Starting this year, I’m going to be sharing some themed book lists here on our blog for inspiration for all our readers.  I’m starting off with a theme that’s growing in popularity in John Paul Academy – Myths & Legends!  Our library volunteers recently made a display on this theme, so I’ve created this list based on the books they curated for the display.  I hope you enjoy these reading recommendations!

Her Dark Wings, by Melinda Salisbury

This story is a modern-day twist on the Persephone myth. After being betrayed by those she loves most, Corey feels vengeance take root in her heart. She starts to see things she isn’t meant to, until she’s taken in by the Furies, and taught to harness the dark power growing within her. As Corey works out what it is she wants, and how to get it, she brings life to a stagnant world and change to an unyielding god. Can life bloom in the Underworld, or is it a place only for death, justice, and vengeance?

Medusa, by Jessie Burton

the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal . and destiny itself.  Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except

The Wrath and the Dawn, by Renee Ahdieh

Every night, the Caliph of Khorasan takes a new bride. Every morning, he has her executed. After Shahrzad loses her best friend to the monster boy-king, she vows vengeance and offers herself as the next bride. She’s determined not only to stay alive, but to end the Caliph’s reign of terror. Through the power of stories, Shahrzad convinces Khalid to let her live, over and over. The longer she spends with him, the less he seems like the monster who killed her friend. Is there more going on to this story than there seems from outside the palace? Shahrzad is determined to find out.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse – Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he’ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea.  Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena – Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.

This book series is also available in graphic novel format.

This Poison Heart, by Kalynn Bayron

When Briseis’s estranged aunt dies and leaves her a run-down estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to visit and decide what to do. But Briseis discovers the estate is the perfect place to explore her secret power: she can make plants grow with a single touch. However, Briseis discovers deadly plants on the property, and secrets come to life around her. While she tries to fit in to a new town, Bri discovers not all the locals are as they seem, and some are even more dangerous than she could imagine…

Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters, by Nikita Gill

Wonder at Medusa’s potent venom, Circe’s fierce sorcery and Athena rising up over Olympus, as Nikita Gill majestically explores the untold stories of the life bringers, warriors, creators, survivors and destroyers that shook the world – the great Greek Goddesses.

Vividly re-imagined and beautifully illustrated, step into an ancient world transformed by modern feminist magic.

Ferryman, by Claire McFall

After dying in a horrific train crash, Dylan finds herself in a wasteland, haunted by wraiths searching for human souls. Waiting for her is a boy, Tristan, ready to transport her soul safely to the afterlife. But something is different about their meeting, and love and destiny intervene. Can their love survive, or is there a fate worse than death?

Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good, by Louie Stowell

After one prank too many, trickster god Loki has been banished to live as a kid on Earth. If he can show moral improvement within one month, he can return to Asgard. If he can’t? Eternity in a pit of angry snakes. Rude! To keep track of Loki’s progress, King Odin (a bossy poo-poo head) gives him this magical diary in which Loki is forced to confess the truth, even when that truth is as ugly as a naked mole rat. To make matters worse, Loki has to put up with an eleven-year-old Thor tagging along and making him look bad. Loki is not even allowed to use his awesome godly powers! Will he finally learn to tell good from bad, trust from tricks, and friends from enemies?

Daughter of Darkness, by Elizabeth & Katharine Corr

Deina is trapped. As one of the Soul Severers serving the god Hades on earth, her future is tied to the task of shepherding the dying on from the mortal world – unless she can earn or steal enough to buy her way out. Then the tyrant ruler Orpheus offers both fortune and freedom to whoever can retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice, from the Underworld. Deina jumps at the chance. But to win, she must enter an uneasy alliance with a group of fellow Severers she neither likes nor trusts.So begins their perilous journey into the realm of Hades… The prize of freedom is before her – but what will it take to reach it?

Skin of the Sea, by Natasha Bowen

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata–a mermaid–collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home. But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable–she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods. To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail . . . Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she fails, she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.

