November has been our busiest month so far this year! With Book Week Scotland festivities, author visits, and general school library mayhem on the go, it was fun times all around.
Author visits:
Ash Dickinson is an award-winning slam poet who joining us for a lunchtime visit where he discusssed his inspirations, his work as well as some fun exercises for pupils to explore their inner poet.
Neil Slorance is a Glasgow-based author/illustrator, best known for his work on Dragon Fun, Doctor Who comics, and for his pet tortoise Herman who went viral in 2015. Neil chatted with our entire S1 year group about what it’s like being a comic book artist and even taught us some drawing tips.
Maisie Chan is an award-winning Glasgow based author whose book Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths won her the Branford Boase award, the YA Prize, and the Jhalak Prize. Our Schools of Literature group have been reading Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu so Maisie popped along to chat about the novel and the rest of her works to some of our S2 Schools of classes.
Book Week Scotland: Fantastic turn out for our range of Book Week Scotland activities this year. We worked with Coffee Culture to host a Biblio Bistro in the Library where pupils and staff could grab a hot drink and peruse a selection of book stalls that displayed books tying into this year’s BWS themes. On Wednesday, our S4/6 quiz masters created and hosted a quiz. Our Book Swap was an outstanding success! We had 8 tables brimming with books and were left with a remaining two boxes of books saved for next year’s swap.
Mitchel Visit: We enjoyed a lovely visit to the Mitchell Library with our Advanced Higher Physical Education classes where the knowledgeable staff delivered tutorials of their eResources such as ProQuest and took us on a tour of the iconic building.
Schools of Literature: We created a our own mini biographical zines of famous/influential people in our lives using the books from our Equality and Empowerment and History sections to tie in with this year’s Nonfiction November. We also enjoyed an afternoon of children’s book storytelling, reading from our favourite children’s books using props from the wonderful School Library Outreach service located in the Mitchell Library
Book Group: Now that we’ve finished Edward Ross’ excellent Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming, we’ve now moved on to the bestselling I Am Malala by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai. We’re not even through the prologue and it’s already prompted lots of thought provoking discussion.
Trending: November Booklists
Best New Children’s Books – Topptsa
Bookbug’s Book of the Month – Scottish Book Trust
Books of the Month – Love Reading For Kids
Books of the Month – Scholastic
Books of the Month – Waterstones
Children’s Books Roundup – Guardian
Literary and Cultural Events – December
3rd-5th Winter Tales Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Book Buzz
