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