The Mythology Book

This incredible book contains eighty of the world’s greatest myths and characters, from early creation stories to classical hero narratives to the afterlife. Unravel myths from across the world and experience different cultures.

The Girl of Ink and Stars, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella Riosse dreams of the faraway lands her father once mapped. When her closest friend disappears into the island’s Forgotten Territories, she volunteers to guide the search. As a cartographer’s daughter, she’s equipped with elaborate ink maps and knowledge of the stars, and is eager to navigate the island’s forgotten heart. But the world beyond the walls is a monster-filled wasteland – and beneath the dry rivers and smoking mountains, a legendary fire demon is stirring from its sleep. Soon, following her map, her heart and an ancient myth, Isabella discovers the true end of her journey: to save the island itself.

Fierce, Fearless and Free, by Lari Don

Once upon a time, there were strong, fierce women who plotted, schemed, took action, showed kindness, used magic and trickery, and made their own destiny. From the long-haired Petrosinella who escaped the tower and broke the spell that the ogress had cast over her and Nana Miriam who beat a hippo using politeness and magic, to Kate Crackernuts who tried to save her stepsister from her mother’s curse, these are stories of girls doing it for themselves!

An Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Mythical Creatures, by Theresa Breslin

Mysterious selkies, bad-tempered giants, devious fairies, and even Loch Ness’s most famous resident, these are the mythical beasts of Scottish folklore.

An Arrow to the Moon, by Emily X.R. Pan

Hunter Yee has perfect aim with a bow and arrow, but all else in his life veers wrong. He’s sick of being haunted by his family’s past mistakes. The only things keeping him from running away are his little brother, a supernatural wind, and the bewitching girl at his new high school.

Luna Chang dreads the future. Graduation looms ahead, and her parents’ expectations are stifling. When she begins to break the rules, she finds her life upended by the strange new boy in her class, the arrival of unearthly fireflies, and an ominous crack spreading across the town of Fairbridge.

As Hunter and Luna navigate their families’ enmity and secrets, everything around them begins to fall apart. All they can depend on is their love… but time is running out, and fate will have its way.

Homer’s The Iliad, by Diego Agrimbau

After ten years of siege by Greek forces, the walls of Troy remain intact. Only the intervention of the greatest warrior of all time, Achilles, can tilt the balance in favor of the invaders. On the Trojan side, Prince Hector is the only one who can face him. This is the story of the greatest war of all time. The war that brought all the heroes of ancient Greece together and turned them into immortal legends. It is the war that made the gods of Olympus face each other, due to their envy and vanity. This is the Trojan War.

The Siren, by Kiera Cass

“You must never do anything that might expose our secret. This means that, in general, you cannot form close bonds with humans. You can speak to us, and you can always commune with the Ocean, but you are deadly to humans. You are, essentially, a weapon. A very beautiful weapon. I won’t lie to you, it can be a lonely existence, but once you are done, you get to live. All you have to give, for now, is obedience and time…”

The same speech has been given hundreds of times to hundreds of beautiful girls who enter the sisterhood of sirens. Kahlen has lived by these rules for years now, patiently waiting for the life she can call her own. But when Akinli, a human, enters her world, she can’t bring herself to live by the rules anymore. Suddenly the life she’s been waiting for doesn’t seem nearly as important as the one she’s living now.

Lore, by Alexandra Bracken

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man–now a god–responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to bind her fate to Athena’s and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost–and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

Beasts of Prey, by Ayana Gray

Magic doesn’t exist in the broken city of Lkossa anymore, especially for girls like sixteen-year-old Koffi. Indentured to the notorious Night Zoo, she cares for its fearsome and magical creatures to pay off her family’s debts and secure their eventual freedom. But the night her loved ones’ own safety is threatened by the Zoo’s cruel master, Koffi unleashes a power she doesn’t fully understand–and the consequences are dire.

