We are super proud of Eastbank Academy S2-S4 pupils who interviewed Michael Lee Richardson, the school’s Author in Residence, for the Autumn issue of Swatch magazine. You can read the interview below or browse the magazine here.
The School Library is back and busier than ever! We have a busy itinerary of events planned for this year, so watch this space for more information. Read more to see what we’ve been up to this month:
Inductions: We’ve really enjoyed meeting all the S1s and new pupils as well as reconnecting with the rest of our school community. Over the past few weeks, the School Librarian has been delivering Library and separate Libby inductions to our S1 English classes. Find out more about Libby and the Glasgow Libraries eOffer on the Glasgow Libraries’ website.
Schools of Literature: This year, the School Library is involved with the Schools of programme with a special class on Literature. Our group will read a themed book per month and tie it into crafts and other literacy-based activities. This month we’re reading Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu by the wonderful Glasgow-based author, Maisie Chan. We’ve also been making some top secret treats for our upcoming Pop Up Library stall for International School Library Month in October.
Comics Book Group: We’ve launched a very special book group in collaboration with our wonderful Support for Learning department focusing on comics and video games. Each Friday, our students read Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming by Edward Ross where we discuss past, present and future of video games and gaming culture. Learn more about the importance of video games literacy in the report from the National Literacy Trust: Video games and literacy | National Literacy Trust
Literature Trails: The School Library is working with our Values Ambassadors to create monthly literature trails around school. We select 10 books on a theme and crate informational posters about each book for teachers to display in their classroom windows. This month we chose to promote East and South East Asian Heritage Month and chose a wonderful selection of titles which include:
Hanna Alkaf – The Girl and the Ghost
Maisie Chan – Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths
Sue Pickford aka Sue Cheung – Chinglish
Jenny Han – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Haruki Murakami – Kafka on the Shore
Viet Thanh Nguyen – The Sympathiser
Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go
Pupil Library Collective: With the overwhelming success of the Pupil Library Committee this year, we’ve expanded our program to continue our journey towards embedding a pupil voice into the Library. Pupils will help select stock, create and deliver events, curate displays and booklists, and help with general light duties in the Library. We’ll be hosting inductions early next month and can be useful for those working towards either their saltire awards, Duke of Edinburgh or simply for work experience.
Publications: Pupils can submit book reviews, art, poetry, or short stories to be published in either the monthly School Library newsletter or the quarterly School Libraries’ eMagazine, Swatch. Access the current and previous issues of Swatch through these links: Autumn 22 Summer 22, Spring 22, Winter 21, Autumn 21, Summer 21, Spring 21, Winter 20, Autumn 20
Popular Sections: Pupils are loving our new sections and layout too. So far, our most popular sections include:
#Trending on BookTok: A one stop shop for trending titles on TikTok. If you’re not familiar with the subcommunity on TikTok, we recommend learning more by reading these articles: Wikipedia, The Rise of BookTok by Alison Flood, Guardian
Thrills & Chills: As ever, our Thrills & Chills section remains one of the most popular sections with our pupils. Here, there can find the best Thrillers, Crime, Espionage & Detective, and Horror books including: Friday Nights and Freddy’s, Murder Most Unladylike, Alex Rider, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
Graphic Novels & Comics: Our growing collection of new and modern classic comics and graphic novels, including: DC and Marvel universes, Lumberjanes, Adventure Time, Tillie Walden, Raina Telgemeier, Dog Man
Equality & Empowerment: This section blends fiction and nonfiction books together with the theme of human rights and empowering ourselves and others to promote positive, inclusive change. Highlighted titles include: Dear Martin by Nic Stone, Melissa by Alex Gino, I Will Not Be Erased edited by gal-dem, Amazing Muslims Who Changed the World by Burhana Islam, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali, Reya Ahmed, Saffa Khan, Aaliya Jaleel, Deema Alawa, Aghnia Mardiyah, I Am Not A Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists from Past and Present by Cerrie Burnell, illustrated by Lauren Mark Baldo.
