The shortlisted books for the Grampian Children’s Book Awards are;
The Ultimate Truth Kevin Brooks
Charlie Merrick’s Misfits Dave Cousins
Say her Name James Dawson
Blood Family Anne Fine
Thirteen Tom Hoyle
The Wall William Sutcliffe
The pupil book review form is available here – 2015 Book Review Template
A large selection of National 5 and Higher revision guides are now available to borrow from the library. 
The school were again delighted to welcome our Patrons of Reading Metaphrog back to deliver a series of hands-on workshops over two days with S2 pupils. Celebrating Book Week Scotland, pupils enjoyed fun sessions creating their own Christmas themed characters.
Northfield Academy are currently in the second year of a three year Patron of Reading partnership with graphic novel writer/illustrators John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs of metaphrog. This partnership will allow the school to work with metaphrog to raise the profile of graphic novels and reading for pleasure with pupils, parents and staff in a scheme which “adopts” authors/illustrators.
As a result of a successful funding bid to the Scottish Book Trust we will again welcome metaphrog back in Feb / March 2015 to work with the current S1 on an ambitious cross curricular Great Scottish Scientists project. The visits will be part of a wider cross curricular school initiative to research, plan and draw a short graphic novel about a famous Scottish Scientist. Three comics will then be photographed frame by frame and music composed to create several short films.
We are very privileged to be paired up with metaphrog. Their visits have inspired and encouraged youngsters through the medium of graphic novels. The partnership on both sides is evolving into something truly great.
You can follow what metaphrog are up from their blog – http://metaphrog.blogspot.co.uk/
The well-known author and film maker Matt Dickinson was in school on Monday 27 October giving an inspirational talk to S1 – S3 pupils about his ascent of Everest and how pupils should themselves aspire to be the best they can be.
Dickinson is famous for climbing Mount Everest’s notorious North Face in 1996 with Alan Hinkes, beating hurricane force winds and temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius. The film producer was on Everest to film Brian Blessed as he made a third attempt of the summit. Ironically, Dickinson set out not to climb the world’s highest peak, but just to film it. His task was to record as much of the expedition as he physically could before handing over equipment to a professional climber who was to film on to the summit. Matt Dickinson’s drive and determination however meant that he went on to become the first British film-maker to film on the summit of Everest and return alive.
His film Summit Fever has been seen by more than twenty million people worldwide. He also wrote the book ‘The Death Zone’ about the same expedition. Recently Matt has started writing fiction for teenage readers. His latest novel “The Everest Files” is an adventure story set on Everest.
The inspiring talk was well received by staff and pupils. He spoke openly about the Everest expedition showing breath-taking pictures taken on the ascent. Pupils were most amused to hear that he ate 300 toffee crisp bars on the Everest trek to keep up vital sugars levels! He also joked about the Everest weight loss plan losing a kilo a week on the mountain.
The talk also touched on the human tragedy of Everest and of the bodies of climbers who died trying to achieve their dream.
Female explorers were also a focus of his talk. He was keen too to emphasise that it was not just “men in beards” that climbed mountains. The talk ended with a short film capturing Alan Hinkes as he reached the summit of Everest.
His film Summit Fever has been seen by more than twenty million people worldwide. He also wrote the book ‘The Death Zone’ about the same expedition. Recently Matt has started writing fiction for teenage readers. His latest novel “The Everest Files” is an adventure story set on Everest.
S2 classes will all be working on the Great Scots Challenge
this term. As a useful starting point you might want to look
at the following weblinks –
January saw the first of seven visits by John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs of Graphic Novel writing / illustrating team Metaphrog. Our three year Patron of Reading partnership got off to a great start with all S1 pupils being introduced to the art of Graphic Novel planning and design.
The informative and practical workshop took pupils on a journey of discovery through different types of graphic novels before allowing them to create strong descriptive characters of their own. These workshops were very well received by pupils.
Returning in February Metaphrog worked with Heathryburn and West Park Primaries up at the Academy on a similar workshop theme.
Thirty S1 pupils then got the opportunity to work further on their previous character creation designing their own comic script with guidance from John and Sandra. Since the sessions, pupils have had the opportunity to finish their comics which will be displayed in school and on the Library blog next term.
We were pleased to receive a kind gift from Metaphrog of a class set of “Louis : Red Letter Day” and accompanying teacher lesson ideas. In between visits John and Sandra will be keeping in touch to recommend graphic novels to pupils.
The partnership with Metaphrog is a three year one so we will be looking forward to planning further visits and activities with them in the near future.
Thursday 6th March was World Book Day. To celebrate, the library ran a Shelfie competition.
Twenty three staff took pictures of their bookshelves – both from home and work. Pupils had to guess who owned the bookshelf. Using a bit of detective work, pupils could ask staff more about the types of books they enjoyed reading and from this try to work out the answers!
The Shelfie competition was well received by pupils in registration time and around school . Over 150 entries were returned with a group from Macbeth2 registration group most successful in guessing 19/23 answers. Well done to them.
Working with the Library, the English department handed out World Book Day books and tokens to English classes. The books in particular were very popular. It is hoped we can pre exchange tokens for books again next year.
Mrs Wilson’s Reading Café and Miss Duncan’s S2 English class are busy reading shortlisted books for 2014 Grampian Children’s Book Awards.
It is not too late for other pupils to get involved. Books are available now in the library. Why not watch the book trailers of the books to help you decide which one to read first?
http://www.northfieldacademy.co.uk/index.php/lib/557-grampian-children-s-book-awards-2014
There are lots of exciting things going on at Northfield Academy Library so now is as good a time as any to get blogging.