As the second son of a decorated hero, Ekon is all but destined to become a Son of the Six–an elite warrior–and uphold a family legacy. But on the night of his final rite of passage, a fire upends his plans. In its midst, Ekon not only encounters the Shetani–a vicious monster that has plagued the city and his nightmares for nearly a century–but a curious girl who seems to have the power to ward off the beast. Koffi’s power ultimately saves Ekon’s life, but his choice to let her flee dooms his hopes of becoming a warrior.

Desperate to redeem himself, Ekon vows to hunt the Shetani down and end its reign of terror, but he can’t do it alone. Meanwhile, Koffi believes finding the Shetani and selling it for a profit could be the key to solving her own problems. Koffi and Ekon–each keeping their true motives secret from the other–form a tentative alliance and enter into the unknowns of the Greater Jungle, a world steeped in wild magic and untold dangers. The hunt begins. But it quickly becomes unclear whether they are the hunters or the hunted.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, by Axie Oh

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering.

Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.

Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all.

But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…

Raybearer, by Jordan Ifueko

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself?

Are there any good Myths & Legends books I’ve missed?  Let me know in the comments!

Even though most of the month was taken up with the Easter Break, April has still been a very fun and busy time here in the library!  Here’s everything we got up to in just two weeks!

New Club – Storycraft Club

We have started a brand new lunch club in the library – the Storycraft Club!  For those of you keeping track, yes, that is now a library club every single lunchtime of the week!  In this club, we will take part in reading, writing, arts, crafts, games, building and all sorts of creative enterprises revolving around storytelling!  The focus of our club is on mental health and wellbeing and diverse stories.  I’m looking forward to telling you about the exciting projects this club will be getting up to.  This project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

Comic Club

We have been working on our own comic strips since returning from the Easter break – hopefully we can share some finished comics with you in the May update.

EAL Book Club

Cinderella stories are still being written!  The group has all agreed to write their own individual stories and when they are finished, we’ll take the best elements of the stories to create one as a group – possibly as a play!

RPG Club

Our pupils have continued their campaign in A Battle of Bookwyrms!  After meeting their mysterious host, Oskar Tremorspear, a librarian for Dragonsport Library, the characters have been sent on a quest to retrieve a very rare and powerful spellbook that was borrowed and not returned.  (Is this story fuelled by this librarian’s frustrations about overdue books?  You can be the judge of that.)  The characters set out on the trail north of town to the home of Rairdon Grimm, the Mage who borrowed the book.  Not long after entering the Briar Rose Woods, they come across a Blink Dog, who despite an unfortunate incident with a Firebolt, has been persuaded to join the group.  The new party member has been named MJ, short for Michael Jackson.  When the party found the Mage’s hut, it appeared to be empty, but upon investigation the group was attacked by a Vine Blight hiding inside!  Check back again next month to find out how the group faired…

Volunteers Club

Our volunteers have been working hard since our return after the Easter Break to make the library better for everyone.  They have started work on a mew project to label all the fiction books with their genre and keywords, making it easier for everyone to find the right book for them.  Obviously this is a massive project, but with the effort of our volunteers it could hopefully be completed before the summer!

Wee Write Author Visit – S.M. Wilson

Our S1 pupils were treated to an author visit from YA author S.M. Wilson as part of the Wee Write Festival – Glasgow’s Book Festival for Children and Young People.  Susan came and spoke to the children about her love of space and dinosaurs and her writing process – amazing stuff!  The pupils were riveted all period and had a great time.

S2 Authors

Speaking of authors, the library hosted a wonderful event for an S2 English class!  The pupils had written their own novels, and were invited to a ‘book launch’ event in the library.  They pitched their novels to the different ‘publishers’ present (consisting of the wonderful teachers and SLT here at JPA, as well as myself) and then enjoyed some drinks and nibbles while negotiating their book deals!  The pupils were all so enthusiastic about their books, with talk of series potential and movie deals!  I was thrilled to host this event in the library and hope we have have similar events in here again!