Slice of Life: Is this real life, or is it fantasy? (FIY, it’s real life). Fans of romance and realistic fiction love this bigger and better than ever section filled with books by top authors such as Holly Bourne, SK Ali, Alice Oseman, Simon James Green, Jenny Han, and Camryn Garrett.
Trending: September 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 – October
1st – 2nd: The Words of war Book Festival (Perth, Scotland)
3-9th: Libraries Week (Scotland)
6th-8th: Ness Book Fest (Inverness, Scotland)
7th-16th: Cheltenham Literature Festival (Cheltenham, England)
8th-9th: Bookmark Book Festival (Blairgowrie, Scotland)
13th– 16th: Berwick Literary Festival (Northumberland)
14th-31st: Scottish International Storytelling Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)
20th-30th: London Literature Festival (London, England)
27th-30th: Orkney Storytelling Festival (Orkney, Scotland)
29th– Nov 6th: Petworth Festival (West Sussex, England)
Literary Awards & Prizes
Winners: YA Book Prize, Klaus Flugge Prize
Shortlist: Booker Prize
Book Buzz
The new Autumn edition of Swatch has now arrived!!! Our very own Glasgow School Library eMagazine is packed full of news, reviews, interviews and fantastic contributions from young people across Glasgow.
Check out the link below!
https://online.fliphtml5.com/buudr/yjeg/
Our focus this term is to enjoy reading! Our new S1 pupils have been fantastic already. This week we’ve held a Playground library at lunchtime, and also plan to celebrate Roald Dahl day.
This hardworking S1 class are examining the books and deciding on headings such as Climate change, Refugees, Racism, Crime, Poverty
Everyone loves time for reading during the holidays. Books (and films) can also help boost tourism.
In June, I visited St. Abbs. Are you a fan of Marvel Comics and the Avengers movies? In ‘Endgame’ filmed in 2017, St. Abbs beautiful coastline became the location for Thor’s home planet.
In the Visitor Centre you can hold the hammer of Thor, take a quiz, and find out all about the filming.
I also visited Rosslyn Chapel . The intricacy and beauty of this building is testimony to the skill of the craftsmen who built it in the 15th century. By taking a guided tour, I learned about the architecture and secrets of Rosslyn, the struggle to preserve the building, and how Dan Brown’s bestseller the Da Vinci Code, came to the rescue, putting Rosslyn Chapel firmly on the tourist map, and raising much needed income.
The Chapel famously appeared in the 2006 film, with a stellar cast including Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou and Sir Ian McKellen. After a murder in the Louvre Museum, and a frantic chase through London, Professor Langdon and Sophie Neveu finally solve the secret of the Grail after visiting the Chapel’s crypt.
Staff at Holyrood are enthusiastic readers. Mrs Livingstone has very kindly shared one of her favourite books of the summer : The Alice Network. Having a great interest in history, she has also visited Norte Dame de Lorette, the largest French military cemetery. There can be found information and a small memorial to Louise de Bettignies who was the real life founder of the Allies WW1 spy network , (known as the Alice Network in Kate Quinn’s book).
Historical fiction can often bring incredible true stories to life, and helps us to understand important figures from the past.
Thank you also to Ms Stevenson, Ms Crawford and Mrs McDonald for recommending books borrowed from the school library that they enjoyed over the Summer. (‘Eleanor Oliphant’ is also one of my favourites).
Pupil & staff recommendations are always superb!
Khadija, S3 : “The Ms Marvel Comic is sooo good, especially of you are a Marvel fan! You will love the Ms Marvel series on Disney channel too, It is about a Pakistani girl and it is very diverse”.
Zirsh, S6, read many books during the holidays. This one was perfect for summer reading as it was about friendship, and travelling together, very enjoyable.
