished with and send them in for someone else to read and enjoy - pick up a new one in exchange!

Look out for more reviews in our next blog.

Until then, Happy Reading from the lovely P6 reading group.

Happy New Year

Hello.  Happy New Year.  I hope you received lots of lovely new books for Christmas and added them to your Readathon list.

So what’s new in Book Club for 2015?  Well, we’re busy reading the shortlisted books for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards, writing reviews of these books for the competition and scribing for P1 and P2 so they can also enter their competition.

There’s still lots of new library books we haven’t read yet and have you noticed that we have a wonderful new comic in the Library?  It’s called ‘The Phoenix’.  Try it – we love it.

P7b have just finished reading “Out of the Depths” by the lovely Cathy Macphail.  Cathy visited our school a couple of years ago and thrilled us all with her stories and engaging personality.  She’s in the running for an award this year so let’s hope 2015 is Cathy’s winning year!  Having been reminded what a great book this is, P6a have started reading “Out of the Depths” and we’re giving the sequel, “Secret of the Shadows” to P7b.

Here’s a review of “Out of the Depths” to tempt you to read it for yourself.

Mysterious, gripping, and entrancing, Out of the Depths is an unmissable book.  From the first page right to the last, Cathy MacPhail holds you in her grasp. This fast paced novel is filled with ghostly happenings: moving statues, and a hidden body…

Out of the Depths is set in the gothic looking St Anthony’s school in which many enigmas lurk. The main character, Tyler Lawless, has a gift to see the unlawfully dead, doing the things they would have done while still alive, but no one believes her. Not her teachers, classmates or even her kind and supportive parents. Her classmates just call her a liar and tease her. So it’s not surprising that her old school has had enough and is sending her away.  

Tyler has decided to start again and be good. She hopes the new school will have nothing to do with ghosts or dead bodies, but her hopes were in vain.  On the first day she hears of a dead, murdered boy known as Ben Kincaid, killed in this very school. Out of the Depths will completely thrill and chill you. After every chapter you will be held in deep suspense, dying to know what will happen next.

To be fully understood and enjoyed, I would recommend this book to children aged 10 years or older. This action packed, setting driven book is guaranteed to keep you awake at night!

Pheww!  That was a great review.  How can anyone not read this book?

We’ll finish our blog with this thought – Do adults enjoy reading children’s books?  Well Miss Broadley does – she has just finished reading “The Last Wild” by Piers Torday and can’t wait for Mano to finish the sequel, “The Dark Wild”.  So get reading, Mano!

Happy reading everyone.

Ayo Recommends

In P6A, my reading group has been enjoying, The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh.  We all wrote reviews of this book as one of our tasks.  I really loved this book and hope when you read my review, you will rush to your library for a copy and read it too!

The Crowfield Curse – A review

Set in 1347, the story follows monks’ apprentice, William, as he finds himself caught up in a battle between light and dark forces that seem to surround the abbey where he lives.  After discovering a creature called a hob tangled in a trap, Will’s eyes are opened to the magical creatures around him.  There are many ‘fay’ creatures, old pagan gods, ghosts and healers and a secret buried deep in the woods.

William is a peculiar character.  He is kind, fair and tender-hearted, able to move past conventional beliefs in order to see the bigger picture.  Although frightened a great deal of the time, he continually strives to do what he believes is best for others.  Which, in my opinion, all adds up to a tenacious hero.

The mystery that Will is drawn into is genuinely intriguing.  It’s so hard to tell how the story is going to turn out.  Even when you are 100% positive you think you know what’s going to happen it goes all twisted and the author (Pat Walsh) adds a new development.  I would love to see The Crowfield Curse as a movie so I could see how the characters are brought to life.

Another really great thing is that the author doesn’t skimp on historical detail.  Even if it is a book mostly targeted for children aged 9-13, this is a very detailed look at medieval life and it really shows how difficult life was then.  I was also interested to see how matter of fact the hardships were.  It’s difficult to imagine anyone today being so philosophical about hard work, hunger or cold.  You can always come up with theories for this book.

As mentioned in the paragraph before, I recommend this book to children aged 9-13 years, especially those interested in that time period or in magical creatures.  This does not have the charm of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, but it’s a wonderful book nonetheless.

Overall, The Crowfield Curse is a fantastic, spellbinding novel.  The greatest piece of literature I’ve ever read and I can’t wait to read the sequel, The Crowfield Demon.

Review by Ayoyinka P6A

Thanks for reading my work.

Book Week Scotland

Hello again!

Today we have been reading our favourite Bookbug books to pupils in Mrs Rusbridge's class P2/3.

We had a great time and they were very good listeners. After reading, we all drew a picture from our favourite book and then we cast our vote for the Scottish Children's Book Awards. We're not going to tell you which book got most votes as there is still one class to vote!

In our last blog we mentioned we had been writing book reviews with Miss Scott's class P2B. We have been busy typing up their reviews so here are a few samples of the fantastic work they produced.

Scarlett wrote about Robot Rumpus by Sean Taylor and Ross Collins:-

"I liked Robot Rumpus because it was funny, colourful and the dog was scared of the robots.  My favourite robot was Cook-Bot.  My funniest robot was Clean-Bot because he washed the dishes and he got a bit crazy with the squirting!

I think this book deserves to be a 10 out of 10.  My most exciting part of the book was when the robots were going all over the place!  The funniest part was when Mum and Dad come home and found the place a mess!

If I was the author I would change the bit at the start to the girl saying “I’m scared Mummy and Daddy.”  I thought Dress-Bot wasn’t that funny because he wasn’t really in the book that much.  If I recommended this book to other people I would say its ages are 6-7 years old. The words I would use to describe this book are funny and exciting."

By Scarlett Lenad P2B

We hope you enjoyed reading Scarlett’s review.  Look out for more reviews in our next blog.

Love from your friendly P6 readers

 

 

 

 

Readathon

Calling all readers!  Readathon has been launched! 

Calling all sponsors!  Support your child, grandchild, niece, nephew by sponsoring them to read throughout the month of December and raise money to modernise our school library.

Our favourite local author and poet, Diana Hendry, spoke to us at assembly on Monday this week and talked about the importance of her local library as she was growing up with a great hunger for books.  She showed us a special book she has had for a very long time and also shared a secret with us – sorry we can’t tell!

Our library is important to us – we have a fantastic and wide-ranging choice of new novels.  The only problem is that the library is not a particularly inspiring place to read.  We want to paint it brightly and fill it with lovely colourful shelving and comfy seats.  So why not help us raise some funds to change this environment and encourage even more readers.

Ps.  We really would love some new books for Christmas!

Shared reading with the P2

In  October, P6A pupils read three books  to the P2 pupils.  After we read to the children, we took a vote. The most popular book was Princess Penelope and the Runaway Kitten.  It was the book most enjoyed  out of the three.

The two other books were Lost for Words and Robot Rumpus. We had to calculate the scores. The P6A pupils still have to read to two other classes:-  P2/3 and P2A. We are looking forward to reading with the other two classes.

Tomorrow, we will be working with pupils from Miss Scott's class to write reviews of these books.

Look out for our next blog, when we will share some of the reviews with you.

By Fraser Dempster and Ciaran Barr P6A/Book Club.

New Books

We bought some new books for the library and I have not read all of them yet, but I have read Winter Bringers and it is amazing.  I would recomend it to anybody.

So why not try it. Visit the library and see what an amazing selection we have got.  

From Ruairidh