Phew!  That’s everything from April.  If you want to see what’s coming up in May, then check out the latest edition of our newsletter, Bookmarked, at this link.

Happy Reading, 

Miss West (Librarian)

In the final push to the Easter Break, March has been a busy and exciting month, filled with fun activities from start to finish – enjoy!

World Book Day

The month started off with our World Book Day activities!  All our pupils were given their £1 book tokens to spend on free World Book Day books, but pupils also had the chance to win these books in our competitions and games for World Book Day!  Pupils were invited to write 50-word short stories on the theme of ‘World’, and came along to our annual WBD Mystery Game in the library!

This year, while doing its World Tour for World Book Day, the Best Book in the World was stolen!  The thief hid clues in books around the library that pupils had to find and solve to discover where the book had been taken.  The pupils transformed into detectives and were immediately on the case!  In one lunch break, pupils were able to find all the clues, solve all the puzzles, and discover that the Best Book in the World had been taken to Peru!  Everyone who took part received a free World Book Day book!

Our Clubs:

Find out what our clubs got up to this month:

Comic Club

We’ve been practicing our comic skills this month with some Quick Comic sessions.  Pupils needed to draw in under 2 minutes a randomly generated character and scene.  Highlights include the confused robots in ballgowns in a castle, happy alien clowns at bus stops, and angry people in library (the most unrealistic IMO).

EAL Book Club

We have started drafting our Cinderella stories!  I don’t want to give away any spoilers, because the group is very excited about their stories and keeping them private for now (they may have taken their jotters home over the Easter break to keep working/so I can’t take a peek) but there has been discussion of gender-swapping, murder mysteries, and stories of revenge!

RPG Club

Let the games begin!  Our pupils have started playing a Dungeons and Dragons style campaign called A Battle of Bookwyrms (I may have created a book themed game – this is a library club after all!).  Their characters were sent invitations to an unknown place, and under the promise of adventure and riches, they all chose to go, meeting for the first time.  However, when they arrived at their destination, they were led into an arena and ambushed!  The brave party were able to fight their way out and have now been offered a job.  What job could it be?  Find out next month!

Our Volunteers

Our volunteers have continued working hard to make the library a great space for everyone.  Staff and pupils have responded well to their great Genre displays made this month, one for Romance and one for Mystery books, our most popular genres!  There’s a big project on the horizon for our volunteers after the holidays, and I’m thrilled with how they have helped to make the library such a fun and exciting space within our school!

Easter Egg Hunt

[I know this one technically happened in April but it’s too fun to leave until next month!]

Our library mascot Bellamy was joined by a couple of mischievous chicks on the last day of school, who then hid Easter Eggs all through the library!  Our pupils then got to enjoy an Easter Egg Hunt and the sweet chocolatey taste of success after!  A very fun note on which to end the term!

To see everything that April has to offer, check out the latest edition of our newsletter – Bookmarked!

That was a cold one!

I don’t want to jinx it, but fingers crossed that the weather heats up a little as we head into Spring.

Until then, however, you can browse this library update with everything we got up to in February!

RPG Club

Due to popular demand from our pupils, we have now started a brand-new RPG Club (that’s role-playing-game for the novices amongst us).  Pupils have been working this month on creating their own Dungeons & Dragons characters, and we’ll hopefully be starting our first campaign soon!  The character creation process has been very involved, and actually temporarily taken over our Comic Club too!  However, character creation is an important part of the comic-making process so it’s all relevant!  Next month our pupils will have transformed into bards, warlocks, rangers and sorcerer’s ready to dive into as yet unknown fantasy worlds!  Keep updated with their progress in this blog.  This will be my first time as Dungeon Master and the pupils first time playing so we’ll all be learning something new while we play!

EAL Book Club

Project Cinderella continues!  Our pupils have now finished reading the three best known and classic versions of the story from France (by Charles Perrault), Italy (by Giambattista Basile) and Germany (by The Grimm Brothers).  They have been plotting their mind maps and jotting down ideas for their own twist on the story.  Now we are looking at and discussing modern adaptations of the story!  We have started with Cinderella Is Dead, by Kalynn Bayron, a dark feminist fantasy retelling that explores Cinderella’s choice in the story, and Gender Swapped Fairy Tales, by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett, looking at how changing gender could change the story.  We are all agreed – glass trainers are probably more comfortable than glass heels, but still entirely impractical.

Volunteers

Our library volunteers have formed a great wee team and have been working hard in the library throughout February.  They have helped create great displays, such as this one for LGBT+ History Month, and have done their best to make sure the library stays tidy and organised.  I am very grateful for all their help!

One of our volunteers has gone above and beyond, and has made a new mascot for the library – please meet Bellamy Book Bear!  Bellamy is now a part of the library team and has loads of book suggestions (such as these ‘beary’ good bear-themed books (and yes, you can expect a lot more un’bear’able puns from me!)).

Blind Date With A Book

For Valentine’s Day, the library had a Blind Date With A Book display!  Pupils were able to read the first line of a book, and a couple bullet points of information about it, before borrowing, and plenty of pupils got involved!  It might not have always been love at first line, but we had fun either way! 

March is set to be another exciting month, now that we have four clubs on the go and World Book Day to celebrate!  You can check out everything that’s coming up in the March edition of Bookmarked – the school library newsletter.  

A brief December update:

We’ve finally reached the winter holiday, and we can now all rest, relax (and obviously read) for a couple weeks.  Our pupils have worked hard and been incredibly creative this last month, with pupils trying out a variety of Christmas paper crafts, such as baubles, crackers, snowflakes, trees and stars – all of which have helped to decorate our wonderful “Book-mas” tree! There have also been lots of senior pupils studying hard in the library for their upcoming prelim – good luck to all those hard workers! 

Our clubs have also been having lots of fun and games this month, with plenty of games of hangman and pictionary on comic and fairy tale themes.  Our comic club also introduced Miss West (the librarian (me)) to Blookit and have had a great time playing games and quizzes with comic and manga characters.  I’m looking forward to all our clubs gathering again in the new year, and hopefully with more clubs to come!

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year!

We’ve had an especially bookish month in the library!  Our clubs have been having lots of fun and showing off their skills, we got excited about COP26, and most of all we celebrated Book Week Scotland!

Book Week Scotland

For BWS this year, the library ran a ‘Wee Stories’ competition, and challenged pupils to submit short stories of no more than 50 words to the school library newsletter, Bookmarked.  Here are some of our top entries:

I woke up from a nightmare, dreaming that I got killed in my sleep, sweat dripping from my forehead.  I tried to control my breathing.  “But it felt so real”.  My hands shake as I get up from my bed.  I stretch, look down and see my cold, dead body.  – Murron, S3

I opened my eyes to find myself in the middle of the road.  There was no cars coming my way.  The traffic lights were rusty.  The shop windows were broken.  The world seemed quiet and empty.  The machine worked but they all left.  How was I going to go back? – Flora, S3

One cold winter night I’m walking my cat out on a lead until she saw a squirrel and she wanted to eat it but I didn’t let her off the lead so she got mad and scratched me and then I turned into Catman! – Dylan, S3

You can check out all the best Wee Stories from our pupils in the December issue of Bookmarked at the end of this post.  All pupils who submitted a story were entered into a raffle to win a £10 National Book Token!

Clubs Update

Our clubs have been having lots of fun this month, especially during Book Week Scotland, when our Big Book Quiz returned, geared specifically to our Comic Club and EAL Book Clubs.

The Comic Club took part in the Big Comic Book Quiz, and our members were quizzed on their knowledge of comics, graphic novels and manga, with rounds about book covers, characters, movie & TV adaptations, blurbs and emoji-titles.  It was a fierce competition, our members are very knowledgeable about their favourite books! Congratulations go to this great S1 pupil, who not only won this quiz, but also emerged victorious of an even harder manga quiz later in the month! 

