Author Archives: Alison West

Spooky Tales!

The days are getting colder, the nights are getting longer, and the vibes are getting spookier – join in with these spooky tales, available from your school library!

Just click on the cover to learn more about the book:

                                                        

Looking for more?  Here’s the Glasgow Libraries Halloween selection for teens – available here on Libby! 

Bookmarked – Library Highlights from September

Our first full month back in school has flown by in the library!  Here’s some of the highlights of what’s been happening:

First of all, LOTS OF READING.

An overflowing Returns Box, overseen by our mascot, Eduardo The Great and Magical III, has become a regular sight in the library!  The new S1 are really stuck into reading this year, and it’s been fantastic to see!

Lots of clubs!

As mentioned in our previous blog, all of our new clubs started this year!  We’ve been watching Alice in Wonderland for Movie Mondays, enjoying some quiet time during Read and Relax, battling monsters and poor dice rolls in Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to learn to crochet (admittedly a work-in-progress!).  The D&D club has become so popular, we’ve had to start playing a spin-off version for anyone who didn’t make the main campaign called Dungeon Games – all the fun of D&D combat in a Hunger Games style setting.  May the odds be ever in your favour! 

Lots of new books!

We’ve received lots of great new books this month, including a fantastic selection of football books and a full set of horrible histories.  All of the football books shown in the picture below were claimed in just a few days – we have lots of footy fans in the school!

Finally, lots of opinions!

Every week in the library we have a new bookish themed poll and it’s been great to see so many pupils taking part.  You can check out all of the responses here:

Keep an eye on our twitter page for more regular updates, or check out the latest edition of Swatch: Glasgow School Libraries eMagazine for all the best bookish news and updates.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome Back to JPA Library

Lots of newness!

Welcome back to all our staff and pupils at John Paul Academy.  Here’s an update of all the new happenings this year!

New Clubs!

New school year, new library clubs!  Pupils were able to vote via poll in the library to decide what library clubs would run this year.  We then had the first meeting of our Bookworms, the pupil library committee, to decide which clubs to run, and when.  Here they all are now:

We’ll have a club every day of the week:

  • Monday: Movie Mondays
  • Tuesday: Read and Relax
  • Wednesday: Dungeons and Dragons
  • Thursday: Games Club
  • Friday: Cosy Craft Club

All our new clubs will kick off w/b 9th September 2024.  Any interested pupil is free to come along!

New Mascot!

After 5 years of faithful service, Bellamy Book Bear is retiring.  After a competition last year, we had the design for our new library mascot, with ‘The Libeery’ as our winning entry!  Now all we needed was a name.  How do we decide this?  Library Poll!  As a result of the poll (left), I am now delighted to introduce our new mascot: Eduardo The Great and Magical III!!!

New Books!

Just in time for starting back, we had a fresh delivery of books, including a full set of Dog Man graphic novels.  Don’t get too excited though – the Dog Man collection is already gone!  Lots of fans of the series in JPA!

New Craft Corner!

We have some crafty new pupils this year, which has led to the creation of a new Craft Corner!  There are colouring pages, wordsearches, blank paper and origami paper with lots of pens, pencils and everything you could need for your creative needs!

Movie Mondays in JPA Library

After our most recent Bookworms meeting, our pupil committee decided to bring back our film club in the form of Movie Mondays, where we can gather to watch the film adaptations of amazing books.

Here’s a quick list of some great YA book adaptations that are worth a read and a watch!

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place.
Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games.
There is only one rule: kill or be killed.
When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister’s place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

The Maze Runner, by James Dashner

When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he’s not alone.
He’s surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade – a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they came to be there – or what’s happened to the world outside.
All they know is that every morning when the walls slide back, they will risk everything – even the Grievers, half-machine, half-animal horror that patrol its corridors, to try and find out …

Divergent, by Veronica Roth

In the world of Divergent, society is divided into five factions – Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity and Erudite. Every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice Prior, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is. Her choice shocks everyone, including herself.

The Mortal Instruments, by Cassandra Clare

Available to watch as both a movie and TV series!