Have a wonderful Autumn term
The teachers and staff are back to school meanwhile, the librarian, never really left…
Indeed, I have spend most of the summer working in the library.
You must wonder: “what did she do during this 7 weeks, alone in school, like an wandering ghost?” Well, rather than a ghost, I was more like a busy bee.
The first weeks, I embraced the “dynamic shelving mode”. I placed all the books in facing display making the collection more appealing, accessible, navigable, fun, enjoyable for our readers.
I created a “Shelf help” section! Fiction & NF books have been selected to help pupils overcome experiences, thoughts and feelings that can be overwhelming.
I designed and replaced all the library signage, to make it clearer, more inclusive and practical for our readers:
I weeded the collection and recycled book jackets making space for new books:
I received NEW STOCK (hooray!!) which means that I had to catalogue and displayed it:
I worked with my librarian colleagues on the “Well being for storytelling project” involving mastering very complicated story base games (some of this games have a book rule of +20p!!)
I followed online webinars and training:
Towards the end of the summer break, the library has been involved in the P7 transition programme, offering library activities to the future S1:
And ultimately, I created 200+ library cards for the new S1:
A buzzzy 🐝 indeed 😜
The library is super ready to rock this new school year!
Pupil Library Committee Party
To say thank you to our fabulous 50+ pupil library committee members for all their dedication, hard work, and ideas over the year, we threw a huge bash. A big thank you to school staff for helping out. We enjoyed healthy wraps and a selection of snacks with vegan, halal, kosher, and gluten-free options. A good time was had by all.
Up next:
We’re looking forward to the next school term, which will be even bigger and better!
Challenges and Contests: We’ll continue our Bookopoly and Ask Me What I’m Reading challenges as well as introduce a couple of new ones, including Scottish Read Trip and Read A Winner to encourage pupils to pick up some homegrown talent or a prize-winning books.
Library Rearrangement: The library has undergone a huge rearrangement, thanks to help of members of our library committee. We’ll introduce our new sections and layout in the new term.
Pupil Library Collective: With the growing interest in our already fabulously large committee, we’ve decided to rename it as a ‘collective’ to reflect the range of different voices and ideas from our pupils who all contribute equally to the success of the School Library.
Reading Schools: We will continue our Reading Schools accreditation journey. Follow on our twitter with the hashtag #ReadingSchools
Schools of Literature: New this coming term is the Schools of Literature course designed for S2 pupils as part of the Schools Of programme taking place in Shawlands Academy.
Workshops: The School Library will continue to host a number of eResource workshops that are useful for National 5-Advanced Higher courses. Each workshop will make pupils aware of a range of valuable resources helpful for their assignments and teach navigational and search techniques.
Publications: We’ll continue to circulate our monthly School Library newsletter on Teams and keep an eye out for quarterly issues of Swatch, the Glasgow School Libraries’ eMagazine.
June Booklists
Best New Children’s Books – Toppsta
Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust
Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids
Book of the Month – Scholastic
Books of the Month – Waterstones
Children’s Book Roundup – Guardian
Upcoming Events (July)
29th – Jul 3rd: East Neuk Festival (Fife, Scotland)
2nd – 3rd: Glasgow Zine Fest (Glasgow, Scotland)
21st – 24th: Big Lit: The Stewartry Book Festival Gatehouse of Fleet (Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland)
21st– 24th: Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival (Harrogate, England)
23rd: Wonderland (Midlothian, Scotland)
Literary Awards & Prizes
Winners
Books Are My Bag Reader’s Awards
KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards
Tir Na N-Og Awards (Welsh category)
YOTO Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals
Literature & Culture news
Interesting articles
An Introduction to Stanislaw Lem, the Great Polish Sci-Fi Writer by Jonathan Lethem – Open Culture
A Special New, Two-Volume Collection of Philip K Dick Stories Comes Illustrated by 24 Different Artists – Open Culture
Levar Burton Describes Book Bans With A Not-Safe-For ‘Reading Rainbow’ Word – HuffPost
‘On the Come Up Movie’ is in the Works – Epic Reads
Why 99% of Smithsonian’s Specimens Are Hidden in High-Security – Open Culture
Are you looking for some inspiration for picking your next summer read? 🙂
I created a Summer Reading List with my top picks:
I would also recommend checking Libby for new eBooks and Audiobooks added this July:
Links:
☀️ Young Adult eBooks
🍦 Young Adult Audiobooks
🍉 Junior eBooks
🍍 Junior Audiobooks
What a wonderful last day we have had!
We have met and celebrate our new school captains, but we also took
some young people to the Glasgow Women Library.
Thanks to Ms McMillan and Mr Beaton we were able to take some library assistants and some members of the school LGBTQI+ club to visit this wonderful space. So welcoming and lively, where we learnt a lot about our city and some of the wonderful women who have helped to improve it!
Thank you so much for the wonderful team at GWL that has made us feel well looked after!
In May, we took part in ‘Keep the Heid and Read’, celebrating how reading for pleasure can improve mental health. 
“Fiction books are great if you want to step away from social media for a while”. This is great advice from Mehek (S6)
In June, we celebrated Empathy Day. We chatted about how reading can take you to other worlds, and let you walk in someone else’s shoes. We selected our favourite books for Empathy and made a colourful display.
Lunchtime Reading We were delighted to win 10 copies of Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin. We hope to read and review this book together. Happy to share our spare copies!
“One girl against an Empire”
Our English dept. organised a whole school Literacy Day for S2, The mission was to solve the crime of the missing Stone of Destiny, which involved investigating and forensic science, using expertise from depts. across the school.
In the library, we created a display of detective fiction and criminology books.
We also researched the Stone of destiny and designed Wanted posters to help find it!
Zines : Mr. Kelly and Miss Johnston’s S2 classes created amazing zines in Science and made a display for readers to help themselves.
Bookmarks : Mumina and Abdul made these beautiful bookmarks as gifts to take away.
We were excited to win a copy of Hag Storm by Victoria Williamson (at a book auction to raise funds for Malawi). Great inspiration for a competition! Over 30 pupils entered ‘Name the Haggis’. The winning entry was Hector the Horse=Riding Haggis, inspired by the Tam O’Shanter theme in Victoria’s novel.
To round off the year, Holyrood was awarded Silver accreditation as a Reading School. Superb recognition of the work of our Reading Schools Committee, and all pupils and staff who promote a reading culture in the school, The library has been glowing with all the pupil care and nurturing. Congratulations to everyone, and thank you to Ms Longo for making it so much fun to work on this project with a brilliant team.
Have a great Summer everyone, and keep reading!
Past May for the Mental health week awareness, the library display committee did a great job on making a display to promote reading for #keeptheheid
“It’s ok to need a break sometimes – when everything is getting to you, remember that mental health is important now more than ever. Take time for yourself.” Scotland now.
To celebrate the power of reading, the pupils selected books about mental health, wellbeing, self-esteem, positive quotes, posters from #Keeptheheid campaign and lovely quotes from different inspiring people (Malala…) a bit of fiction and non-fiction all together.
“Taking some time for yourself to relax and do things you enjoy like reading is important to help look after your mental health and wellbeing. It has been scientifically proven that reading for just SIX minutes a day boosts your mental health by 68%.” Keep the heid.
The pupils were very excited to participate to the photo competition organised by SLIC Scotland. They had fun clicking pictures of Scully Escobear and friends reading.
“He is not the only one to love reading, he shares his passion with many pupils in our school.” S1 pupil.
You can imagine my excitement when I received the email about our library winning the photographic competition (£100 Waterstones voucher hooray!!) and I let you have a look on the memorable reaction of the pupils when I told them
We had a good laugh during that lunch 😀 and we are planning to have a sub-committee to create a participatory buying list.