Our EAL Book Club also had their own quiz, the Big Fairy Tale Book Quiz, inspired by our Project Cinderella!  This quiz involved Disney characters, modern fairy tale adaptations, different versions of Cinderella, translating fairy tale titles from their original languages and finally a scavenger hunt through the library to find Cinderella!  Once again, a very close competition between our pupils.  This month we have also continued to read and discuss Cinderella stories – the current theory from the group is that Cinderella is actually a witch!  [This project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund].

COP26

The school was buzzing with talk of COP26 and fighting climate change, and in the library we helped to encourage these discussions!  We have posters suggesting 2 minute challenges for staff and pupils to try and become more eco-friendly, and we had this massive display of books on climate change and sustainable living available to borrow throughout the conference (and beyond!), helping all our curious pupils to understand what was happening and why.

Want to see what’s coming up in December?  Check out the latest issue of Bookmarked, the JPA Library Newsletter, at this link.

Hello again from the John Paul Academy Library!

In October, we were delighted to receive our prize from the Penguin Books Lit In Colour Book Giveaway!  The library has received an incredible donation of over 100 books written by authors of colour to help diversify our collection and inspire our pupils and staff.  These books are now on display in the library and available for our staff and pupils to borrow.  Pupils have already started borrowing some of the YA fiction, and Michelle Obama’s biography has been incredibly popular! 

Our comic club have been talking about all their favourite graphic novels and manga, and have made posters to advertise their favourites to the rest of the school.  Here’s one for Hilda and the Troll, which was bought for the library after our shopping session in September.  Since starting the club, our group has read over 20 books! 

Our S3 EAL Book Club has made some good progress with Project Cinderella.  We’ve finished the classic Perrault version that inspired the Disney animated classic, and moved on to ‘The Cat Cinderella’ by Giambattista Basile, considered to be the first written version of the story from Italy in 1634.  This one is very different from the famous Disney version, as Cinderella commits a terrible crime to start, and then is faced with not 2 but 6 stepsisters!  Our club members are definitely intrigued by the prospect of creating a villainous Cinderella story… [This project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund].

In November we have Book Week Scotland to look forward to, which will involve displays, a ‘Wee Story’ competition, games and more!  For this and everything else coming in November, check out the latest edition of Bookmarked, our school library newsletter.

Happy reading from Miss West

It’s been a fun start to the year in the library at John Paul Academy.  The library is open again for pupils to borrow books after months of lockdowns and restrictions.  The new S1 cohort have loved coming to the library to check out books, with hundreds of books borrowed since we returned to school after the summer holidays!

We have lots of very enthusiastic readers in the new S1 group and it’s great to see them in the library every day picking out new books to read.  They are especially fond of our manga collection, and have put in several requests for more – keep your eyes peeled for new titles coming soon!

Our S3 EAL Book Club, every Wednesday at lunchtime, has just begun Project Cinderella!  Every week our club will read a different version of the Cinderella story, taken from different times and places.  Once we’ve finished, we’re going to write our own version of the story!  We started this month with Charles Perrault’s classic version of the story, famous for the Disney animation.  Watch this space to see the club progress, and ideas for our own version of the story!  [This project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund].

The library has also started up a new Comic Club, for fans of comics, graphic novels and especially manga!  Our new comic club members have had a library takeover, helping to choose new comics, graphic novels and manga to buy for the library, and have created this fantastic display with some of their favourite options for their fellow pupils to borrow!  Some of their notes included “This book is really interesting” and “Join our comic club for awesome books like these!”. Our club meets every Monday at lunchtime, and is open for more members to join in! 

Pupils have also been getting creative with our new Craft Cart!  So far pupils have tried their hand at paper cranes and origami bookmarks, as well as creating and drawing their own posters and characters.

If you want to see what’s coming up in October, then check out Bookmarked, the JPA Library newsletter, at this link.

Thanks for reading, and watch this space for future updates!