Love.  Blood.  Betrayal.  Demons.   Irresistibly drawn towards a group of demon hunters, Clary encounters the dark side of New York City and the dangers of forbidden love.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, by Rick Riordan

  

Available to watch as both a movie and TV series!

Percy Jackson is having a bad week. His life has gone from totally normal to monsters-from-Greek-mythology-randomly-appearing kind of strange. Worse still, the king of the gods thinks Percy has stolen his all-powerful lightning bolt – and it seems making Zeus angry is a very bad idea.
Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to catch the true lightning thief and stop all-out war from erupting on Mount Olympus. . .
What could possibly go wrong?

Heartstopper, by Alice Oseman

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love.

Charlie and Nick are at the same school, but they’ve never met … until one day when they’re made to sit together. They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance.
But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is more interested in Charlie than either of them realised.

Nimona, by ND Stevenson

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc.
Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren’t the heroes everyone thinks they are. But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona’s powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, by Jenny Han

Lara Jean keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. One for every boy she’s ever loved.
When she writes, she can pour out her heart and soul and say all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only.
Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control!

Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo

Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold – a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here – one of whom was his own grandfather – were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow – impossible though it seems – they may still be alive.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

It is 1939. In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier – and will become busier still.
By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, and this is her first act of book thievery. So begins Liesel’s love affair with books and words, and soon she is stealing from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library . . . wherever there are books to be found.
But these are dangerous times, and when Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, nothing will ever be the same again.

Our Movie Mondays are kicking off with a classic, a favourite, and one of the few films I believe is better than the book: The Princess Bride!

JPA Celebrates World Book Day!

This year we had a week of World Book Day celebrations in the John Paul Academy Library!

Library Competitions

The library ran two competitions this year for World Book Day: A Micro-story competition on the theme of ‘books’, and a competition to design a new library mascot!

We had joint winners for the micro-story competition from S1 and S3.  Check out their stories below:

As he opened the book the magic engulfed him, exploding everywhere.  The books pages flipped rapidly, he had taken the wrong book and he would pay for it.  Hands came outstretched from inside, grabbing and pulling him inside.  He would be another victim of the books curse, suffering for eternity.  – S1 pupil

There was an old book with stories to tell, I was a curious reader looking for a story to read and the book said: Books are like a passageway into another world, they let your imagination take you to places you’ve never been.  With books, you can live a thousand lives. – S3 pupil

The library is also proud to introduce our new library mascot, designed by an S1 pupil – The Libeery! 

Prizes of books and chocolate were bestowed to the winners of these competitions!

A World Book Day Mystery

This year we hosted our annual World Book Day Mystery Scavenger Hunt!  Pupils had to work in teams to solve the riddles, find the clues to eventually locate the stolen Golden Book.

   

Our winning team each won a bundle of World Book Day books, and a sweet treat!

World Book Day Quiz

We finished off the week with a bookish quiz, led by one of our bookworms as quiz master!  Pupils had to answer a variety of book-themed questions covering genres, movie adaptations, comic characters and emoji puzzles!

Our winner received not only books and chocolate, but also the grand prize of a Golden Library Pass!

 

So much reading!

Our returns box shows just how much our pupils were reading in the run-up to World Book Day – the box was overflowing every day!  It’s wonderful to see so many pupils trying lots of different books, and especially on the day that celebrates all things books!

A lot of our activities this year were decided and organised by our wonderful Bookworms, the pupil library committee, so I would like to give all of them a big thank you for their wonderful ideas and enthusiasm helping to decorate the library!

Holocaust Memorial Day

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis and their collaborators systemically murdered millions of Jewish people throughout Europe.  We remember this genocide as the Holocaust, and reflect upon it’s horrific impact on Holocaust Memorial Day (27th January).  You can learn more from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

It is important to learn and understand from our history, particularly in these turbulent times.  Learning through fiction as well as non fiction helps us to feel the impact of war and persecution beyond the harrowing facts we’re taught.  This Holocaust Memorial Day, try these books to build your empathy and understanding on how people are affected by the devastation of war and discrimination throughout the world, both today and in the past.

                           

Welcome back to all our pupils at John Paul Academy!  Get back into the mood for school with these great school-themed books: